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Fun fact, 12 million hectares of land of used to produce corn used for ethanol which is used to produce gas. I'll let you draw the conclusion. https://news.cor

• anon7000 6mo ago
  Yeah, the technology connections video on this was fantastic. If one was to cover that land in solar, you’d produce far more than the current energy demands of the US. Relying on an energy source which requires constant, continuous resource extraction is fucking stupid when we can spend resources up front and get reliable energy (solar + battery) for decades with minimal operating cost & maintenance. And then we’ll have a recycling loop to minimize future resource extraction. If you want to debate that, spend some time with this video first: https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM
  • kingleopold 6mo ago
    yes but increasing solar will damage the energy lobby in the congress and other places. It's never about what is best, it's about what's best for lobby and their puppets
    • LogicFailsMe 6mo ago
      If you won't think of the energy corridor, who will?
  • germandiago 6mo ago
    So here I go: if it is so stupid, why it is not done yet? Try not to blame anyone. Do it rationally if you can, from your message I understand your opinion. I say this as a person that has lived in a developing country the last 15 years. It is not that simple IMHO...
    • mbesto 6mo ago
      > why it is not done yet? Whoa lots to unpack here. I'll summarize: - It is already happening to some extent (it's cheaper) - Try explaining to farmers to do away with their livelihood and retrain them to running a solar farm - Entrenched bureaucracy and gov subsidies
    • Retric 6mo ago
      The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time. It’s the same reason EV’s make up a far larger share of new car sales than a percentage of overall cars, EV’s sucked 20+ years ago yet there are a lot of 20+ year old cars on the road. The US stopped building coal power plants over a decade ago but we still have a lot of them. Meanwhile we’ve mostly been building solar, which eventually means we’ll have a mostly solar grid but that’s still decades away.
      • germandiago 6mo ago
        > The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time This needs investment also. An investment poorer people cannot or do not want to do. It is reasonable that when someone gives up a couple of things because that person is rich (rich as in a person in the developed world) the sacrifice is more or less acceptable. Now change environment and think that these sacrifices are way worse. Even worse than that: that has more implications in conservative cultures where, whether you like it or not, showing "muscle" (wealth) is socially important for them to reach other soccial layers that will make their lives easier. But giving up those things is probably a very bad choice for their living. America cannot be compared to South East Asia economically speaking, for example. So the comparison of the coal centrals is not even close. A salary in Vietnam is maybe 15 million VND for many people. With that you can hardly live in some areas. It is around 600 usd. Just my two cents.
        • tencentshill 6mo ago
          That's why it will require a functional government who can use taxes responsibly to make the technology affordable to everyone. The US had a pretty good start until one man decided to stop and try to reverse any progress made.
  • brational 6mo ago
    > which requires constant, continuous resource extraction Is there an upper bound on battery limits with regards to resource extraction?
    • wat10000 6mo ago
      Once you have enough to power the world and are able to recycle them, then you're done with extracting resources for them.
      • shawabawa3 6mo ago
        Unfortunately human energy use appears to be proportional to the amount of energy available Hopefully we are able to reach a point of effectively unlimited cheap energy and storage but it's that if overnight we suddenly had enough solar+batteries to power today's usage, we'd suddenly need way more as demand rises
        • wat10000 6mo ago
          It's based on cost, like anything else. If running everything on solar and batteries makes it cheaper then we'll use more. But the same is true regardless of the technology. What's not true regardless is whether a given amount of energy usage requires continual resource extraction just to sustain it, or whether it's only needed for new capacity.
    • scythe 6mo ago
      It's probably fairly high, considering the existence of the sodium-sulfur battery. It's not economically competitive since it operates at high temperature, but it's based on very abundant materials.
      • ghighi7878 6mo ago
        What about salt water batteries? Seem almost commodity
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  • ethagnawl 6mo ago
    > And then we’ll have a recycling loop to minimize future resource extraction. This is something the (willfully?) deluded really don't appreciate. I know people who listened to _that one Joe Rogan podcast_ about precious metal extraction for EVs and are back on the oil bandwagon. The current regime of precious metal extraction is absolutely dirty and dangerous but ... it doesn't have to be and won't be forever -- especially if, as you've said, we actively prioritize a recycling loop for the components.
  • deleted 6mo ago
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  • baranul 6mo ago
    What is really strange, at this period of history, how anyone would not think that solar makes more sense for focus and investment. Well, unless directly being paid not to use sense or care about the future of humanity, by various oil companies.
• kogasa240p 6mo ago
  Damn I didn't know it was that bad. Ideally you'd grow algae from sewer waste and make fuel from that, but this is the US we're talking about.
  • gus_massa 6mo ago
    Algae needs solar light, so you will have to flood a lot of land to get enough. Also, in case of a war or blockade you can switch the corn use from etanol to food. You will have to eat tortilla and polenta for a year [1] but it's better than algae from seawater or famine. Here we use sugar cane to produce etanol, it's more efficient because it's a C4 plant. I guess it's possible in the south of the US. [1] It's not so bad in my opinion if you can mix some meat in the sauce.
    • pixl97 6mo ago
      >you can switch the corn use from etanol to food Not that easily. Yellow dent corn is not edible without processing. So to switch that to food use you have to have factories to deal with it. You'd be far better off taking the energy from panels and using it greenhouses to get human feed.
      • gus_massa 6mo ago
        Yellow corn is very popular here in Argentina. Things I ate this or last week: * Home made popcorn: made from whole yellow corn grains. * Corn on the cob: Sweet yellow corn. We just learned that you can microwave them for 6 minutes instead of boiling. * Polenta: Grinded yellow corn. Add milk, butter and as much cheese as possible. You can buy the precooked grinded corn, and it takes less than 5 minutes. Bonus points for a sauce with tomato, onion, peppers, and red chorizo. [1] * Humita/Tamales: Put some grinded corn wrapped inside the corn husk and boil it. I had not eat them since a long time ago, but they use also yellow corn here. I like it, but it requires a lot of preparation. We use white corn only for food related to our two independence day: * Locro: Mix split white hard corn, beans, pumpkin pieces, potatoes, pieces of meat with bone and whatever you can find. Boil it for hours and hours and hours. I probably eat it once or twice a year. [2] * Mazamorra (porridge?): Mix split white hard corn with sugar and probably milk. Boil it until it's soft, that may take a very long time. I think I eat it once or twice in my life, for some patriotic celebration. [1] https://www.paulinacocina.net/como-hacer-polenta-con-tuco/25872 https://www.paulinacocina.net/como-hacer-polenta-con-tuco/25... [2] https://www.paulinacocina.net/receta-de-locro-argentino/9829 https://www.paulinacocina.net/receta-de-locro-argentino/9829 PS: As a rule of thumb, if you want to cook Argentinean food, just look at the site of "Paulina Cocina". She has simple but tasty recipes.
• balderdash 6mo ago
  I’d rather people went rooftop solar, and put that land to producing food.
  • mbesto 6mo ago
    We already produce enough food. Rooftop solar by definition is an inefficient use of resources.
  • davyAdewoyin 6mo ago
    It's a common mistake to believe there isn't enough land to grow food, and that is simply false. We throw tons and tons of food away every year due to spoilage and other factors. Even in many parts of Africa scarcity of food is caused by waste and distribution problem than simply lack of arable land. And when you think about the millions of lands used to grow bioethanol I think we can safely convert that for solar installation without worries.Agrovoltaic is also a practical approach for a lot of crops and farmers so that we can grow and produce electricity side by side.
  • torpfactory 6mo ago
    That land is producing food for cars. If we covered half in solar panels we’d have almost enough energy to power the country. Turn the other half over to food production and you’d come out ahead on both energy and food.
  • notTooFarGone 6mo ago
    Do you know how much land there is that is simply not worth farming on? There are deserts everywhere.
  • idiotsecant 6mo ago
    A roof is quite literally the worst place to put solar panels. Its a load most roofs are not designed for, and the whole point of a roof is to keep water out, which is compromised by attaching stuff to it. The most efficient way to do large scale solar is with semi-local utility scale arrays with ultra efficient inverters and enormous chemical or hydro storage. We have a lot of unused land, that's not a problem
  • 6mo ago
• FEELmyAGI 6mo ago
  What does the 1% of land used to grow corn have to do specifically with solar and batteries? Solar doesn't need to be on the 15% arable land at all. The corn doesn't just produce ethanol, which just utilizes the starch/sugar. The protein, fat, fiber is eaten by livestock in some form like distillers grains. And governments like to have food security , and having secondary uses for an abundance of food in the good times is more convenient than storing cheese in caves , and in case of an emergency shortage the production is already there without having to rip up solar panels to grow food. My conclusion is you're conflating issues (solar and ethanol) unnecessarily.
  • jacquesm 6mo ago
    My conclusion is that you didn't even try to understand the GP.
    • conorcleary 6mo ago
      No no, that argument is pretty old now. The amount of fuel you GROW on your own continent at any single or double digit percentage during wartime-anytime is probably a good long-term research project that shouldn't be interrupted by people online.
      • laurencerowe 6mo ago
        The problem is corn requires a lot of fossil fuel energy input, mostly in the form of fertiliser. The net energy output is only around 1.3 so an acre of corn produces maybe 400 gallons of gasoline equivalent output requires 300 gallons of gasoline equivalent in energy inputs. Ethanol from sugarcane makes a lot more sense. Corn ethanol is just a wasteful subsidy for farmers paid for by drivers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance
        • asdff 6mo ago
          >The net energy output is only around 1.3 so an acre of corn produces maybe 400 gallons of gasoline equivalent output requires 300 gallons of gasoline equivalent in energy inputs. What is the problem, that sounds great? 30% free output out of your input is staggering honestly. Thank you sunshine and atmospheric CO2. You don't have to use fossil fuel for this. You can potentially run the farm equipment off ethanol if it were designed as such. You can also only grow sugarcane well up to usda zone 8. Some people can do it as an annual but I guess it is tricky. Corn you can grow all the way into Canada.
• amusingimpala75 6mo ago
  Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding was that ethanol in gasoline was a result laws enacted due to corn farmers (or their state reps) lobbying for subsidies, not any intrinsic part of gasoline production
• asdff 6mo ago
  Kinda funny how we invented a carbon neutral fuel system but we are like "lets only use it as a 15% mix" vs trying to design new engines for pure ethanol. You could fuel your car with hooch you made from yard waste.
  • WillAdams 6mo ago
    But is it carbon neutral? How much energy in terms of calories does one get per acre? What is the equivalent energy input in terms of diesel and so forth?
    • asdff 6mo ago
      Why would you use diesel as input when you are making fuel? Just use part of the fuel you are making as input for the next crop.
      • WillAdams 6mo ago
        We will have to see if Deere's new tractor which runs on E98 actually makes it to market. The blunt question is: >How many calories of energy to grow 1 calorie of corn (using modern industrial farming practices)
        • asdff 6mo ago
          Another commenter said this ratio is 1.3 in favor of output.
          • WillAdams 6mo ago
            Interesting --- does that also include considerations such as oil for lubrication and fertilizer sourcing?
            • asdff 6mo ago
              Not sure. But not everyone uses fertilizer. No till is being more widely appreciated, getting nitrogen in the soil using cover crops that fix it from the atmosphere. Probably everything uses oil for lube including any alternative energy. Teslas still need greasing after all. They still have bearings and other moving parts.
• deleted 6mo ago
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• wakawaka28 6mo ago
  The corn is good for multiple purposes. In a pinch, you can eat it. Can't eat electrons. The panels are not recyclable either.