Maybe so there is really no way to tell.
The real question is how many people you are willing to sacrifice for this. How many cities are you willing to burn down?
Nah that’s not the right question. Talking like that makes you sound like a federal agent trying to entrap people. A better question might be who and what stands in the way of helping the people and how can we address those problems? But that is far less attention grabbing and harder to answer.
I mean Canada still has the British royalty if that’s their kink. Not sure how it would help but I ain’t gonna kink shame.
I’m not ignoring the monocrop and other environmental issues, I am instead focusing on the biggest cause of climate change, the burning of fossil fuels and the associated warming from it. Yes, monocrops and destruction of native habitats are an issue, but I can’t do anything about that. I am not cutting down rainforest or logging natural forestland or burning prairieland.
We can’t quantify bioethanol as being better than x times better than fossil fuels because we can’t quantify exactly how fucked we are if we don’t stop practicing large scale agriculture in this destructive fashion.
I think both can be quantified to some extent. Maybe not perfectly, but well enough to figure out which is better overall. We can certainly quantify the impacts of already existing production processes like corn bioethanol, sugarcane bioethanol, and gasoline using GHG life cycle analyses. I didn’t mean to say that bioethanol is always better than fossil fuel, I am sure there are some plants and production practices that could make it worse somewhere. But in the context of US corn bioethanol as produced today, it emits less greenhouse gases than gasoline per mile driven. See the links I already posted.
I would also guess that at Earth’s current population and consumption levels that we need some large scale ag to ensure people don’t starve (more than they already are). We can try to adapt it somewhat but it needs to be done carefully to ensure we don’t cause more harm. This has happened historically in other countries when they tried to radically change their food production processes and could happen again.
Large-scale ag is harmful especially when huge amounts of natural forestry and habitats are destroyed for crops, but it is a somewhat lesser cause than the fuels being burned and their CO2. Burning fossil fuels is responsible for something like 70%+ of emissions related to climate change.
I don’t own two cars, I don’t really drive anywhere even. Public transit is not feasible where I am due to low population density. But when I do drive, I can fuel up with a cleaner fuel (as can anyone else in the country). Different circumstances call for different solutions, so please don’t be so quick to assume that there is one universal best solution.
I request gold. Thank you for your attention to this matter. /s
Time to check out a history book or two. With that attitude, US would still be a colony of Britain. Or the US would’ve won in Vietnam instead of getting kicked out by the locals. Granted, it is a bit different without an ocean in between, but it could still happen. Or we could break up like what happened to the USSR.
Ok, here is a study that does factor land use change and transportation, and it is still about a 50% percent reduction. Corn ethanol emits 46% less greenhouse gases than gasoline. The land use changes referenced in the paper you linked seem a lot higher than most other sources I have seen. It makes me question whether they are calculating it accurately. I am no expert on how they should be calculated, but why is there a 30-40g co2 per MJ fuel produced difference in between the different studies? The figures I see in other studies are around ~5g co2 per MJ fuel not 38g.
So you would rather burn gasoline than biofuels even though it is worse for the environment? Because that is the alternative for most of existing vehicles on the road. It is better than gasoline, not perfect.
Yes, I agree there are better crops for biofuels than corn and some of subsidies are not well designed and applied.
My argument is that the existing ICE vehicles are still burning fuel and that it is better to burn a cleaner fuel CO2 wise than dirty fossil fuels in them.
Obviously the concept of producing three times more energy than it requires is absurd.
Yes, It’s called solar power, plants naturally convert the sunlight to energy like solar panels just not nearly as efficiently. Also, as I put in the original comment the energy inputs being referenced are fossil energy inputs and the energy output is a lot cleaner because it is produced by the plant from the sun. I don’t get why people seem thoroughly convinced it is a bad thing to grow plants for fuel instead of burning the harmful fossil fuels that we’ve known for decades are the cause of global warming.
The costs are likewise hidden: costs to the planet and costs to future generations.
I think you must be talking about fossil fuels here because it is absurd to fearmonger about growing plants. It is the carbon released by burning fossil fuels that is full of hidden costs in the form of future climate change and a less hospitable earth. Replacing a fossil fuel with a more clean, less polluting fuel source is helping to lessen those costs.
Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good, Corn ethanol emits 46% less greenhouse gases than gasoline.
Ok, I can see how factoring in (or not) land use changes could make a big difference in the numbers. I would however, attribute the cause of that to the poor policy put in place by the governmental bodies not an inherit factor of biofuel production. The subsidies put in place to encourage corn production in particular are unfair and could be the factor leading to those land use changes. I can see how policies boosting the price and lowering the risk of planting corn would lead to land being moved from somewhat natural prarieland or forest to cropland. I might take a more in depth look at both the studies later to compare them.
I wasn’t referring to a specific fuel, I meant per amount of energy used it emits 66% percent less co2 since ethanol production in the US has a ~3x return on fossil fuel investment. I am basing the figure on the same source on the energy return on energy invested balance I used in my other comment in the thread. Here is the source.
It doesn’t matter the mix it is in, since it takes the equivalent of 1 gallon of fossil energy and outputs 3x as much cleanish bioenergy. If it is E10 it would take 10 gallons before 1 gallon of ethanol was used, but that 1 gallon of ethanol would result in a third of the CO2 emissions compared to gasoline fuel.
Sure, they are biased but that doesn’t mean the numbers are wrong or misleading. There are other sources that report similar numbers. It makes sense that ethanol producers would have the most accurate data on energy used and energy produced. Kinda like how a baker is gonna know much they bake or a retailer how much they sell. Unless you have a specific criticism with their data, attacking the source is just an ad hominem. EVs are generally better sure (at least with a clean energy source), but clean fuel is better than dirty fossil fuel.
people claim there isn’t enough land for solar panels
Meanwhile, in China.
How does a 66% reduction in co2 emitted per fuel gallon used barely help? Sure it’s not the perfect ideal solution, but it is better to burn carbon neutral energy to get around than fossil fuels. Electric vehicles powered by renewables like solar would be better, but that won’t happen overnight since that requires replacing millions of vehicles.
Also the portion of the corn not converted into ethanol energy is still used as food for livestock, it is called Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles (DDGS) and is a byproduct of the ethanol production which is mostly used as animal feed.
The process is a net negative of energy
This is misleading, as negative energy balance numbers are oil propaganda at worst, or very outdated at best. The current energy balance is about 3x (clean carbon neutral) energy return on (fossil) energy invested. Source. So per 1 gallon of gas invested, the equivalent energy of 3 gallons of gas is produced in ethanol form.
Ethanol is better for the environment than the gasoline alternative and spreading outdated and misleading numbers about the energy cost to produce it plays right into the propaganda of climate denialism pushed by oil producers.
There are certainly better crops than corn that could be used for ethanol fuel production, but let’s not put down imperfect solutions.
Fox news: Breaking News: wOkE LiBeRaLs are kermitistioning and destroying traditional family values
Wow, Trump is truly a man of the people! I too struggle with finding the right words and delusionally believe everything I make up as the absolute truth too. Just the other day I raised the rent 10,000% on my tenants. Trump is just like me. /s
Why can’t the people we vote for represent us?
Politicians were never meant to represent us (the people). We the people was war propaganda to revolt against the English and their king. They have, since the founding of the US, represented the business owners (landowners). And even after giving women and black people the right to vote, the system still mostly represents the interest of the business owners.
Bug report closed: System works as intended.
For the politicians to actually represent us, we the people would need to have some sort of broad agreement on what we do and do not want. But unfortunately, the people don’t have the needed experience or education to come to that agreement. So instead we get 2 different flavors of politicians serving the owners and none serving the people. Pick your favorite team, but they do not currently represent the people’s interest, instead they represent the business owners’ interests.
As a people, our job is to attempt to bend the politicians and business owners’ to our will using what we currently have at our disposal: our actions and our words. But that still won’t get anywhere without many other people backing up our actions and our words with their actions and words. It won’t be easy, but it is necessary if we want to shape our societies future. If we don’t do it, we get shadowy groups like the heritage foundation doing it for the business owners and pushing it on our leaders.
Also the politicians’ job is largely dependent upon them listening to the demands of the businesses lobbyist as of now. If they don’t follow their wishes they can expect a harder battle to keep their seat. They would get less big campaign donations and stronger primary challengers as a result of their noncompliance. This makes our job harder since it is difficult to get them to understand something when their job and salary depends upon them not understanding it.
Bold of you to assume he’s not already an undercover fed.
As I learned the other day, if it wasn’t for undocumented immigrants paying taxes but not getting benefits, social security would be in a much worse financial situation.
Every working undocumented immigrant detained is one step closer to financial ruin for future grandpas and grandmas. When immigrants work jobs, they pay in, but since they are here illegally, they can’t access the benefits from working. And it sure as heck ain’t cheap to round them up and detain them either. It’s too bad the media and politicians only pretend to care about the cost if the policy is something that actually helps people.
With a king, yes it’s power play for sure.