Maybe so there is really no way to tell.
The real question is how many people you are willing to sacrifice for this. How many cities are you willing to burn down?
Nah that's not the right question. Talking like that makes you sound like a federal agent trying to entrap people. A better question might be who and what stands in the way of helping the people and how can we address those problems? But that is far less attention grabbing and harder to answer.
I mean Canada still has the British royalty if that's their kink. Not sure how it would help but I ain't gonna kink shame.
I'm not ignoring the monocrop and other environmental issues, I am instead focusing on the biggest cause of climate change, the burning of fossil fuels and the associated warming from it. Yes, monocrops and destruction of native habitats are an issue, but I can't do anything about that. I am not cutting down rainforest or logging natural forestland or burning prairieland.
We can’t quantify bioethanol as being better than x times better than fossil fuels because we can’t quantify exactly how fucked we are if we don’t stop practicing large scale agriculture in this destructive fashion.
I think both can be quantified to some extent. Maybe not perfectly, but well enough to figure out which is better overall. We can certainly quantify the impacts of already existing production processes like corn bioethanol, sugarcane bioethanol, and gasoline using GHG life cycle analyses. I didn't mean to say that bioethanol is always better than fossil fuel, I am sure there are some plants and production practices that could make it worse somewhere. But in the context of US corn bioethanol as produced today, it emits less greenhouse gases than gasoline per mile driven. See the links I already posted.
I would also guess that at Earth's current population and consumption levels that we need some large scale ag to ensure people don't starve (more than they already are). We can try to adapt it somewhat but it needs to be done carefully to ensure we don't cause more harm. This has happened historically in other countries when they tried to radically change their food production processes and could happen again.
Large-scale ag is harmful especially when huge amounts of natural forestry and habitats are destroyed for crops, but it is a somewhat lesser cause than the fuels being burned and their CO2. Burning fossil fuels is responsible for something like 70%+ of emissions related to climate change.
I don't own two cars, I don't really drive anywhere even. Public transit is not feasible where I am due to low population density. But when I do drive, I can fuel up with a cleaner fuel (as can anyone else in the country). Different circumstances call for different solutions, so please don't be so quick to assume that there is one universal best solution.
I request gold. Thank you for your attention to this matter. /s
Time to check out a history book or two. With that attitude, US would still be a colony of Britain. Or the US would've won in Vietnam instead of getting kicked out by the locals. Granted, it is a bit different without an ocean in between, but it could still happen. Or we could break up like what happened to the USSR.
Ok, here is a study that does factor land use change and transportation, and it is still about a 50% percent reduction. Corn ethanol emits 46% less greenhouse gases than gasoline. The land use changes referenced in the paper you linked seem a lot higher than most other sources I have seen. It makes me question whether they are calculating it accurately. I am no expert on how they should be calculated, but why is there a 30-40g co2 per MJ fuel produced difference in between the different studies? The figures I see in other studies are around ~5g co2 per MJ fuel not 38g.
Ok, I can see how factoring in (or not) land use changes could make a big difference in the numbers. I would however, attribute the cause of that to the poor policy put in place by the governmental bodies not an inherit factor of biofuel production. The subsidies put in place to encourage corn production in particular are unfair and could be the factor leading to those land use changes. I can see how policies boosting the price and lowering the risk of planting corn would lead to land being moved from somewhat natural prarieland or forest to cropland. I might take a more in depth look at both the studies later to compare them.
Sure, they are biased but that doesn't mean the numbers are wrong or misleading. There are other sources that report similar numbers. It makes sense that ethanol producers would have the most accurate data on energy used and energy produced. Kinda like how a baker is gonna know much they bake or a retailer how much they sell. Unless you have a specific criticism with their data, attacking the source is just an ad hominem. EVs are generally better sure (at least with a clean energy source), but clean fuel is better than dirty fossil fuel.
people claim there isn’t enough land for solar panels
Meanwhile, in China.
Also the portion of the corn not converted into ethanol energy is still used as food for livestock, it is called Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles (DDGS) and is a byproduct of the ethanol production which is mostly used as animal feed.
The process is a net negative of energy
This is misleading, as negative energy balance numbers are oil propaganda at worst, or very outdated at best. The current energy balance is about 3x (clean carbon neutral) energy return on (fossil) energy invested. Source. So per 1 gallon of gas invested, the equivalent energy of 3 gallons of gas is produced in ethanol form.
Ethanol is better for the environment than the gasoline alternative and spreading outdated and misleading numbers about the energy cost to produce it plays right into the propaganda of climate denialism pushed by oil producers.
There are certainly better crops than corn that could be used for ethanol fuel production, but let's not put down imperfect solutions.
With a king, yes it's power play for sure.