When Renewable Is Not Sustainable

This is apparently from a left-wing site, so they can be rational about the environment when they want to be too! Though as I've pointed out in earlier posts, the environmental costs of solar power go way beyond just questions of land use. Ethanol and solar power deplete land and water resources By Robert Glennon It takes 2,500 gallons of water to grow enough corn to refine a single gallon of ethanol. Congress has mandated the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022. Renewable energy is sold to the public as an environmentally benign alternative to energy produced by fossil fuels. With respect to ethanol and solar power, however, the debate has ignored how land and water use is affected by refining ethanol, growing corn and siting solar plants.

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