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All good questions on land use, and competition between food and energy (being corn/ethanol or solar). My understanding is that US produces way too much corn,

by llsf 2y ago

All good questions on land use, and competition between food and energy (being corn/ethanol or solar). My understanding is that US produces way too much corn, and it costs taxpayers ($2.2 billion in subsidies per year, source: https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-data-says https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...). Maybe instead of artificially propping up the corn industry, we could use few solar farms instead ? That might incidentally help with the US diabetes (55lb of high-fructose corn syrup per american per year, the highest in 42 countries study, source: https://news.yahoo.com/countries-greatest-high-fructose-corn-syrup-more-diabetes-182823674.html https://news.yahoo.com/countries-greatest-high-fructose-corn...)

jameslk 2y ago
I’m curious, wouldn’t doing away with such corn subsidies for better farm land usage be another alternative? Seems like a false dichotomy to make this about solar vs corn?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  There is no appetite to remove the subsidies politically. But yes, these subsidies are both unnecessary and harmful to humans (due to subsidizing food systems that are unhealthy at scale).
jillesvangurp 2y ago
There is no competition between anything good here. Americans being the most obese, by far, in the world and its subsidized corn production are the same problem. Absolutely nobody needs corn syrup in their diet. Corn is for cattle fodder and we all need to eat a lot less meat in any case. Especially the low quality variety raised on a corn based diet. It simply isn't that good for people (or cattle). Corn syrup in particular is just nasty stuff. You can safely eliminate that as a food group and absolutely nothing bad will happen. Stop stuffing people with corn based produce like fat pigs. It's not that hard. Most of the planet is fine without that crap and about half the size on average. In the same way, ethanol is not a sensible way to do anything about climate change. Just stop burning stuff. Including ethanol produced from corn. It doesn't even come close to canceling out the carbon emissions needed to grow the damn corn to produce the ethanol. It's a completely and utterly pointless endeavor. It's not green. It's not environmentally friendly. It's just subsidized madness. This is not, and has never been, a productive use of land. Not even close. As for solar energy and surface area needed. The world needs a lot less of it than is used for corn farming in the US alone. And that's before you consider the unused surface area in the form of roof tops, parking lots, windows, south facing walls, etc. There's no shortage of surface area to put solar panels on.

by llsf 2y ago

jameslk 2y ago

I’m curious, wouldn’t doing away with such corn subsidies for better farm land usage be another alternative? Seems like a false dichotomy to make this about solar vs corn?

toomuchtodo 2y ago
There is no appetite to remove the subsidies politically. But yes, these subsidies are both unnecessary and harmful to humans (due to subsidizing food systems that are unhealthy at scale).

jillesvangurp 2y ago

There is no competition between anything good here. Americans being the most obese, by far, in the world and its subsidized corn production are the same problem. Absolutely nobody needs corn syrup in their diet. Corn is for cattle fodder and we all need to eat a lot less meat in any case. Especially the low quality variety raised on a corn based diet. It simply isn't that good for people (or cattle). Corn syrup in particular is just nasty stuff. You can safely eliminate that as a food group and absolutely nothing bad will happen. Stop stuffing people with corn based produce like fat pigs. It's not that hard. Most of the planet is fine without that crap and about half the size on average. In the same way, ethanol is not a sensible way to do anything about climate change. Just stop burning stuff. Including ethanol produced from corn. It doesn't even come close to canceling out the carbon emissions needed to grow the damn corn to produce the ethanol. It's a completely and utterly pointless endeavor. It's not green. It's not environmentally friendly. It's just subsidized madness. This is not, and has never been, a productive use of land. Not even close. As for solar energy and surface area needed. The world needs a lot less of it than is used for corn farming in the US alone. And that's before you consider the unused surface area in the form of roof tops, parking lots, windows, south facing walls, etc. There's no shortage of surface area to put solar panels on.