How so? Meat already has a much higher carbon footprint so what part of the plant based product would make it so much higher?
It's like with corn based ethanol fuels. Yes, we can turn corn into fuel. Yes, it takes more fuel to burn than we get out of the process.
A new University of Oxford study adds to the growing body of evidence that plant-based foods, even the processed ones, are better for the planet than meat, especially beef and lamb.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2120584119
Estimating the environmental impacts of 57,000 food products
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/07/plant-ba...
Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds
https://css.umich.edu/publications/research-publications/bey...
Beyond Meat's Beyond Burger Life Cycle Assessment: A detailed comparison between a plant-based and an animal-based protein source
the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy, has >99% less impact on water scarcity and 93% less impact on land use than a ¼ pound of U.S. beef
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local ... Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.
What's your source for this claim about ethanol fuels? You can get pure ethanol at any pump in Brazil, it's widely used, and it's even 10% in gasoline. You sure they are losing money on that?
It's the same for the sugar cane based ethanol made in other countries.
The study on corn ethanol looks so-so, however it's only one study and has a lot of disclaimers about possible problems in methodology. They claim the difference could be as low as zero and as high as 24%. They also are quite strong in saying biofuels must be a part of managing carbon. Just that we need something more efficient than corn. And some scientists have already found problems with the study.[1]
As far as the numbers being the same for sugar cane, that's completely wrong. It produces close to double the fuel.
[1] https://growthenergy.org/2022/05/25/doe-scientists-release-c...