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Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels
- tim333 1y agoCorn ethanol as a car fuel looks espeically bad if you compare it to solar generation on the same land area. You get ~200x car miles per acre with solar electric vs corn and combustion engine.
- PaulHoule 1y agoFor years I saw saturation ads for the Archer-Daniels-Midland Corporation on PBS, I found out years that this is the prime beneficiary of the ethanol program. Farmers growing corn for ethanol are growing broke despite subsidies. The program is an environmental disaster because people in the Mississippi River basin should be growing anything except corn because corn is a crop that requires huge imports of nitrogen fertilizer which burns fuel and leaches into the environment and creates a huge dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico. Farmers make much better money from agrivoltaics, if they can convert 10-20% of their land they can produce a huge amount of energy and spare the fertilizer, it is not a one-way trip, the solar cells can be removed in the future and in the meantime it supports a more diverse ecosystem. People have no idea what a win-win it is.
- jfengel 1y agoPeople know what a loss it is for the oil companies, and will not tolerate that.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- PaulHoule 1y agoTo be fair, almost no oil goes to produce electricity in US although it is still used heavily in developing countries.
- gsf_emergency_2 1y agoHe should have said fuel companies or even gas companies but that's not colloquial I guess Here's a breakdown by sources (2023) https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
- ars 1y agoThey should switch to growing sugar cane. There's a high demand for sugar, plus sugar works even better than corn for ethanol.
- mikepavone 1y agoMost places growing corn don't have the right climate for sugar cane.
- Scoundreller 1y agoSugar beets is the primary source of domestic produced sugar in US/Canada
- gadders 1y agoAnd the UK
- ZeWaka 1y agoDo you know how you harvest sugar cane? You *burn* it.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoFarmers could make more money if we subsidized fresh vegetables rather than ethanol, and it would make us healthier.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoThe purpose of the system is what it does. That would not enrich the people and orgs currently being enriched by the subsidies provided for biofuels. The US is farming ~60M acres just for ethanol and biodiesel.
- LinXitoW 1y agoCertainly, but that would also indirectly de-subsidize the animal agricultural industry. People are addicted to their animal products, going so far as to pretend they're essential and not just a luxury.
- fsflover 1y agoIncreased price would provide a clear message to these people.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoMeat prices are way up in Europe due to various reasons (https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/extensions/DashboardBeef/Dashboard.html https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/extensions/DashboardBeef/Dashb...), but it doesn't seem to affect total consumption (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-eu28 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-eu28), just a slight adjustment in what types of meat are eaten.
- Gibbon1 1y agoUnless I'm going senile, I've done this calculation a few times and consistently I get that a solar farm produces 25-50 times more energy a year than corn.
- thijson 1y agoI think I've seen that too. Plants convert solar energy to chemical energy with an efficiency of a few percent. Solar cells are around 20% efficient, and do it year round, even in the winter.
- febusravenga 1y agoBut corn is _stored_ energy that can be used at any time. PV is energy ar the current moment. Seems like this 20x loss the cost of storage... Interesting take though, I'm not saying that growing corn is best way to "produce stored energy", but in your comparison it's almost like direct competition to for PV + batteries of any sort.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y agoWe've known for decades that it requires more energy to produce corn ethanol than is delivered in the ethanol produced. A lot of the necessary inputs are petroleum-based. This is not news. What MIGHT be news is that the environmentalists who have been pushing biofuels as a "green" alternative to oil have finally figured out this basic physical fact.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoNah I've been wanting hybrids for over a decade. It's just that agriculture conglomerates get what they want because everyone thinks farmers should get whatever they want
- mlyle 1y agoYah. There's some reason for ethanol in the fuel mix. Having the ability to do it at some scale is good for security purposes, and it helps tailpipe emissions. But that's a lot less corn-derived ethanol than we currently make/burn.
- rpcope1 1y ago> There's some reason for ethanol in the fuel mix. Uh, maybe from a "we can grow our own fuel perspective", but I've never seen a car run better on E10 or E85 than E0. Basically everything (including the newest and fanciest engines) runs like ass if you've got ethanol in there (and now you have to contend with your fuel having a component that's hydrophilic, which is a huge problem in and of itself, and brutal on natural rubber). Some things specifically built for ethanol as the primary fuel might be OK, but E10 is kind of a travesty. We'd have been better served just working more towards synthetic gasoline and biodiesel (and I'll make a strong wager that there's still going to be a lot of gas/diesel powered stuff 20-30 years out, and we're going to be going back to trying to get good at synthesizing fuel).
- lazide 1y agoIt does have higher octane than gasoline, so with the right tuning it can run in higher compression engines and be beneficial, even offsetting the lower caloric density. It usually requires an ECU flash though.
- anonym29 1y agoI know the general public should never be expected to subsidize enthusiasts, but E85 - available in many places for under $3/gal - has many of the same performance characteristics as $20/gal race gas for performance automotive enthusiasts. I'm all for the peaceful and orderly dissolution of the entire US federal government, as involuntary taxation under implied threat of violence is theft, but until then, thanks for the deeply discounted race gas, fellow taxpayers!
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- IrishTechie 1y agoIt's been a long time since I dabbled, but from memory the likes of E85 is good for fixed load use (eg. drag racing) but not great for variable load (track racing cars, motocross etc) because petrol has a wide range of evaporation points compared to the much narrower range of E85.
- anonym29 1y agoIt has an octane equivalent of 105-110, and an even stronger anti-knock index, you can add a ton of timing. It also lets the engine run cooler despite burning hotter precisely because of those evap characterisics. That's not to say there are no downsides. It's less energy dense so you need larger injectors or a higher duty cycle, you get less mileage, it's extremely hygroscopic, it has different corrosive properties, and a different stoich ratio so most vehicles need some amount of modifications and tuning to properly utilize it. But all in all, it's wildly economical alternative to traditional high performance fuel.
- in_cahoots 1y agoI read the whole article and I still don't see how Big Ag misled anyone. I may be misunderstanding, but it seems that the author is trying to differentiate between growing corn for food vs growing the same corn for ethanol. I assume the entire reason the lobby exists is that farmers want to grow corn for food and ethanol. But the researcher lost interest before proving anything around there. Maybe ethanol is actually worse, but I didn't see any evidence in this article. Instead, this article is a master class in the red herring fallacy. Every person on the 'wrong' side of the issue has their sordid past and connections exposed, whether it's their association with Wall Street or the fact that they're a sex offender. Nevermind the science, the author just assumes that because the reader (presumably) has a certain political persuasion denigrating the other side will serve as a convincing argument.
- lelandbatey 1y agoThe corn varieties grown for industrial ethanol production are mutually exclusive with the corn varieties grown for human consumption; you cannot use one for the other. They might as well be corn vs soy beans.
- in_cahoots 1y agoI assumed something similar. But the author presents this as some sort of trump card, as if the agriculture industry was suggesting farmers grow corn for ethanol instead of for food. And then the researcher lost interest before he could be proven right. Maybe he actually was right, but there's no evidence here.
- giantg2 1y agoI believe they grow field corn for animal feed as well as for ethanol. Technically some processed foods also use field corn. While there are a number of varieties of field corn, I don't believe any are exclusive to ethanol production and could be used in other capacities.
- 9rx 1y ago> I believe they grow field corn for animal feed as well as for ethanol. I grow corn. I grow it to be sold. Whatever the buyer decides to do with it — be that feed it to animals, turn it into tortilla chips, make sweeteners, create plastic for 3D printers, produce ethanol, or even burn it in their furnace — is up to them.
- Animats 1y agoEven DOGE didn't dare go after ethanol subsidies.[1] Even the Cato Institute, which is classic conservative in position, is against them. [1] https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-musk-doge-havent-gone-after-one-bit-wasteful-spending-most-americans-agree# https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-musk-doge-havent-gone-...
- fsckboy 1y agoCato Institute is big L Libertarian, not classic conservative
- froh 1y agoyour point being "classic" (1920s? 1950s?) conservative is "not being big L libertarian"? Because in the other reading of classic, "typical" or "pike", big L libertarian is (1980s-2000s) peak "conservative". is the Cato institute without the novel anti human rights anti environment spicing?
- kazinator 1y ago> Why would growing corn for ethanol and burning it in an engine be any climate-friendlier than growing that same corn for food and burning an equivalent amount of gasoline in an engine? Because, doh, you would grow orders of magnitude more corn than you would just for food or feed. Also, if you simply take away food corn, using all corn for nothing but biofuels, a substitute has to be found for food/feed uses of corn. Food-versus-fuel reasoning about corn in the context of determining whether it is climate-friendly basically doesn't hold up. It leads to absurdities like contemplating whether biofuel from an inedible plant is better for the earth than biofuel from one that can instead be eaten.
- graeme 1y agoI remember when the corn subsidies were introduced. I don't recall seeing any favourable commentary. Nor do I remember anyone in real life discussing them or saying "gee I'm glad we're saying the environment with biofuels" For anyone who had heard of them the program seemed pretty transparently a way to put a fig leaf on an extra subsidy. Big agriculture may not have spoken accurately about the programs but I doubt they succeeded in misleading anyone. Maybe in the states receiving subsidies, no firsthand experience of the marketing there.
- tim333 1y agoI had similar thoughts, although I'm a Brit, all coverage I've seen says it's environmentally largely useless but big ag has paid appropriate contributions to politicians to make it happen because money.
- khelavastr 1y agoKeeping dollars in the USA and away from petrstates certainly isn't an understated benefit.
- Scoundreller 1y agoAnd in the petrostate up North, Canada, we’ve required 10% ethanol (and possibly going up) in our gas… But we don’t grow enough corn to do that and therefore 60% of the ethanol is imported from USA. Kinda a weird dependency to create as a petrostate.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoLobbyists are responsible for all of the harm that Americans at large come to. Eco damage, car crashes, toxic chemicals in food, the drug war, wars in the Middle East, lack of public housing, the world's most expensive health care, union-busting, even heart disease. If you can think of it and it hurts lots of Americans, lobbyists were behind it.
- unanonymousanon 1y agoI think this takes too much responsibility off the politicians swayed by lobbyists and the corporations paying lobbyists. Don’t get me wrong, lobbyists have been middlemen in a lot of disastrous policy, but they’re not really the source of the problem.
- glorpsicle 1y agoThe problem is a system which allows politicians to be influenced in this way, and the group of politicians that accept said influence. The lobbyists–while not very admirable in their own right–are simply acting in their own self-interest. Someone–those in charge–needs to deny them.
- 9rx 1y ago> The problem is a system which allows politicians to be influenced in this way Well, that's (representative) democracy for you. If politicians were off doing their own thing you'd have a dictatorship instead. Being "influenced" (i.e. listening to the people who share their story) is the whole reason you hired the politician in the first place! Yes, democracy is hard work. Everyone is supposed to be lobbying. That is what democracy is made of. It is your civic duty. But, understandably, most people would rather do something else — like complaining on HN about how those participating in democracy got their way. That's why not everyone in the world actually believes in democracy. But, whether you like it or not, if you live in a democracy it is your duty to participate in it. Speaking to your representative regularly (i.e. lobbying) to air out your concerns is a necessity. They are not mind readers! If you choose not to, don't expect magic.
- joak 1y agoAgriculture is bad for biodiversity. The raison d'être of agriculture is to favor few species over all others. The goal of agriculture is to reduce biodiversity. Please keep agriculture for food. Simple molecules like ethanol can be produced with electricity, water and air (CO2 capture). No need to sterilize a patch of land for that. Besides I'm not sure ethanol is much needed, electric cars do not burn ethanol.
- randcraw 1y ago“ spiffy analytical tools were also understating the climate costs of using grain to fuel our cars instead of ourselves.” Ourselves? Soylent Green for cars?
- harvey9 1y ago'Idaho Transfer'?
- hliyan 1y agoOne (yet to be verified) insight I've had of late is that we make an implicit, paradoxical assumption about the unimpeded operation of the free market: that the rationality of market participants (a function of education), and their decision making (a function of information dissemination) somehow exists on a substrate unaffected by the market forces. In reality, not only are education and information (news) commoditized, but their supply is intermingled with the market dynamics of other products. For example, say it costs a supplier X per year to safely eliminate a negative externality (e.g. local air pollution) that would otherwise cause a percentage of consumers to form a negative opinion of the brand and shift to competitors. Now say it costs Y to purchase a level of control of information flow (news, PR, which are naturally commoditized) that could mitigate said negative public opinion. If Y < X, an economically rational (but ethically unscrupulous) actor would choose the second avenue.
- zekrioca 1y agoWhich is what is happening right now.
- ptman 1y ago80% of UK’s waste oil would only power 0.6% of its flights Using synthetic e-fuel for all USA domestic flights would use 85% of USA’s electricity generated. Powering UK flights on plant-based biofuels would use >50% of its agricultural land 2⃣ UK waste oil is already spoken for, used in soap, cosmetics etc. But it’s far short of what would be needed anyway. Instead we will import ‘waste’ from places like Malaysia, which also happens to be a major palm oil producer (worse than diesel for warming). 3⃣ Synthetic e-fuels use lots of electricity. Using renewables doesn’t make it ok. That’s because, until we fully decarbonise, it diverts renewables from reducing the burning of gas & oil, worsening climate change. 4⃣ UK Gov isn’t pushing crop-based bio-fuels, but other nations are, like Singapore. These have high emissions, because they lead to forest destruction. They also threaten food shortages, with warming already hitting crop yields—and ecosystem collapse. Source: https://bsky.app/profile/sioldridge.bsky.social/post/3luwjfryzn22j https://bsky.app/profile/sioldridge.bsky.social/post/3luwjfr...
- AngryData 1y agoThis why im still a huge advocate for building nuclear power. In order to synthesize this kind of stuff from air instead of wasting all our farmland on it to have carbon neutral liquid or gas fuels available, we need insane amounts of energy. For some things batteries and other tech are the better option to switch to, but petroleum is still king for many applications and farming it with plants is extremely land inefficient. So direct air synthesis using ass tons of energy which nuclear could provide is the clear and straight forward solution that doesn't require hand wavy future technology improvements or unrealistic ideas of using over half our farmland to grow fuels or covering significant percentages of the earth's surface with solar panels.
- tzs 1y ago> Why would growing corn for ethanol and burning it in an engine be any climate-friendlier than growing that same corn for food and burning an equivalent amount of gasoline in an engine? The carbon absorbed in the field wouldn’t change; neither would the carbon emitted from the car. If the only difference was that producing ethanol emitted much more carbon than producing gasoline, where were ethanol’s benefits? Where the carbon comes from matters. When you burn gasoline all of the carbon emitted is carbon that until we took the petroleum it was in out of the ground had been out of the atmosphere for millions of years. When using gasoline on an ongoing basis the result is a large net increase in atmosphere carbon from burning the gasoline, plus whatever similarly old carbon is emitted during the processing of the petroleum into gasoline. When you burn ethanol that was made from corn all of the carbon emitted is carbon that was in the atmosphere until the corn took it out of the atmosphere to use in photosynthesis. When using ethanol from corn on an ongoing basis there is no increase in atmospheric carbon from burning the ethanol. There is just an increase from whatever old carbon is emitted in the process of growing the corn and turning it into ethanol.
- jayd16 1y agoYeah, seems like they're forgetting the part where they need to bury the corn in bedrock to keep the carbon sequestered.
- lazide 1y agoNo they aren’t. Biofuels in use, keep atmospheric carbon neutral. Fossil fuels increase atmospheric carbon. Now, if we did make biofuels and reinject them into the ground, yes it would reduce atmospheric carbon. But neutral is strictly better than increasing, regardless yes?
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- theurerjohn3 1y agoi think there may have been some confusion about the parent comment you are both agreeing that where the fuels come from matters. If you want to burn fossil fuels in a manner to keep atmospheric carbon neutral using the approach specified in > Why would growing corn for ethanol and burning it in an engine be any climate-friendlier than growing that same corn for food and burning an equivalent amount of gasoline in an engine? then the correct approach would be > Why would growing corn for ethanol and burning it in an engine be any climate-friendlier than growing that same corn for *burying in the ground* and burning an equivalent amount of gasoline in an engine? unless i am misunderstanding these two comments? some clarity would be great!
- dragonwriter 1y ago> Why would growing corn for ethanol and burning it in an engine be any climate-friendlier than growing that same corn for food and burning an equivalent amount of gasoline in an engine? The carbon absorbed in the field wouldn’t change; neither would the carbon emitted from the car. It would be worse because is food is also fuel. Whether motor vehicle fuel or animal fuel, the corn goes through pretty similar chemical change. Obviously, burning just the produce of fields that uptake as much carbon as their produce releases is better, in net carbon terms, than doing that plus burning fossil fuels.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- whatever1 1y agoJust because you can drive 2’ and casually get 100 liters of gasoline does not make fossil fuel infinite. People forget that oil is not like air. We waste a ton of resources for drilling, transporting and refining, creating in the process huge externalities, to ensure reliable production and supply. And it will only get worse as we are running out of easy to tap sources. Looking for cheap and viable alternatives to fossils is not a conspiracy or a game. It’s an absolute necessity.
- lazide 1y agoThe issue with corn ethanol is that while it could* be done without fossil fuels, it isn’t actually. Which is why it is such a scam, actually, because in theory it could be done that way, but it’s cheaper to inject fossil fuels at every stage, and hence isn’t actually green. It was also done before electric cars were a thing, and now the whole thing is a pretty pointless give away to the ag industrial complex.
- Ray20 1y ago> Just because you can drive 2’ and casually get 100 liters of gasoline does not make fossil fuel infinite. The finiteness of fossil fuels is not an issue we need to worry about right now. > it will only get worse as we are running out of easy to tap sources. As it gets worse, we'll just move on to other sources. No problems at all. At least none that would be easier to prevent than to solve. > Looking for cheap and viable alternatives to fossils is not a conspiracy or a game No, this is a pure, large-scale corruption conspiracy.
- meindnoch 1y agoCorn is just a very inefficient solar panel.
- sukhavati 1y agoI always thought that trading precious topsoil for motive power when oil does just fine was an insane premise. Too bad not enough people recognize this for what it is. Biomass is another issue that I find grossly inappropriate.
- 9rx 1y agoIt's not completely insane when you remember that we also grow the crops for food, and exactly matching food requirements with production yield is impossible, so there will be times of gross excesses (especially with corn, which can produce _way_ more than you could have ever dreamed of if the weather is just right). Turning excess product back into usable energy instead leaving it in a pile to rot can be worthwhile. The problem is that humans don't understand moderation. They heard it makes sense at some small scale and automatically assume it would be even better if we scale it up massively. Now — if you look at the comments here — they heard it doesn't work at massive scale, and take from it that it doesn't ever make sense...
- foobarkey 1y agoIf the carbon has been stored 1 million years ago and you burn it the total net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases If the carbon was stored last year and you burn it the net amount of carbon stays about the same YoY Moving the transport sector over to the latter carbon or electrical would be a good direction in general Disregarding spidy senses and mental gymnastics about people starving if they dont eat all that corn, I dont understand how we fail to see this as a net benefit and crap articles like that get produced
- wffurr 1y ago>> If the carbon was stored last year and you burn it the net amount of carbon stays about the same YoY The accounting for biofuels is not that simple in practice. They end up significantly more carbon intensive than using electricity and batteries or even hydrogen.
- ashoeafoot 1y agoThis article is just state propaganda which wants artificially dumped food prices (otherwise riots) decoupled from arbitrary energy prices
- cpursley 1y agoJust wait until you learn about the crazy stuff like corn syrup, “fortified” highly processed white bread and sugary kids cereal they’ve pushed for the last 40 years. There’s a reason the farm bill tackles both ends: Farm subsidies and SNAP - American taxpayers are literally subsidizing the obesity health crisis.
- boston_clone 1y ago> they’ve Who?
- justlikereddit 1y agoThe public wants to be mislead by dumb-ass feelgood statements about how green something inefficient and expensive is.
- TomMasz 1y agoAh, E85. My wife's flex-fuel Chevy could use it, but it ran poorly and mileage noticeably dropped. It wasn't worth the meager savings (it's usually more expensive now) over regular gas. I've always wondered about the environmental impact. It's clear now that it's not great. I'm not surprised.
- voxleone 1y agoWhile it's true that Big Ag in the U.S. has oversold corn ethanol as a climate-friendly alternative, it's important to distinguish between types of biofuels. Not all ethanol is created equal. Take Brazil, for example. Their ethanol program is fundamentally different. It's based on sugarcane, not corn, and it has a spectacular EROI (Energy Return on Investment) of about 8:1. That means for every unit of energy put into producing it, eight units are returned. By contrast, U.S. corn ethanol barely breaks even, with an EROI around 1.3:1 to 1.8:1. Brazilian ethanol also sidesteps many of the land use and food diversion issues that plague U.S. biofuels. Sugarcane is mostly grown on degraded pastureland far from the Amazon, and it doesn’t displace staple food crops. Plus, the leftover biomass (bagasse) is burned to power the refineries themselves, making the process close to energy self-sufficient. The Brazilian model shows that biofuels can work—but only under the right agricultural, environmental, and economic conditions. The U.S. corn ethanol lobby essentially hijacked the "green energy" narrative to push something that mostly benefits Big Ag subsidies and corn states, with questionable climate gains. So yeah, skepticism about biofuels is warranted—but we should be careful not to throw out the good examples with the bad.
- no_wizard 1y agoAssuming all this about Brazilian ethanol is true, the real question for me is scale. The US consumes an enormous amount of gasoline every year compared to just about any other country. That’s what I’m curious about.
- owebmaster 1y agoBrazilian current ethanol production is 2/3 of the US
- analog31 1y agoAt what rate do they produce degraded pasture land? Is it renewable?
- trollbridge 1y agoBrazil is a big place, and growing sugarcane properly actually regenerates the soil, such as if no or low till techniques are used (which are popular in Brazil).
- bgwalter 1y agoBiofuels get the subsidies so that in case of a major crisis like war there is enough food and some fuel for essential services. It is not that hard to understand. It is possible that studies were tweaked to support another narrative, but farm subsidies always serve strategic interests.
- quickthrowman 1y agoYeah, that’s my understanding of agricultural subsidies as well, and I’m surprised to see that only a couple low ranked comments (yours, and my top level comment) mention the food security angle when what we do with the excess corn is basically irrelevant if food security is the primary purpose of ag subsidies. Wouldn’t be the first time most people on HN misunderstand an issue completely though.
- drewcoo 1y agoLiterary Hub needs an editor. That title's grammar is appalling. And the problems start there. Grunwald, adjectives spilling all over his page, needs a thesaurus for "uphill battle." Stylistically, this is a mess. Style aside, Grunwald implies that maize is field corn and not sweet corn. It actually means both. This is clearly not a well-researched article on ethanol. Beyond that we see his politics on his sleeve, tying ADM to Watergate. And a misunderstanding of the meaning of "corps," as the "Corps of Engineers" is not "the Army Corps." This is sadly childish. No, that's unfair to children. I've seen better journalism from high school kids.
- quickthrowman 1y agoI just always assumed we grow excess corn for food security reasons and we turn the excess into ethanol so it doesn’t rot/go to waste, the other options are cornmeal or exporting it. Big agriculture lying about the public benefits of ethanol is irrelevant, food security is more important in the event of a crisis that prevents agricultural imports than any negative externalities of turning corn into ethanol.
- addicted 1y agoI thought the US approach to biofuels was always understood as a Republican head fake towards climate change action during Bush without doing anything that would threaten oil interests while simultaneously enriching their donor and voting base with all our tax dollars.