| ▲ | WillAdams 3 hours ago |
| We will have to see if Deere's new tractor which runs on E98 actually makes it to market. The blunt question is: >How many calories of energy to grow 1 calorie of corn (using modern industrial farming practices) |
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| ▲ | asdff 3 hours ago | parent [-] |
| Another commenter said this ratio is 1.3 in favor of output. |
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| ▲ | WillAdams an hour ago | parent [-] | | Interesting --- does that also include considerations such as oil for lubrication and fertilizer sourcing? | | |
| ▲ | asdff 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Not sure. But not everyone uses fertilizer. No till is being more widely appreciated, getting nitrogen in the soil using cover crops that fix it from the atmosphere. Probably everything uses oil for lube including any alternative energy. Teslas still need greasing after all. They still have bearings and other moving parts. | | |
| ▲ | WillAdams 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Some crops can require as much as 10 calories of petrochemical energy to get 1 calorie of food energy when one takes such things into account --- corn (well, maize) is quite calorie dense/efficient in terms of land and other usages --- I'd be curious to see a full, comprehensive crunching of the values involved. |
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