Consider the entire economy, though. Let’s not assume that ethanol could ever replace fossil fuels at the scale needed for explosive technological growth. the reason pure ethanol is cheap in the modern world is because we have enormous economies of scale producing the necessary feedstocks which rely on trucks and trains and fertilizers, hell, even the energy used to distill the ethanol is typically from fossil fuel.
It’s about supply-demand. If, tomorrow, there were no gasoline anymore, the price of ethanol would be astronomical.
Note, though, that we are talking about much smaller population—so you could spend quite a lot of land per capita on growing both ethanol source and fuel.
Current size of humankind is clearly unsustainable in this mode, of course.
Careful. Economies of scale for quantity million parts don’t show up until probably the 20th century. Prior to that, the effect of reduced population size might just be reduced variety. Do you have any idea how many manufacturers of engine lathes there were at the end of the 19th century, for instance? (Hint: more than a couple.)
Consider the entire economy, though. Let’s not assume that ethanol could ever replace fossil fuels at the scale needed for explosive technological growth. the reason pure ethanol is cheap in the modern world is because we have enormous economies of scale producing the necessary feedstocks which rely on trucks and trains and fertilizers, hell, even the energy used to distill the ethanol is typically from fossil fuel.
It’s about supply-demand. If, tomorrow, there were no gasoline anymore, the price of ethanol would be astronomical.
Note, though, that we are talking about much smaller population—so you could spend quite a lot of land per capita on growing both ethanol source and fuel.
Current size of humankind is clearly unsustainable in this mode, of course.
With a much smaller population you start losing all sorts of other advantages, especially economies of scale and comparative advantage.
Careful. Economies of scale for quantity million parts don’t show up until probably the 20th century. Prior to that, the effect of reduced population size might just be reduced variety. Do you have any idea how many manufacturers of engine lathes there were at the end of the 19th century, for instance? (Hint: more than a couple.)