7 ms·

One change which would have to be made is here in the Midwest, we grow a lot of soybeans and corn. We feed most of it to animals. There are likely better uses f

One change which would have to be made is here in the Midwest, we grow a lot of soybeans and corn. We feed most of it to animals. There are likely better uses for that land, especially when talking about modern corn as it is so nitrogen hungry that nearly all farmers apply high nitrogen fertilizer...which runs off into the rivers and causes the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. So, so many things could be better if we reduced meat consumption and transitioned to growing food humans actually eat. But...it's unlikely to happen for an equally large number of reasons.

Fatnino 3y ago
A lot of that corn goes into ethanol instead.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  Roughly 1/3rd of the US corn production is for ethanol[1], 1/3rd for animal feed, and 1/3rd for human food products. Ethanol kind of sucks as a fuel though, because it can't be piped for various reasons[2] including water-induced separation in gasoline-ethanol blends and oxygen induced steel corrosion requiring specialized pipeline construction to mitigate. This means ethanol is usually shipped via train and worse, trucked, increasing diesel usage/emissions on top of the farm equipment emissions to grow and harvest the corn in the first place. So in the end it isn't much better than pure gasoline at best, and is actually overall higher total emissions at worst. Edit: ethanol also doesn't have the same range as gasoline per tank, so vehicles may need to fuel up more often, making the problem worse. 1. https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-largest-crop-2019 https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-lar... 2. https://www.ogj.com/refining-processing/article/17217746/ethanol-pipelines https://www.ogj.com/refining-processing/article/17217746/eth...
nojvek 3y ago
Plants are already pretty inefficient (~1-3%) at converting solar energy to stored chemical energy (glucose -> fats/carbs) https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2012/comparing-energy-conversion-of-plants-and-solar-cells https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2012... However ignore the solar conversion, we put in a ratio of 3:1 i.e 3 calories of energy in for 1 calorie of energy out in plant energy (30%). https://sustainability.emory.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/InfoSheet-Energy26FoodProduction.pdf https://sustainability.emory.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/... Add the mix of energy required for irrigation, producing industrial fertilizers, harvesting and then feeding to another inefficient organism (cows, pigs, chicken). https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat Cows are 25:1 ratio (4%) calories of feed in to calories of meat out. Pigs are 1:15 (6%), and Chicken is 1:9 (11%). So if you take the total amount of energy received from sun being converted to chemical energy in cows that is only 0.012% of solar energy output into beef. --- The biggest breakthrough we can make as humans is to efficiently convert solar energy into chemical energy. chemical energy we can eat as food for humans that tastes great, and chemical energy we can use for homes, transport and industrial processes. And the thing about converting solar -> chemical energy is that it is carbon negative. Plants and phytoplankton are 1% efficient, yet they convert billions of tons of C02 + solar energy into chemical energy. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton --- I'm hoping in our lifetimes we can crack artificial high efficiency photosynthesis at scale with engineered algae. Oil is only cheap because of 10s of 1000s of years it has been compacted underground, but at our rate, we may deplete it in 100-200 years. Engineered algae would be way cheaper and distributed than oil. Most humans live where there is sunshine and water. Our future depends on how efficiently and cheaply we can convert solar -> chemical energy.
- heisenzombie 3y ago
  The hyper-efficient algae you describe sounds a bit like ice-9…
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  I think you're optimizing the wrong thing here. We don't need to be hyper efficient in terms of Sun's energy, as it's one of the most abundant sources of energy available and will not run out any time soon. First one should optimize over land and resource use, as well as sustainability (CO2, fertilizer run-off etc.). Not to mention cost (including subsidies).

Fatnino 3y ago

A lot of that corn goes into ethanol instead.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
Roughly 1/3rd of the US corn production is for ethanol[1], 1/3rd for animal feed, and 1/3rd for human food products. Ethanol kind of sucks as a fuel though, because it can't be piped for various reasons[2] including water-induced separation in gasoline-ethanol blends and oxygen induced steel corrosion requiring specialized pipeline construction to mitigate. This means ethanol is usually shipped via train and worse, trucked, increasing diesel usage/emissions on top of the farm equipment emissions to grow and harvest the corn in the first place. So in the end it isn't much better than pure gasoline at best, and is actually overall higher total emissions at worst. Edit: ethanol also doesn't have the same range as gasoline per tank, so vehicles may need to fuel up more often, making the problem worse. 1. https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-largest-crop-2019 https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-lar... 2. https://www.ogj.com/refining-processing/article/17217746/ethanol-pipelines https://www.ogj.com/refining-processing/article/17217746/eth...

nojvek 3y ago

Plants are already pretty inefficient (~1-3%) at converting solar energy to stored chemical energy (glucose -> fats/carbs) https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2012/comparing-energy-conversion-of-plants-and-solar-cells https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2012... However ignore the solar conversion, we put in a ratio of 3:1 i.e 3 calories of energy in for 1 calorie of energy out in plant energy (30%). https://sustainability.emory.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/InfoSheet-Energy26FoodProduction.pdf https://sustainability.emory.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/... Add the mix of energy required for irrigation, producing industrial fertilizers, harvesting and then feeding to another inefficient organism (cows, pigs, chicken). https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat Cows are 25:1 ratio (4%) calories of feed in to calories of meat out. Pigs are 1:15 (6%), and Chicken is 1:9 (11%). So if you take the total amount of energy received from sun being converted to chemical energy in cows that is only 0.012% of solar energy output into beef. --- The biggest breakthrough we can make as humans is to efficiently convert solar energy into chemical energy. chemical energy we can eat as food for humans that tastes great, and chemical energy we can use for homes, transport and industrial processes. And the thing about converting solar -> chemical energy is that it is carbon negative. Plants and phytoplankton are 1% efficient, yet they convert billions of tons of C02 + solar energy into chemical energy. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton --- I'm hoping in our lifetimes we can crack artificial high efficiency photosynthesis at scale with engineered algae. Oil is only cheap because of 10s of 1000s of years it has been compacted underground, but at our rate, we may deplete it in 100-200 years. Engineered algae would be way cheaper and distributed than oil. Most humans live where there is sunshine and water. Our future depends on how efficiently and cheaply we can convert solar -> chemical energy.

heisenzombie 3y ago
The hyper-efficient algae you describe sounds a bit like ice-9…
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
I think you're optimizing the wrong thing here. We don't need to be hyper efficient in terms of Sun's energy, as it's one of the most abundant sources of energy available and will not run out any time soon. First one should optimize over land and resource use, as well as sustainability (CO2, fertilizer run-off etc.). Not to mention cost (including subsidies).