Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmbche | Hacker News Reader

This video is an interesting look at this whole issue:(Engineering Explained - America Was Wrong About Ethanol) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-yDKeya4SU

Especially his summary, where corn creates 20 percent less GHG than gasoline and ''breaks even'' after 28 years, while switchgrass creates 94% less GHG and breaks even in it's first year.

View on HN

It was never about GHGs, always about subsidizing corn farmers.

And also reducing US reliance on foreign energy. Farmers make 10x the corn that we can eat, why not make renewable, albeit kinda dirty fuel out of it? Still better than importing arabian oil on a supertanker 10,000 miles, right?

At what opportunity and environmental cost? For what we spend, we get increased reliance on subsidized fuel instead of investing in renewables, all while fucking our water quality and destroying fisheries in the gulf. There are much better ways to decrease our reliance on foreign oil - starting with reducing the demand for it through better MPG standards and investing in clean energy and transportation infrastructure.

This.

Switchgrass farmers don't vote enough. The whole ethanol thing was just to prop up corn prices and production during election runs.

And to make things worse, corn farmers are concentrated in Iowa which was one of the first states in the presidential primary. So they had outsized influence over who gets chosen as president and what campaign promises they have to make in order to get elected.

If you want to see a good (fictional but pretty much on the money) depiction of this, check out the episode “King Corn” from season six of The West Wing.

Even then it was blatantly obvious that corn ethanol was all about subsidising corn farmers, but the state’s political importance made it impossible to do anything about.

one of the first? Don't they literally have laws requiring them to have the first presidential primary?

I think it is New Hampshire with the law, but they may not be alone now. Nevada passed a law of their own as I recall.

First caucus, which is like a primary, but worse.

Who do you mean by “they” here? I believe the parties themselves choose when to have their primaries.

States can choose when their primaries happen by law, and the parties can choose when and where their primaries should happen. Entertaining things happen when they differ. The Democratic party cannot force Iowa and New Hampshire to not have their primary and caucus later in the year, but they can threaten not to count their delegates if they go at the wrong time.

The sobering thing is, this is not nearly the dumbest part of the American electoral system.

How is this not a breach of the constitutional protection for the right to freedom of assembly? A caucus, in particular, is literally an assembly. Surely for elections to be free and fair, the private associations who put forth candidates should be able to freely determine who those candidates are.

Not counting the delegates isn't preventing the assembly.

The constitution doesn't ensure free and fair elections, unfortunately, as is demonstrated by the fact that states can pass laws regarding primaries that are mutually inconsistent. States A and B can both pass laws saying they have to have the first primaries in an election.

Going a step further, the constitution doesn't require states to have their citizens vote on the delegates to the electoral college. The state (Legislature) could decide that the Electors are actually always for one party's candidate and that no state wide election is necessary.

> [1] Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

[1]: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1...

> The state (Legislature) could decide that the Electors are actually always for one party's candidate and that no state wide election is necessary.

There is plenty in the constitution and in case law that would apply if a state effectively tried to prevent citizens from exercising the franchise. It's not like the topic has never come up before.

I welcome you to quote from the constitution that applies.

The case law uses the 14th amendment which also does not mention the word voting anywhere so again, strictly looking at the text of the constitution, states do not need to allow their citizens to vote on the president.

The case law is also strictly only focused on can you deny voting to some but never the question of to all.

> [1]: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[1]: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S1-8-6...

There was an attempt to do this at some point in Alabama. I can't find it right now but a group made up a bunch of "Who decides your X? The party or the people?" with hammer & sickle logos on it.

I'm always surprised there aren't troll billboards in the south of "Vote Red for Socialism" overlayed on a Soviet flag.

Yep. And the Democrats are changing the order this year. The plan is South Carolina will be first.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-vote-to-chan...

How practical is it really? They’ve been talking about ethanol from cellulosic biomass since at least the 1970s but progress seems about as fast as fast breeder reactors.

The idea looks sound, but cellulose is hard to break down. If it wasn't bacteria would have figure it out long ago (before the dinosaurs ago)

No, that’s not right. Cellulose decomposition is easy. You are probably thinking about lignin decomposition, which is typically done by fungi, not bacteria.

There's a number of animals called Ruminants that do it regularly no?

They all use bacteria.

... why wouldn't we use those then?

Thanks for that summary, the video doesn't say much more other than repeat these things over and over.

One thing that wasn't clear is why does tilling the land release so much carbon into the atmosphere?

Tilling the soil in conventional farming creates large air pockets which fill up with oxygen, where microbes then turn carbon in the soil into CO2.

Also when you convert forest into farmland and cut down the trees, the root systems of the trees will, over a period of time, decompose. Annual plants have much smaller root systems.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com