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Obvious choice
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this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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Also in the US we grow massive amounts of corn to be processed into ethanol for gasoline, less than 5% of that land converted to solar would make the same amount of energy that all the ethanol from the corn produces. And if slightly less than half the land used for corn for ethanol was used for solar, the US would be at net zero carbon production.
And it's not like ethanol is some byproduct that still allows that corn to be used for food or something else. Nope, we're wasting all that land exclusively to burn up in our cars.
It's crazy because ethenol COULD be just a byproduct from food production. Talking to farmers about a decade ago that what they were aiming for. Basically a step before just tilling it or burning it back into the field if it was misshappen (consumers don't buy ugly veggies) or worse infested/rotting.
The subsidy structure messed that up apparently. The subsidized crop insurance made it not worth it, plus the ethanol subsidies required dedicated fields.
I 100% would rather see solar over dedicated ethanol fields and all of the water usage and pollution they represent.