A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solution
Renewable Fuels Are Bad
It’s not exactly news that the American government’s support for biofuels increases food prices, intensifies global hunger and wastes taxpayer dollars. But I think it’s important to tell the whole story, so I have a new piece in the New York Times pointing out that biofuels are also a catastrophe for the climate and the environment.
What can I say: They’re bad. And if you’ve been reading my stuff lately, you’ve probably already guessed that they’re bad because they use too much land. People are starting to complain that solar farms use too much land, but an acre of solar panels generates as much energy as 100 acres of corn grown for ethanol. And since electric vehicles are three times as efficient as gasoline cars at converting energy into mobility, that acre of solar will get you 300 times as far as an acre of fuel crops.
I’m obsessed with the global land crunch, because by 2050 the world is going to need to produce way more food with significantly less land. Biofuels are a fake solution to the fossil fuel problem that can make that food and land problem much harder to solve. The world now uses a land mass larger than California to grow less than 4 percent of our transportation fuel. We need that land to grow food or store carbon instead. Land is really good at growing food and storing carbon, but it sucks at growing energy—and fortunately, we have better ways to grow energy.