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0 pointsGibbon11y ago0 comments

I harp on this. Unless I biffed my calcs a solar farm produces 25-50 times as much energy per acre as corn. That alone tells you biofuels is a dead technology.

A solar farm doesn't need to be weeded, ploughed, planted, weeded again, topped, and harvested every year like corn does. You also don't need to ferment it to ethanol then burn it at a 70% loss to power a set of wheels.

Possible also that the vegetation growing between and under the panels sequesters carbon.

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pfdietz1y ago

And the solar farm doesn't transpire quite the enormous quantities of water a field of corn does. So much water goes into the air from a corn field it affects the weather.

I wouldn't say biofuels are a dead technology, but they are niche. They may be useful in a post-fossil fuel age for things that are very difficult to electrify, like long distance air travel and production of organic chemical feedstocks.

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0 pointsGibbon11y ago0 comments

I harp on this. Unless I biffed my calcs a solar farm produces 25-50 times as much energy per acre as corn. That alone tells you biofuels is a dead technology.

Possible also that the vegetation growing between and under the panels sequesters carbon.

0 comments

pfdietz1y ago

And the solar farm doesn't transpire quite the enormous quantities of water a field of corn does. So much water goes into the air from a corn field it affects the weather.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse