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That being said, growing corn for fuel ethanol is stupid. Other crops are more efficient (Unless we find a way of turning the whole plant into fuel)
by raverbashing 1y ago
That being said, growing corn for fuel ethanol is stupid.
Other crops are more efficient
(Unless we find a way of turning the whole plant into fuel)
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoWhat crops are those, and do they grow in the same climates and soils as corn does at the moment?
- dherikb 1y agoSugarcane, I believe.
- brabel 1y agoYes sugar cane is much cheaper and efficient. But you need very warm climate to grow it. Brazil has that and uses sugar cane for the most part. The USA does not so it uses what grows well in its interior , which is corn.
- raverbashing 1y agoSugarcane, but I think in terms of total plant weight vs yield even sugar beets beat corn
- HDThoreaun 1y agoI live in the corn belt and can assure you that sugarcane does not grow here
- red-iron-pine 1y agothat sugar does not grow there does not change the fact that corn is very inefficient for biofuel
- quickthrowman 1y agoField corn can also be made into cornmeal, which we can eat. Which is exactly why we subsidize corn growers. We don’t grow corn specifically to make ethanol, we grow corn because we can eat it if we lose all food imports. I’d much rather eat cornmeal for years than sugar beets. Turning excess corn into ethanol happens to be better than burying it or throwing it away.
- AngryData 1y agoSugarbeets would probably be the best for easy usage in non-tropical areas. I would think most sweet crops would beat corn though, corn by itself isn't that efficient because of how much energy goes into growing the stalk. But it is one of the most robust with a huge range of soils and climates which lends to its prevalence
- 9rx 1y agoThe trouble with corn is that its yield band is huge. Get a good growing year and suddenly you have twice as much as you need — and more than you can store, leaving it out to rot. Recapturing that energy as fuel instead of disappearing waste heat is a win and what corn-based ethanol was introduced for. The trouble with humans is that they aren't very good at moderation. As soon as they see a little opportunity to do something good they take it to the extreme, to the point that it is no longer good.
- trollbridge 1y agoExcess corn crops in the 1800s were used to make (corn mash) whisky.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jandrese 1y agoThe other problem is that the equipment to turn corn into ethanol isn't free, either to buy or to maintain. It's not economical to leave it idle during poor yield years.
- 9rx 1y ago> It's not economical to leave it idle during poor yield years. Poor yield implies high prices. It is not economical for anything but to leave it idle. And, as you'd expect, when corn was expensive a few years ago many ethanol plants did shut down. For a short while around 2010, following a massive glut of corn through the early 2000s, the US government was paying ethanol producers to produce when corn was otherwise too expensive to work economically in an effort to jumpstart the industry. But those days are long behind us.