The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is offering grants of almost $5 million to expand access to ethanol blends at gas pumps. But experts say the environmental and economic tradeoffs of ethanol aren’t worth the investment.

“Ultimately, we want to use less fuel, not more, and so we should be looking at increasing vehicle efficiency more,” he said. “We should be looking at public transportation options.”

The article doesn’t get into it much, but an acre of solar panels provides a lot more vehicle-miles than an acre of corn turned into ethanol.

  • Kjell@lemmy.world
    6·
    8 days ago

    I can’t comment on the vehicle-miles per acre but solar panels in Minnesota should produce plenty of energy from March-April until September-October. Many Germans have solar panels and Minnesota is south of Germany which means they have even more sun.