Re:A palm oil alternative could help save rainforests
by mrob on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @05:45AM
(#25429000)
A substantial part of the global sugarcane crop is used to make ethanol for fuel. The world's biggest producer, Brazil, uses the majority of its crop for ethanol. (65% as of 2019, the most recent number I could find [0]).
Wikipedia's "Sugarcane" article quotes a 2005 source to claim "solar energy-to-ethanol conversion efficiency is 0.13%". It might be slightly better now, but it's not going to match the 20% or more of a modern photovoltaic system, which could be used to power electric vehicles instead (an ideal use of solar energy, because electric vehicles need batteries anyway so there's no base load problem).
Wikipedia's "Sugarcane" article quotes a 2005 source to claim "solar energy-to-ethanol conversion efficiency is 0.13%". It might be slightly better now, but it's not going to match the 20% or more of a modern photovoltaic system, which could be used to power electric vehicles instead (an ideal use of solar energy, because electric vehicles need batteries anyway so there's no base load problem).
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/cofco-sugar-ethanol/cofco-ex...