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Roadkill_Bingo t1_j8145pm wrote

Off topic but if the implementation of ethanol in the US was really about climate change, we’d import sugar cane from Brazil instead of subsidizing corn. Way more efficient in terms of caloric yields.

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doubledippedchipp t1_j82fwhx wrote

I’m convinced corn is a massive scam

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Coloradostoneman t1_j82rsn1 wrote

Corn is actually an amazing plant in terms of calories per acre and per gallon of water. It is a C4 plant and Midwest corn burst is the most intense bit of photosynthesis anywhere on the planet per day.

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Roadkill_Bingo t1_j82xdgd wrote

But think about what ethanol production is. It’s distillation. Turn sugar into alcohol, easy. Well grains are seeds, so by their nature they’re starchy, so you have to convert them into simpler sugars first before you ferment. Not even considering the differences in yield (of which corn is inferior to sugarcane), the production costs are much lower for sugarcane ethanol. Thinking globally, it just doesn’t make sense using that valuable Midwest US land to grow corn for ethanol knowing you can import it from the tropics.

But indeed, no arguments here. Corn is an amazing plant with an absurd number of uses.

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Coloradostoneman t1_j84ibnp wrote

My degree is in cellular and molecular biology. I do understand fermentation and related fields pretty well. Do you understand global economics? If we stop using corn for ethanol and ship it to places that might be willing to eat it, it will be so cheep that it will harm their local farmers tremendously ultimately making those places less food secure.

What else should we do with the corn?

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Roadkill_Bingo t1_j84lfpb wrote

The point you raise is an important one. There’s no one way to do globalized trade without collateral damage. Specialized production has huge weaknesses in practice - just look at juggernaut oil producer Russia - it’s risky. The solution is not relying on Brazil for world ethanol production either.

My original critique was just pointing out the false narrative we’re given about ethanol production in the US. It’s marginally carbon negative and there are more productive ways to use the land in terms of climate change and/or human well-being. Food or grassland restoration, for instance.

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Coloradostoneman t1_j84w7bt wrote

That is a much more nuanced response then just "we are wasting food". The world is not short on food. It might be short on sustainably produced food. It might be short on food in the places it is most needed. but it is not short on food.

Ethanol, as a fuel, is not carbon negative. Corn based ethanol is not even particularly better than say natural gas given the fertilizer input.

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40for60 t1_j8cbzzn wrote

The US has been able to over produce its food needs since the 1940's this is why we started the Food for Peace program now called USAID and corn based ethanol, both ideas came from Minnesota.

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Im_A_Parrot t1_j82ifjr wrote

The big corn cob pipe manufacturers have bamboozled us for decades.

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SillyFlyGuy t1_j82jjqq wrote

It's about assuring our food supply.

Half of the corn we grow goes into our cars. Meaning we grow twice as much as we need. We have all the manpower, equipment, and logistics to double food output instantly. No ramp up or lead time needed, just stop burning the corn already harvested.

That gives us a nice cushion in case something truly catastrophic happens. Gives us time to find a solution, if there's a solution to find.

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Coloradostoneman t1_j82ruqh wrote

Do we need twice as much food?

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sifterandrake t1_j82ztja wrote

Yes!

You. Do. Not. Fuck. Around. With. Famine.

It's just simply that devastating to country.

Having a secure food supply in case of a multitude of disasters is probably the single most important aspect to national security.

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Coloradostoneman t1_j84gys6 wrote

But we don't have a famine right now. And you can't store corn for ever.

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40for60 t1_j8cbnza wrote

Its about keeping the farm industry stable.

https://ethanolproducer.com/articles/3855/building-the-minnesota-model

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Coloradostoneman t1_j8dh8t2 wrote

I know that. Having a stable farm sector is a pretty good hedge against famine. Much better than trying to store an infinite amount of corn.

Look, I don't like corn ethanol as a fuel. But the idea that it is causing people to starve is just absurd.

It can probably be stated accurately that a smaller percentage of humanity is calorie deprived today than at any point in history.

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markpreston54 t1_j834lh2 wrote

Maybe not double, but when it comes to food you better be safe than sorry

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Coloradostoneman t1_j84hkoy wrote

Not sure if you have noticed, but we have a much bigger problem with obesity than hunger right now. We don't have enough storage capacity to reduce the consumption of corn by ethanol massively.

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markpreston54 t1_j84kg35 wrote

If you somehow feel that obesity is even close to the problem of hunger is the very evidence that the food policy US had is quite successful.

Frankly speaking obesity may take several years off your life, but starvation takes all of them.

Besides, obesity is a life choice and one can very well just not eat and throwaway any leftover. We can't do that if we don't have the food in the first place.

One thing that contributed the high obesity rate is high food cost of healthy food, so there are arguments to be made to expand the growing of the healthy food, maybe corn land should be spared for the healthier vegetables, but this is not argument for not growing excess food at all

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Coloradostoneman t1_j84wno1 wrote

PgYes, it is better to be fat than to starve, but nobody is starving because Midwest corn is made into ethanol. People are hungry because of distribution problems.

Midwest corn also doesn't change the cost of healthy food anywhere.

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19wolf t1_j8311xp wrote

So when famine hits do we just eat more corn? What good is doubling our available corn for food if we're not doubling any other ingredients?

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Scented-Sound t1_j83g4p2 wrote

Here is, fortunately, someone who's never been in danger of not having food.

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40for60 t1_j8cbsxi wrote

No we would switch the land to wheat. Corn saved farmers in the 70's and helped reduce the reliance on OPEC oil.

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imgrandojjo t1_j82i9jo wrote

We make too much of our own sugar for that. Sugarcane and sugarbeet combined we're the world's largest sugar manufacturer.

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V8O t1_j83gz5j wrote

You can't import sugar cane, it can't be stored for long before processing.

You could import ethanol made from sugar cane, but Brazil's entire production capacity is less than 2/3rds of US ethanol consumption.

And of course Brazil is already using this sugar cane and these factories to make ethanol for its own car fleet... Ethanol amounts to like 30-40% of all fuel used in gasoline engines in Brazil (which is like the world's 5th or 6th largest gasoline market).

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Roadkill_Bingo t1_j84jpto wrote

The US’s ethanol consumption is only so high because we mandate it as a component in our fuels…again, the corn subsidies. They’re manufacturing a need.

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V8O t1_j861p8j wrote

The need is there because you drive gasoline powered cars (about a third of global gasoline demand is in the US). With that car fleet in place, your only pick is between oil or ethanol...

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latinometrics OP t1_j80q9tw wrote

From our newsletter:

Sugarcane was first introduced to Brazil in 1532. Nearly 500 years later, the country exports over 700M tonnes yearly—roughly the same amount as the continent of Asia, and 7x the amount exported by Africa.

This is a staggering number, not least because Brazil’s population of 216M is far below both continents’ total populations and land area. The country is the world’s largest exporter of sugarcane, producing 40% of the global total in 2020, which contributed $8.95B to its economy.

Cana de açúcar, as it’s locally called, is not native to Brazil and was instead brought to the country by Portuguese settlers. The commodity has a number of distinct uses. It can be drank raw or turned into a special juice, caldo de cana, which is quite popular across the country.

Source: FAO

Tools: Excel, Affinity Designer, Rawgraphs

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inconvenientnews t1_j80th79 wrote

> Portuguese settlers

Who were the workers doing the farming work on sugarcane plantations?

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ve8sn1/african_slave_trade/ ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣

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blankspaceBS t1_j82fhhe wrote

Yeah. Slavery here was mostly to keep the colonial sugar cane industry going. This isn't news to any brazilian. We learn that in elementary school.

It should have been pointed out somewhere in this thread tho

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imgrandojjo t1_j82ihuq wrote

Not just in brazil either, the Caribbean sugar industry more or less copied what Brazil was doing, up to and including the importing of African slaves.

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andreotnemem t1_j8au09t wrote

Yes, it's pretty well established History taught in both Portugal and Brazil. It was also the case allover the world. For at least 5 millenia (off the top of my head) and until fairly recently.

I'm sure everyone knows the banner in Giza: "slavery gets shit done".

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SentorialH1 t1_j81olm2 wrote

What's crazy is that sugar production from 75 has quadruped, yet population only doubled.

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hadukenski t1_j82zkgu wrote

India must be the 2nd largest then with production of 419.25 million tonnes. https://www.chinimandi.com/sugarcane-production-in-2021-22-season-estimated-at-419-25-million-tonnes/

That's a lot of cane sugar in the world.

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V8O t1_j83hpjd wrote

India is indeed 2nd largest in production, and India + Brazil together account for over half of all commercially grown sugar cane on the planet.

India is also the world's largest consumer of sugar, while Brazil (having a much smaller population) is the largest net exporter of sugar (even though half the sugar cane crop there gets turned into ethanol instead of sugar).

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ISBN39393242 t1_j80ttiw wrote

what does “northern america” mean in this? north america? or the northern part of the US (which i don’t think has the climate)?

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inconvenientnews t1_j80u5ui wrote

It's used to mean North America without Mexico, because the definition of the continent of North America includes it

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ISBN39393242 t1_j813zlu wrote

that’s a vague and arbitrary term. why couldn’t it just be interpreted as meaning canada, since north america means canada, us, and mexico, and canada is northernmost of all 3?

imo it’s not an intuitively understood or previously defined term, so it’s a poor label. it would be better to say “US and canada,” or smth. does canada even grow any? if not, why not just say US?

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NotDom26 t1_j81am0r wrote

There is more in north America than those three btw, the Carribbean Islands also had huge sugar plantations if I'm not mistaken.

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ISBN39393242 t1_j81eroi wrote

i agree, which is also why this label is confusing. why just “north of mexico?” are the plantations in caribbean countries not included, even though they are not at all “north of mexico”? i would imagine they contribute significantly to sugar cane output, possibly even more than mexico or the US.

i only mentioned canada and the US because they are the parts of N.A. north of mexico, but it adds to further confusion about the other regions of N.A

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ChurchOfTheHolyGays t1_j82kd8g wrote

Because for just Canada you can just say Canada and it would be weird af to say nothern america for Canada only considering Alaska exists.

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Mushroom_Tip t1_j82yhkj wrote

Just in case some people didn't know this, not all sugar comes form sugarcane. Around half of the sugar in the US comes from sugar beets. So this isn't the supply of sugar in the world but rather just sugarcane alone.

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Phadafi t1_j85j8ob wrote

It's important to mention that a lot of sugarcane in Brazil is used in the production of ethanol which is its main source of car fuel. Even the gasoline used in Brazil is not pure, up to 27% of its volume is ethanol. That is why all cars produced there are flex-fuel.

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Duo_Decimal t1_j8243ua wrote

“In America Brazil, first you get the sugar. Then you get the power. Then you get the women.”

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8L4570FF t1_j82nhu2 wrote

Stop cutting down the rainforest.

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columbinedaydream t1_j837x3x wrote

cash crops and logging, two the biggest causes of deforestation of the Amazon

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carshooter106 t1_j844y8q wrote

Wrong, barely anything gets planted in deforested Amazon. Sugar in particular is planted in the south east region.

The biggest causes of deforestation are logging (so you get partial marks), and cattle ranching, and mining. All of that with a lot of support from 1st world companies

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columbinedaydream t1_j85fmq5 wrote

this is just not true, soy production is one of the leading causes of deforestation. the problem is that the land isnt very good for it, so they log, grow cash crops like soy, and then land gets left barren because they cant grow anything on it after

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/kids/elementary/soy.html

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/795051

like this is one google search away, why am i being downvoted

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Oldfolksboogie t1_j80tgex wrote

Coz f the Amazon, who needs O2, biodiversity, carbon sequestration...

Bolsanaro-approved, he may be gone, but the legacy lives on.

Speaking of, can we jail him now or...?

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Fun-Management-7027 t1_j815w76 wrote

Not trying to protect Bolsonaro from huge problems of his government in Brazil, but sugar cane is not cultivated in areas of the Amazon Forest (northwest), but instead its farms are located on the middle and south of the country. The major products that are produced in deforested areas are soy beans and beef

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thecapent t1_j828u2z wrote

Actually, not even soybeans are produced on Amazonian deforested areas in significant quantities (around 5% of the total yield I think).

Instead, the bulk of soybean production is done on the tropical savanna region of Brazil (the so called "Cerrado").

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtCmnj1XYAAaxyk.jpg

Also, the soil are quite bad in the areas covered by the Amazon forest (kind counter intuitive given the massive forest on top of it, but it is. The soil is too acid for soy and most comercial crops.)

You can see how the map of soybean production yields above correlates with the Cerrado area:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Ecoregion_NT0704.svg/755px-Ecoregion_NT0704.svg.png

The real villains of Amazonian deforestation are:

1 - Wood extraction

2 - Illegal mining (mostly surface gold mining, one of few areas in the world left where gold can be mined manually with low technical knowledge).

3 - Cattle raising, this single one being responsible for 65% of all mapped deforested area.

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Oldfolksboogie t1_j8187o9 wrote

Gotchya, and ty for the more granular breakdown.

Either way, I just know that, like Trump, he's all development, all the time, people and the environment be damned.

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ChurchOfTheHolyGays t1_j82kms5 wrote

Fyi Brazil (slightly larger than contiguous US) is not at all just the Amazon forest.

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Cityplanner1 t1_j81unqx wrote

(Not pictured) Amazon rainforest depletion

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ChurchOfTheHolyGays t1_j82l8ke wrote

Because sugar cane has never been cultivated in the Amazon areas ffs.

Look, the country is larger than the contiguous US, ok? I know y'all learned about the existence of the Amazon over the past few years while western countries struggle to shift their blame for climate change, but Brazil is not and was never covered in all by the forest. There is even an arid region in the country which is about the size of France + Germany together.

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