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The square km the US uses to grow corn for ethanol is about ~~ 1/3rd the total global area required for solar in this article. Ethanol that is a gigantic waste
by dalyons 8mo ago
The square km the US uses to grow corn for ethanol is about ~~ 1/3rd the total global area required for solar in this article. Ethanol that is a gigantic waste of resources.
They seem like big numbers until you compare it with the enormity of what we already do.
- burnt-resistor 8mo agoYep. 5% of all US land is dedicated to just growing subsidized corn.
- nandomrumber 8mo agoMost of that land probably isn’t useful for much else, in a productive economic sense.
- adrianN 8mo agoExcept for solar panels. If the corn is subsidized, then the land is not economically productive right now.
- nandomrumber 8mo agoRealistically, can we expect anyone to want to build out solar without subsidies?
- adrianN 8mo agoLots of people do today. Solar is profitable without subsidies.
- burnt-resistor 8mo agoYep. Traditionalists hate renewables and facts. Here in Texas, there's been an absolute boom in solar post snowpocalypse. I'd gladly vote for shifting corn and soy subsidies to renewables, especially as grants for 1-300 MW solar/wind facilities for municipal co-operatives. And for solid state and sodium municipal and infrastructure energy backup and v2g. And, I think we should heavily tax data centers federally because they're electricity, water, and land extractive and sound pollution vampires hostile to communities they invade (often to the chagrin of locals because of NDA backroom deals with corrupt politicians).. they're tantamount to giant petrochem facilities in "sacrifice zones". The rich people can cry about leaving, as did FDR's friends did, but it's always an empty threat.
- deaux 8mo agoI'm not convinced the data center numbers, especially water, are meaningful compared to absurdly wasteful agriculture like the corn for ethanol mentioned here, almonds in California, and cattle. Let alone the likes of Nestlé's water stealing and golf courses in hot, dry climates. Happy to be proven wrong by someone who has the numbers. For now like what this comment section is about with "the space needed for solar is nothing compared to what we're already doing", it seems like the water needed for data centers is nothing compared to how much we're already throwing away.
- 6510 8mo agoI did a napkin calculation once for building wind turbines next to a city with a construction and a maintenance tax. A big initial bill (lone) and a sizable ration per citizen. In stead of a power bill you pay installments. When you sell the house the next owner will also have to pay for it. Thinking about it now, i have one more stupid idea, people have no faith in government, perhaps it is possible to contract a private insurance company. They can get paid to keep an eye on our bureaucrats. Make it a contract with teeth.
- spwa4 8mo agoExcept transporting it over the grid usually doesn't make sense, and is neither easy nor simple nor cheap. So solar only really makes sense if you have a use for it nearby or even onsite. So for companies/factories/datacenters/... absolutely. To keep cities powered? Less so.
- hedora 8mo agoIt's simpler and cheaper than any alternative. You just need ultra high voltage transition lines and a grid that can real-time redistribute load + generation. Ultra high voltage towers are all over Texas. If they can make them work there (with the extreme heat, tornados and absurdly long distances involved in that state), they can work most places.
- jdlshore 8mo agoYes, because solar is now the most cost-effective form of energy generation. That’s why grid-scale solar is being deployed on a massive scale world wide.
- tenuousemphasis 8mo agoOnly if you like free electricity...
- pfdietz 8mo agoGlobally solar is going gangbusters. At that scale it can't be subsidies.
- deaux 8mo agoCompanies want to shut down coal plants despite subsidies but are being forced to keep them running. The government forcing private businesses to keep running in a certain way, doesn't get more state-directed than that, straight out of communism. It's really China with none of the upsides and all of the downsides.
- 6510 8mo agoIf the goal is to make ethanol hemp would be a (considerably) better choice. We know it is but with all the hysteria we have very little experience growing and processing it with modern equip. You should want to harvest seeds, fibers, make ethanol from biomass, and perhaps do biochar, concrete, textile, plastics etc etc The hysteria is rather fascinating, I recently learn how the inquisition got rid of Amaranth. If only we could figure out how to do something with water hyacinth. No one has ever complaint about not having enough yield of that. It grows preposterously. We pretend the crop to be a huge problem, much like the giant lakes of poop we produce. Most of the energy in food comes out on the other end.
- nandomrumber 8mo agoThanks! Under ideal conditions its mass can double in five days! https://weeds.dpi.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/WaterHyacinth https://weeds.dpi.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/WaterHyacinth Water hyacinth smothers the surface of waterways, dams, irrigation channels and drains. It can rapidly take over an entire waterway and under favourable conditions it can double its mass every 5 days. It reduces water levels, reduces water quality, causes changes in water temperature and pH, lowers oxygen levels, reduces the amount of sunlight under the water. The large infestations of water hyacinth impact negatively on agriculture and infrastructure by blocking irrigation channels and equipment reducing the quality of drinking water for livestock in restricting livestock access to water damaging pastures and crops when masses of the plant settle in a paddock after floods damaging fences during floods blocking roads, bridges and culverts when masses of the plant become mobile during floods. Water hyacinth also has negative impacts on people and the environment because it: restricts birds and other native animals’ access to water, prevents native water plants from growing, limits movement of aquatic animals reduces food and shelter for fish and other native animals provides favourable conditions for mosquitoes to breed prevents boating and water sports reduces the visual appeal of waterways. The NSW Herbarium currently uses the scientific name: Pontederia crassipes for water hyacinth. What does it look like? Water hyacinth is a floating water plant. In cool areas, the leaves die off during frosts but the crowns survive and regrow the following spring.
- 6510 8mo ago
- mdf 8mo agoYes, and the corn-based ethanol here is used for "feeding cars" that have combustion engines, i.e. it's already used exactly for energy production. The most recent Technology Connections video[1] quoted some numbers on this. All this land dedicated to disposable energy production could be dedicated to renewable energy production instead. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM
- nosuchthing 8mo agoupwards of 60% of the ethanol used in combustion engines is completely wasted.
- riffraff 8mo agoWhat does "wasted" mean in this context?
- weaksauce 8mo agoi assume heat since most energy in an ICE engine is wasted to heat (~60% wasted iirc)
- piva00 8mo agoIt means that it doesn't generate any mechanical work, it's wasted as heat not captured for any other productive purpose (since waste heat can be useful in some contexts). It's a measure of efficiency.
- marc_g 8mo agoSuch an unfathomable waste when you put it in the context of “feeding cars”. I really appreciated the way this channel broke down this viewpoint. Made me want to finally get some panels for my balcony.
- aaomidi 8mo agoI feel like a chunk of the video was kinda pushing against the idea of just putting some solar on your roof.
- nandomrumber 8mo agoThe USA grows something more like 121,000 square kilometres of corn for ethanol. Or about 30 million acres if you’re in to that sort of thing. https://www.wri.org/insights/increased-biofuel-production-impacts-climate-change-farmers https://www.wri.org/insights/increased-biofuel-production-im...
- stephenr 8mo agoAdd in concepts like agrivoltaics and that land could still be productive as arable farmland while it also produces clean energy.
- Gibbon1 8mo agoSolar farms produce 50 times more energy per acre than corn grown for ethanol. A rabbit hole I started working down was how much ammonia would cost is the hydrogen was from electrolysis power by solar. It's sort of competitive. Whack bit. 2200 calories a day is 2.5kwh. That's what a 400W solar panel puts out. Which made me wonder about just synthesizing amino acids directly. Why make ammonia and spray it in crops that use sunlight (2% efficient) to turn it into protein. You start digging an there are two dozen companies working the bioreactor angle. Hydrogen + N2 to feed nitrogen fixing bacteria. I find this way more interesting than using AI to replace MBA's and code monkeys.
- pfdietz 8mo agoThe easiest food to synthesize is probably fatty acids. Orca Sciences (the people who incubated Standard Thermal) have had a project on this. https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/food-without-agriculture-wbx6k https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/food-without-agricultu... https://savor.it/ https://savor.it/
- Gibbon1 8mo agoI stumbled on something also interesting. The oxygen from photosynthesis comes from water not CO2. So all the energy from food is essentially from splitting water. Also I think I read in a book on aeronautics which was published in the 1950's that more energy is required from oil to grow food than the food itself. Trying to look that up again just now the internet spits out an efficiency as low as 10%.
- pfdietz 8mo agoYou have to be a little careful about that figure because a lot of the energy comes from natural gas, not oil. Natural gas is a much bigger thing now than it was in the 1950s. Natural gas in the US is mostly "dry", that is not associated with oil production.