Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by subscribed 60 days ago
Technology Connections did the maths.

How much CO2 is released tiling, planting, spraying, sowing, spraying, watering, spraying, harvesting, processing, storing, transporting, processing and finally fossil fuels use in the ethanol production?

That's only CO2, but let's not forget about nitrogen oxide, emitted in the huge quantities due to the use of fertilizers.

And that's without mentioning the pollution with pesticides, killing the wildlife and turning the soil into a dead concrete. Dead soil sequesters no co2.

And that happens/worsens every time with corn, while with solar panels you emit co2 only once during their lifetime.

Watch this TC video, he's much better at the details.

See: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8931354/

and also: https://wisconsinwatch.org/2025/12/corn-clean-energy-ethanol...

1 comments

Very good, but you only did half the work for a reasonable comparison. Now figure up the costs for solar panel production, installation, operation, and disposal, and compare them.
Haha, but you did that already:

> How much CO2 is released producing, shipping, and installing the solar panels?

Or maybe you wanted someone else list all the steps.

I was simply helping you with the part you missed:

> GP is right: you gotta consider all the variables

The fact you seemingly missed the fact that growing and processing corn keeps emitting GHG (not only co2), and that producing, transporting and installing the solar panels costs *once*.

I already mentioned the video that covers this specific relationship and details, the actual costs and benefits of growing corn for ethanol vs generating electricity: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM