Sacrificing food for energy

[Mr. Scott]

Just a mile from me is a large field that used to yield corn, soybeans and the like, and is converted into a solar energy farm -- a sea of electricity-generating solar panels. Does this food-for-energy trade-off make sense?

 

[Lowpro]

Is it cost effective?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Yes, it makes sense. You need more renewable energy, you don't need more food.

Obesity in the United States

obesity rates in the United States are the highest in the world with 74.6% of Americans being overweight or obese.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Is it cost effective?

That's a difficult analysis. I'm not sure. Maybe it is only cost effective if solar energy is subsidized, which it very well may be in this case. I'd just rather see them on rooftops, where solar energy is now wasted, than on farmer's fields, where plants would be helping to feed people and reduce CO2.

 

[The Don]

It would make more sense if the field was incapable of growing food and was converted to solar production but these pieces of land are often a long way from places that need energy and people who can maintain the plant.

It may make more sense than turning the corn into ethanol.

 

[Travis]

Is it cost effective?

For first world nations, at present, yes. What worries me more are poor nations with unstable food supplies devoting more and more of their farming space to ethanol production.

 

[The Don]

For first world nations, at present, yes. What worries me more are poor nations with unstable food supplies devoting more and more of their farming space to ethanol production.

In this case it's not ethanol, it's solar.

 

[Dancing David]

Just a mile from me is a large field that used to yield corn, soybeans and the like, and is converted into a solar energy farm -- a sea of electricity-generating solar panels. Does this food-for-energy trade-off make sense?

Yes, the food shortages are a matter of distribution. How much of that food was converted to stock feed?

There is nothing great about corn and soy, the destruction of the woods and pastures was a greater loss of diversity.

 

[Dancing David]

For first world nations, at present, yes. What worries me more are poor nations with unstable food supplies devoting more and more of their farming space to ethanol production.

Money and cash, when the US and others flood their grain markets there is no way farmers can support themselves.

 

[Dancing David]

That's a difficult analysis. I'm not sure. Maybe it is only cost effective if solar energy is subsidized, which it very well may be in this case. I'd just rather see them on rooftops, where solar energy is now wasted, than on farmer's fields, where plants would be helping to feed people and reduce CO2.

Um, yeah, maybe you should find out how much of the CO2 is really locked up before you make that assumption.

 

[excaza]

Yes, it makes sense. You need more renewable energy, you don't need more food.

Obesity in the United States

That doesn't necessarily mean there is too much food. It just means there's too much of the wrong food, and/or the available food is not being distributed properly.

 

[BushRanger]

The relative amount of field that was lost is nothing compared to the amount still farmed. It may have been a field a farmer would have had to put money into putting tile into to get drainage better, it could have been a field they just consistently had such low yeilds, they might have been having to have a lot of custom spreading done to make any money on the field at all that it just made a better business decision for them.

 

[Roboramma]

That doesn't necessarily mean there is too much food. It just means there's too much of the wrong food, and/or the available food is not being distributed properly.

If eating X amount of the wrong food makes a person obese, eating Y*X of the wrong food, for a particular value of Y, will not make the same person obese.

 

[JJM 777]

a large field that used to yield corn, soybeans and the like, and is converted into a solar energy farm
(...)
Does this food-for-energy trade-off make sense?

It doesn't make much sense to cover fertile land with infertile things. There are lots of infertile lands for such infertile purposes.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Maybe it is only cost effective if solar energy is subsidized,

Why is farming subsidized in the US? Would it not be cost-effective if it wasn't subsidized?

Does this food-for-energy trade-off make sense? One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people

Many solar plants are situated on land which is less cost-effective to grow crops on, with or without subsidies.

Solar Power Plants in California

That doesn't necessarily mean there is too much food. It just means there's too much of the wrong food, and/or the available food is not being distributed properly.

The wrong food would be that junk which Americans eat, and not being distributed properly would be selling it to Americans. To avoid obesity, just eat less.

Distribution isn't the main problem anyway. Droughts, wars, ignorance, high birth rates etc. contribute to lack of food in poor countries. You could send all your surplus food to the needy in other countries, and it still wouldn't solve their problems in the long term. But one thing you can do is cut down on CO2 emissions - global warming is only making the situation worse.

 

[theprestige]

It doesn't make much sense to cover fertile land with infertile things. There are lots of infertile lands for such infertile purposes.

That's what you'd think, but I'll bet the farm that almost all of your "infertile" land would be aggressively defended by conservationists and eco-tards of various stripes, against any and all development for whatever purpose.

It actually might be easier to take land that's already developed, and thus way past the point of being conserved or preserved in its "natural" state, and change the nature of its use.

 

[Almo]

Currently, ethanol for transport is teh stupid. You spent a lot of fossil fuels running the tractors and making the fertilizer to do the farming.

 

[Dinwar]

It actually might be easier to take land that's already developed, and thus way past the point of being conserved or preserved in its "natural" state, and change the nature of its use.

Also, keep in mind that the term "fertile" and "infertile", when applied to farm land, is an economic term. If you're planting wheat, importing water into the heart of a desert isn't likely to be profitable, so you'd call the land infertile. For a different crop, maybe it would be--particularly one with a higher profit margin. I know of land in the Mojave Desert that was once considered fertile, but no longer is due to economic reasons.

Does this food-for-energy trade-off make sense? One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people

Well, the real question is whether or not that grain went to feed people to begin with. I know of at least one plant that uses grain that's grown for animal food (like, dog and cat food filler), processes it for ethanol, then sells the processed grain to the dog and cat food companies. Enough nutrition is left over that they can still make pet food out of it. So using that process, ethanol production does precisely nothing to human food supply.

 

[wobs]

It may make more sense than turning the corn into ethanol.

Indeed, corn based ethanol can often have a higher carbon footprint than gasline (petrol).

 

[Dymanic]

Why is farming subsidized in the US? Would it not be cost-effective if it wasn't subsidized?

It gets pretty complicated.

Farming is just barely cost effective even when it is subsidized. Say you have a bumper crop. The market gets flooded, and prices drop. Some farmers are barely able to recover their costs (if at all), so next season they plant even more (because it's all they've got), which leads to a self-perpetuating cycle. Or you have a year or two in which growing conditions are so bad that many farmers go broke and head off to the city to look for work. So the original idea behind farm subsidies was to protect the security of the nation's food supply by providing farmers with some insulation against market instability.

Naturally, once a system like that is in place it's subject to being exploited for a variety of other purposes. When you can produce food so far in excess of what your country's people can consume (however heroic their effort), you can support huge humanitarian programs to feed millions of people across the globe. You can also get other countries to dance to your tune by pouring a river of grain on them. You can do the latter under the guise of the former. You can change the way land is used; you can change patterns of energy consumption; you can change people's eating habits... those subsidies represent a lot of political and economic power, and a particular policy which may look quite reasonable from a particular political and economic vantage point (or from a particular vantage point in time) may look completely foolish from another.

I think the whole issue of government subsidies (of any type) is something that is going to be receiving a lot of increased attention over the next few years.