I'm not sure that the market would sort this out. People in the first world already pay more to fill up their car than people in the third world spend on food. And biodiversity often isn't given a monetary value at all (although there are people working on valuing ecosystem services). Subsidies aren't helping, but the underlying problem is that we want and are able to use more than our 'share' of resources.
That isn't what the article is about. He is talking about the energy efficiency of capturing solar power via photosynthesis. From the perspective of this article, growing crops for food is just as inefficient.
If acquiring solar energy through biofuels is less efficient than through photoelectric cells or other means then the market will definitely sort this out (though would not directly account for externalities such as carbon pollution).
That makes more sense. But we still pay a premium for energy in a high-density, liquid form that we can pump into vehicles. Of course, that's changing as battery technology improves.
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I'm not sure that the market would sort this out. People in the first world already pay more to fill up their car than people in the third world spend on food. And biodiversity often isn't given a monetary value at all (although there are people working on valuing ecosystem services). Subsidies aren't helping, but the underlying problem is that we want and are able to use more than our 'share' of resources.
That isn't what the article is about. He is talking about the energy efficiency of capturing solar power via photosynthesis. From the perspective of this article, growing crops for food is just as inefficient.
If acquiring solar energy through biofuels is less efficient than through photoelectric cells or other means then the market will definitely sort this out (though would not directly account for externalities such as carbon pollution).
That makes more sense. But we still pay a premium for energy in a high-density, liquid form that we can pump into vehicles. Of course, that's changing as battery technology improves.