To layer on the irony, the more prominent opponents of the solar project were using the "protection of prime farmland" as the reason to stop solar. They themselves are real estate agents, selling most of their homes on [drumroll please] prime farmland converted to ranchettes/subdivisions LOL

This issue got complicated in a county-level zoning decision about whether to allow a farmer to host utility-solar on their property. Nextdoor "farmers" were aghast at the proposal, saying it'd ruin their farm! (but they were mostly 15-ac hobby farmers selling excess hay, not production growers).

Thank you for making this open access!!
Here's an 2022 CoA Idaho example of how the "farm" definition is distorting reality:

Farms with sales of $1,000 or less are ~30% of all farms but represent <0.1% of all ag sales
Farms with sales of >$1,000,000 are 6% of all farms but 88% of all ag sales

Can you add some European cities? I wonder bc this exponential decay curve-shape is somewhat expected when a city runs out of easily developable space, unless you build up.

Honest Q: I assume the # of projects subject to NEPA are overwhelmingly forest thinning/prescribed burning via USFS/NPS, renewables/Tx via BLM, offshore wind via NOAA, hydro via ACE; there will definitely be oil/gas/mining in AK/Gulf, but aren't those tiny relative to overall emissions math?

Gotcha - sorry for the confusion

See explanation of this issue in the thread (tldr the CA LCFS had dairy CH4 at -790, now it’s -51 gCOEe/MJ): bsky.app/profile/ghgp...

I got so curious about that photo, I had to dig deeper. Those are definitely anaerobic digesters, with turbine string in-between them, solar to the west, an airport landing strip, a couple mines and a Smithfield slaughterhouse just outside Milford. That's a lot happening in a small place!

totally agree

I can find the corresponding text in the IEA report for the PV/LNG/Coal numbers on pg 21.

However, I have not been able to track down the EV/Oil numbers in the report. I'm suspect Willis did some unit conversion from GJ of oil to GW of electricity, it's just not obvious to find

Well, the data comes from the IEA 2024 energy perspectives report, but the figure is a bit of a Mr. Potato Head.

The solar/LNG/coal img is via x.com/CleanPowerDa...

But the addition of EV + oil is via x.com/ProfRayWills...

However, neither are re-produced in the any IEA reports AFIK

This is helpful. Can you link to the report where you found this?

Also see two PNAS pubs from 2022 about corn-derived ethanol specifically

Lark et al., "the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the [renewable fuel standard] is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher."
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

From 2018 specific to school busses but it's a good starting point (kg CO2e/mile):
Electric 1.078
CH4 gas 2.364
Diesel-hybrid 2.212

As other commenters suggest, biofuels that use corn/soy as feedstocks severely underestimate land use & water use impacts.
blog.ucsusa.org/jimmy-odea/e...

also wild that california's lcfs is helping to finance dairy digesters in idaho

bc carb did some wacky carbon intensity math, the dairy producers are getting more $$ from poop than the milk the cows make. now the incentive is more cows = more ch4, despite digesters only capturing <1/3 of the ch4

i got my whole phd researching nature based solutions (especially soils as a carbon sequestration opportunity). the reality is it's not scalable and definitely not durable.

however, here's a battery-powered airplane newatlas.com/aircraft/hea...

Honest question, would the bio-based ethanol industry survive if the demand was *only* from hard to decarb uses? (assuming a magic wand to implement that use restriction)

Old napkin math suggests US light duty vehicles ~50% of transportation energy use.
www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

finally, hefty's landing page about the program that their 2020 & 2022 lifecycle analyses (www.hefty.com/products/hef...), and of course their pyrolysis + circularity white paper (www.hefty.com/sites/defaul...)

since 2018, the entire program only diverted 2,600 tons of plastic

by the end of 2024 the program will be available to over 2.3 million households across the us

boise has the highest household participation of any city in the country
www.boisestatepublicradio.org/show/idaho-m...

awesome reporting & figures to illustrate the mass balance concept

hefty & dow chemical are partnering w/ cities to collect "hard to recycle" plastics (www.cityofboise.org/departments/...) & creating plastic blocks for park benches/walls (corporate.dow.com/en-us/news/p...) that are "sustainable" 🫠