But corn is _stored_ energy that can be used at any time. PV is energy ar the current moment. Seems like this 20x loss the cost of storage...
Interesting take though, I'm not saying that growing corn is best way to "produce stored energy", but in your comparison it's almost like direct competition to for PV + batteries of any sort.
Not nearly as energy dense. Useful for some applicatons but liquid chemical fuels deliver more energy when space or weight are factors - despite the inefficiency.
Not that it can't work, but that looks like oil companies trying to kill what we have today with a promise of something better in the future so they can keep selling oil.
EVs make sense for passenger cars, not so much for heavy vehicles. People might still want to be driving classic cars in the future too. Hydrogen for any kind of vehicle looks dead in the water, though green hydrogen looks essential for chemical manufacturing. (Funny, as with carbon capture, some of the best economics are in the oil business; there is a huge hydrodesulfurization plant in Saudia Arabia that lower its Scope I carbon footprint significantly by using hydrogen from PV)
Battery storage looks practical to smooth out diurnal variation in power supply and demand but doesn't look so practical to smooth out seasonal variations, some kind of chemical storage could be the way.
It's not surprising, really. Oil companies know green energy is going to supplant oil eventually, so at the same time they lobby against renewables they're also working to make sure they still have a place in the future energy economy. I'm not saying they aren't doing their share of greenwashing, but they legitimately are doing development in biofuels and hydrogen.
Interesting take though, I'm not saying that growing corn is best way to "produce stored energy", but in your comparison it's almost like direct competition to for PV + batteries of any sort.