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Biofuels Policy, a Mainstay of American Agriculture, a Failure for the Climate
- lazide 1y agoThis has been obvious for anyone doing the basic math since the beginning. It was great for farmers though.
- itsanaccount 1y agoIt was great for large investor backed farmers who bought out their neighbors via debt, leased expensive John Deere equipment via debt, and are now trapped.
- throwawaymaths 1y agoiirc it is scientifically possible to take corn stover and convert it to bioethanol with net negative carbon emissions.
- rgmerk 1y agoThere was a bunch of activity in the 2000s and 2010s trying and failing to do this commercially. Never say never but for ground transport BEVs seem like they will eat the market well before anyone gets the technology working.
- throwawaymaths 1y agoyes I'm aware. in that era, which was last i tracked this field, BP had a pilot plant that reached commercial and greenhouse breakeven, but then they lost the deepwater horizon case and scuttled their biofuels research, I'd be surprised if no one caught up. did no one catch up?
- throwawaymaths 1y agothis is as much evidence as i can find on the internet that this was a thing, i cant remember where i heard that it was breakeven: > BP sought to experiment with ways to turn corncobs, sugarcane and other agricultural waste into biofuel https://www.nola.com/news/business/bp-shutters-biofuel-plant-in-jennings-lays-off-workers/article_1aa46f03-4b19-5a65-81dc-5388816b6b3c.html https://www.nola.com/news/business/bp-shutters-biofuel-plant...
- rgmerk 1y agoMy thought is if the plant was on track to success but was killed by corporate politics somebody else would have tried again. The demand for carbon-neutral liquid fuels isn’t going away; long-range shipping and aviation aren’t going to run on batteries.
- lazide 1y ago‘Demand’ in this sense is driven by economics + politics. Nothing is going to beat fossil fuels on pure economics, so then we’re left with what political pressure will be applied and how much to make other options economic enough. Biofuels are so marginal, it’s unlikely they’re going to ‘win’ as they would require exceptional political pressure and excluding a lot of other options.
- throwawaymaths 1y ago> somebody else would have tried again. Yes. I would think that too. But the market isn't efficient, VCS are definitely not efficient, and it takes a lot of capital to spin up a factory, and the number of qualified people to run this factory is probably in the hundreds worldwide. Also ppl who worked on it in the past might be burned out, or not have access to key IP... Hundreds of things could get in the way
- pfdietz 1y agoBEVs powered by PV use two orders of magnitude less land than ICEVs burning biofuels. Biofuels are just incredibly land (and water) hungry. In the post fossil fuel age, biofuels will be reserved for special applications, if that (and for providing carbonaceous feedstocks for the organic chemical industry.)
- throwawaymaths 1y ago> use two orders of magnitude less land not if you use stover and cob. in those cases, you use net zero new land (you were growing kernels anyways)
- pfdietz 1y agoUsing a process that no one is using. Ethanol from cellulose failed.
- throwawaymaths 1y agoClearly. Worth asking why though, if it wasn't scientific (assuming my recollection is correct). Is it because of patents? Lost knowledge? Better alternative? Subtle engineering issue?
- pfdietz 1y agoIt was a technical failure, I believe. It was too difficult to hydrolyze cellulose and hemicellulose efficiently into a mixture that would allow enzymatic conversion to ethanol. Enzymes are easily poisoned and the mixture is more complex than what one gets from starch (which is just polymerized glucose.) There is one success story, in Brazil. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/75/7/22/2848574/Whatever-happened-to-cellulosic-ethanol https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/75/7/22/2848574/Wh... Conversion of cellulosic biomass into chemicals other than ethanol might be the better route to take, particularly if green hydrogen can be used to boost the yield. Virent (which was bought out by an oil company) has a process for doing this. It would yield even more fuel per unit of biomass than conversion to ethanol, as potentially all the carbon can end up in the fuel. The fuel could also be drop-in replacement for existing hydrocarbon fuels. But there's not much interest in this as long as oil is still being used.
- magnuspaaske 1y agoThere are people who use pyrolysis to turn left over biomass to biochar which can then be added to the soil and, depending on your energy use for other things, can turn the process carbon net negative. It is a roundabout way to sequester carbon though as you need to consider the opportunity cost of doing other things with the land (like leaving it for nature to take over and sequester carbon that way). It's always worth being sceptical about some of these claims about processes magically being carbon net negative since cleaning up the atmosphere might not actually be what's paying the bills leading to inherent conflicts between selling a product (ethanol) and doing an environmental service. Switching to EVs will allow you to use much less land to fuel the cars with wind or solar energy and then the leftover land can be used for carbon sequestration and rewilding/biodiversity projects where that's the sole focus of the operation.
- Forge36 1y agoIsn't a large part of ethanol it's use as a fuel additive that it boosts octane and is relatively cheap? Compared to leaded gasoline it seems very "green".
- MangoToupe 1y agoTurning solar power into something we use to destroy the environment doesn't strike me as very "green" at all. Quite the opposite. I can't imagine it's a very efficient use of money, either. Granted, we will likely always need to do this, but where was the need at this absurd scale? Most of our heavy industry runs on diesel anyway.
- asdff 1y agoIt goes full circle: where does the carbon in the biofuel come from? The plant. Where does the carbon in the plant come from? The air. This is why biofuels are carbon neutral in theory at least. There is of course loss in process like in most things. In terms of a use of money it is a good way to subsidize the american corn farmer. Whether you believe that is worthwhile depends on your views of WWIII.
- Qem 1y agoThe devil is in the details. Where did the land used to plant it came from? What was there before? Deforestation emits a lot of CO2. Fertilizer needs fossil fuels to be manufactured, tractors and harvesters burn diesel, et cetera.
- MangoToupe 1y agoWe could also just feed the food to people who want to kill us and maybe they'll want to kill us less.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoLeaded gasoline hasn't been a thing for decades now.
- adrianN 1y agoThe easiest fix might be pushing for faster adoption of BEVs. Nobody can easily take subsidies away from farmers.
- paddy_m 1y agoBEV are not a serious climate solution unless you are talking about ebikes. BEV also contribute a load of pollution to waterways via tire wear. ebikes are cheaper to purchase and make a significant change.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- decimalenough 1y agoThey're not a panacea, but they're better than gas/petrol/diesel (or biofuel) cars across the board. Emissions have dropped and air quality has measurably improved in places with high BEV adoption, like Norway and China. Even the weight thing is a bit of a red herring: if we really cared about that, we should restrict car weights across the board. (Few BEVs clock in at over 2T, while virtually every F-150 style truck does.)
- speed_spread 1y agoLast time I checked, a Tesla 3 (a small car by NA standards) weighted 1800kg. That's twice the weight of my 1987 VW Jetta and very close to that 2T you mention. The weight issue is real; it affects the driving dynamics and makes the energy problem worse in many ways.
- dalyons 1y ago1987 is not a valid comparison for many reasons. Pick modern premium sedans (eg bmw) as a comparison and you’ll see it isn’t that different.
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- johnfirus 1y ago[flagged]
- mulmen 1y agoIt’s possible and even reasonable to want both China and the US to reduce their carbon emissions.
- johnfirus 1y agoI've not seen any famous progressives complain loudly about China and their practices. In fact, the progressives here seem happy flagging my post decrying China.
- mulmen 1y agoYour now-flagged post did not specify “famous progressives”. You’re clearly moving the goalposts in service of your political agenda. This conversation is over.
- macintux 1y agoBecause we (generally speaking) have more influence over U.S. policy than China's. And because decrying China is typically used as a rhetorical technique to absolve the U.S.
- tqi 1y agoChina's population is also 1.4B, ie 4X that of the US.
- johnfirus 1y agoChinese population's 1.4B number has only been supported by the Chinese government. Many have suspected that it's now around 1.1B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM57HhM8yV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM57HhM8yV8, after covid deaths and overcounting by local governments. That's why the malls in Shanghai and Beijing are completely empty at this point. Also, the US consumer market is 4X that of China.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- jajko 1y agoNo word about cutting down whole rain forests (ie on Borneo or mainland Malaysia) just to have more biofuels? I've seen those endless fields of that palm monoculture where almost nothing else lives from above and in person, and also how proper rain forest next to it looks like, it was a very depressing view.
- alephnerd 1y agoThe palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia are targeted at human consumption - palm oil is the primary cheap cooking oil across Asia, and demand is high. Paraguay and Brazil are where a significant portion of plantation farming is targeted at biofuels.
- chabska 1y ago"Deforestation" is also known as economic development, when someone is not trying to disparage a third world country. Malaysia and Indonedia, with their relatively stable politics and governance, gained a lot of FDI in the 1970's and started developing rapidly. Rainforests were cleared, true, and initially the land was planted with rubber, because that's was the most profitable crop that grows well in this climate. Then rubber price crashed, so the farmers switched to oil palm, the next most profitable crop. There is no intrinsic link between biofuel and deforestation. If coffee is the most profitable crop, then you'd see an endless sea of coffee plantations in Malaysia. Would you want to ban coffee then? Okay you banned coffee, so cocoa now is the most profitable crop, so you banned cocoa. Now pineapple is the most profitable crop, so forth and so on. The logical conclusion is that when you try to "save the forest", you are saying that a country has no sovereignty in developing its economy and exploiting its resource to enrich its citizen. "You should stay poor, because I say so".
- alephnerd 1y agoBecause just about every country is greenwashing "Energy Security" as "Alternative Energy". Countries that are supporting BEVs are those countries that have slip capacity to other fuels (renewable AND coal) and rare earth processing, just like those pushing for Hydrogen are those with alternative sourcing supply chains for biofuels and coal, those pushing for continued ONG usage have plenty of access to refining capacity, and those continuing to push for biofuels have the ethanol processing capacity. The brutal reality is large countries can eat the financial and humanitarian cost of climate change easily, but those worst affected live in countries that cannot. There is a moral case to be made for multilateral climate engagement, but NatSec will always trump morality.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoAsk ChatGPT what would happen if all ethanol corn farmland were replace by solar panels. Then ask about agrosolar
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoInstead, why don't you tell us what your point actually is?
- pfdietz 1y agoHis point is probably we'd save 99.5% of the land that is going to make bioethanol.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoOver 1.6% of the contiguous USA is dedicated to corn ethanol. If that land were replaced by solar, at 20% capacity, it could produce 10.8 PWh of electricity. That’s two and a half times the total amount of electricity that the US currently produces per year. Biofuels produce the equivalent of ~ 0.4 PWh. 1.5% of land area dedicated to solar can produce enough to meet all global energy needs (not just electricity), according to this article. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01754-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01754-4
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43817787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43817787
- Arubis 1y agoDuh. It was never meant to actually be good for the climate. We USians just wanted to point more subsidy money domestically (particular at farmers, the target for virtually every non-kinetic subsidy for decades) instead of using MBTE, which was IIRC mostly of Canadian manufacture.
- worik 1y agoThe perfidious outcomes of viewing climate change as a "business opportunity" rather than an urgent crises is making things worse There are the obvious effects outlined here There is also an opportunity cost. Bad policy displaced good policy We see something similar with planting trees in New Zealand. Huge land area planted out with pine trees, allowing polluters to tick a box, take good productive land out of use, impoverish the people living around it, and in the end they burn What a waste
- dehrmann 1y agoThe part that is useful is there's strategic benefit to surplus food production, and it's an outlet for surplus food.
- sheiyei 1y agoThe sensible way to do biofuel is biogas from cattle. It doesn't slot so neatly into the car network (car needs to be modified to have a gas tank (why the heck do you call petrol gas, you nation of fools??)), but actually lowers the climate footprint of cattle farming even before considering the petrol that would be burnt instead of it: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and eventually burns into CO2 in the atmosphere, so it's better to burn it in an ICE.
- chneu 1y agoDairy farmers would never do this. The cost of LNG and methane are far, far too low to justify the costs of digestors, collection and infrastructure. Gasses are waste products that are usually vented to the atmosphere, even in the oil industry. They're dirt cheap. I worked on a project to make a useful biomass from chicken shit. In the end, after years of research and viable product, it was axed because the upfront costs would always be too high for chicken farmers to adopt it. The only way to get dairy ops on board would be to mandate it with regulation and then subsidize it. Cattle and dairy ops are massive welfare queens who resist change in every way they can, unless that change is more welfare. We can't even get landfills to stop leaking/venting methane. No chance we get dairy ops to build methane capture systems.
- sheiyei 1y agoWhat I meant was we should collect methane to use as fuel in cars. It happens a bunch here in Finland, and driving a biogas car is totally feasible. At some point the government stopped incentivising biogas refueling stations in favour of foreign dependency-riddled and rare earth metal-laden electric cars, which sucks a lot. I think it's pretty significant that you can make an old car basically carbon neutral, instead of buying a Chinese child labour spyware battery on wheels.
- Klaus_ 1y ago[dead]