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Comparing the landuse efficiency of corn-based biomass vs PV is about 60-75x. It just doesn't make any sense at all to use crops for energy production.
by eliaspro 2y ago
Comparing the landuse efficiency of corn-based biomass vs PV is about 60-75x.
It just doesn't make any sense at all to use crops for energy production.
- pjc50 2y agoThe only case where it might be viable is burning crop waste; stems of grain and maize, for example. The UK runs Drax on (imported! in oil burning ships!) sawmill waste, but that's greenwashing to me.
- eliaspro 2y agoIt definitely is. Besides that, Drax doesn't only run on waste products (that's what they'd like to make us believe), they mostly run on freshly logged timber. Most of it, imported from the US: https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Drax-briefing-2022-2.pdf https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Drax-brie... And even if it only was waste that's burned, it's IMHO incredibly stupid. We should be happy about every single gram of CO2 that's stored somewhere and use this "waste" for building insulation, paper production, soil revitalization or simply bury it. Burning simply shouldn't happen when we have way better, cheaper, more efficient, more environmentally friendly methods of producing heat and electricity.
- pfdietz 2y agoIn a post-fossil fuel age, that crop waste will be used as a carbonaceous feedstock for things like jet fuel and what are now petrochemicals. Burning it for power will be uneconomical.
- usrusr 2y agoUnless you start considering carbon capture: if some direct carbon capture folly exists and you replace that folly with capturing the output of some crops-to-energy setup, then that would surely be a massive improvement over the carbon capture it replaced.