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Intuitively this seems wrong. The explanation in the article doesn't seem convincing. Any form of synthetic fuel that doesn't take more carbon out of the Earth
by Laaas 4y ago
Intuitively this seems wrong. The explanation in the article doesn't seem convincing. Any form of synthetic fuel that doesn't take more carbon out of the Earth should be better, no?
- hammock 4y agoMore energy in the form of diesel and fossil fuel derived fertilizer went into corn ethanol than you get out in usable fuel
- l33t233372 4y agoI think that the post was saying that it doesn’t require us to take carbon out from deep within earth and put it into the atmosphere.
- uoaei 4y agoIt's an irrelevant point. Carbon emissions include logistics and manufacturing operations.
- ttyprintk 4y agoMaybe not specifically addressed in this article, but those researchers also look at CO2 emissions from simply disturbing the land and converting grassland for farming. In Brazil, burning rainforest for ag use looks very bad abroad. Should be similar on the American prairie.
- sbradford26 4y agoThe issues is that it does. Using tractors to farm and harvest it all, all the industrial processes to create fertilizer all require carbon to be taken from within the earth. If you only look at the corn to fuel yes it doesn't produce as much additional carbon, but once you include all the externalities you have more carbon emitting processes.
- randomdata 4y agoCompared to the alternative, though? The corn will be grown either way. It's not hard to see 100 bushel per acre swings in corn yield between growing years even within normal growing parameters, never mind times of crop catastrophes. While everyone hopes for a good year every year, you can't plan for a good year. As such, there will always be times where there is way more corn than we can handle. Which is what happened in 2006. A lot of corn, having busted the bins and having no home, was left out to rot. Ethanol subsidies were introduced in 2007 to build out more ethanol plants to provide a greater buffer in excess times when the regular corn market can't absorb it all so that we aren't both burning gasoline and letting the corn rot away to nothing. I don't recall ethanol ever being considered better for the climate in a vacuum. It was only ever thought to be when you take reality into account.
- hammock 4y ago>The corn will be grown either way. Citation needed
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- randomdata 4y agoThat was not a quote. No citation is possible. Is there a reason for this bad faith participation?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tstrimple 4y agoIt doesn't seem to be bad faith. They are asking for your evidence for the claim that corn will be grown anyway. I agree that corn will continue to be grown anyway, but at this point it's nothing but our opinions without supporting evidence.
- 4y ago
- Laaas 4y agoThis feels like the arguments against electric cars saying the electricity is generated by fossil fuels anyway.
- natch 4y agoI’m not saying that you specifically need to hear this, but for anyone reading and for the record, electric vehicles pollute less than gasoline cars even when considering the pollution at the source of power generation, and even if that source power plant is the worst kind, one burning coal. As for pollution during manufacturing, EVs cause more, but then they break even in pollution terms in comparison to gasoline vehicles after less than three years, and are a net environment win each year after that.