On: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than...

[ch4s3]

Not to mention all of the fuel used to move around the fertilizer, tractors, finished corn, the energy used to grid/heat/ferment/distill into ethanol, and then to truck around the ethanol. It's actually almost hilariously indirect and inefficient when you think about it.

[mdp2021 → ch4s3]

Well all the final products (contextually, material fuels or just energy) have a production history: to call one of them inefficient you need to compare production processes. Diesel fuel does not come ready from "diesel springs".

[ttyprintk → mdp2021]

I’d like to see a comparison where the quantity of natural gas burned to fix nitrogen is instead converted to ethanol, using the Saudis process.

The bone of contention among researchers seems to be: whether the inclusion of biomass in its production has any discernible benefit.

[ch4s3 → mdp2021]

What I mean is that to turn fuel into fuel with corn as an intermediary is inherently inefficient vs using the original diesel or gasoline directly.