Comment by dylan604
6 hours ago
To what scale though? Doubtful it's going to be enough for a replacement. Just as GP stated, the corn grown for ethanol is nothing more than an additive and it is quite easy to find fuel without it. It's a boondoggle and not any where close to being a fossil fuel replacement
Isn't that simply a matter of cost? It's pretty difficult to complete with pulling an energy dense material out of the ground.
If we were to globally tax oil extraction proportional to the actual cost of equivalent carbon capture I imagine biofuels would begin to look quite reasonable.
That said it seems to me that tying the energy and food supply together economically in such a direct manner is likely to have some deleterious effects on poor countries.
Oil has its own infrastructure. That infrastructure is producing things for airplanes almost as a byproduct. Both of the oil we pump from the ground goes to cars. If cars switch from using oil, that's going to raise the cost for everything else to get the oil they need because they have to pay for the full refinery output. Or in this case if airplanes quit using kerosene for jet fuel that is going to slightly raise the price of refined oil for everyone because the refineries don't have that one small extra part of their income sheet to help pay for the fixed cost of having a refinery. The whole system needs to work together, of course. If only airplanes get off, the difference is merely insignificant. However, if cars and airplanes both get off using oil, suddenly the other uses of oil become unfeasible.