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The Problem with Biofuels

Real Engineering · 2.1M views · 2021-06-05 · 15:01

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Overview

Real Engineering explains why biofuels, especially corn ethanol, are a poor energy source, looking at energy inputs, efficiency and carbon cost.

On Hacker News

Linked in fuel and aviation threads as the full story on why ethanol and biofuels are energy-negative or inefficient.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2021–2023

Topics

Renewables, batteries & storageEnvironment, agriculture & food systemsClimate policy, solutions & debate
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biofuelsethanolenergycarbonengineering

What people said

lathiat · 2021-07 · Strong recommendation

This video was crazy, making ethanol from Corn provides something like 1% of the power of the sun hitting the square meter of farm used for it. Meanwhile using tonnes of water, space, and other things. It's basically a terrible idea over-all given alternatives like electricity and solar power. And it mostly only works because its government subsidised. But watch the video for the full story: Real Engineering - Why Biofuels Are Terrible [VIDEO]

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dharmab · 2021-07 · Recommendation

The energy put into the process to grow and ferment the plants or algae is high enough to outweigh the offset use of fossil fuels. It's an energy negative process. The same creator has a 15 minute video on that topic: [VIDEO]

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Lord-Jobo · 2023-11 · Reference

I think this may be wise given the rapid pace of development that batteries are still undergoing. Pretty hard to create a design around a battery when you dont even know what chemistry you are working with. And there is a bit of a revolution happening with lower carbon fuels, even though it sucks compared to pure electric, and it still has a lot of work to make sense( [VIDEO] ). I was under the impression though that this was a potentially good area for hydrogen fuel? can anyone confirm? Edit: the more directly relevant source [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Real Engineering, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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