[red-beard]

An acre produces 7110 lbs corn -> 328 gallons of Ethanol @ 77,000 BTU per gallon

Gasoline = 125000 BTU's per gallon

We presently use 221,156,237,500 gallons of gasoline per year

So we would need to replace it with 359,019,866,071 gallons of ethanol

To produce the required ethanol, 1,094,572,762 acres would need to be dedicated to this production.

US land area 9,631,418 sq km total


19.13 % arable land

1,842,490.2634 sq km arable

1 square kilometer = 247.105 381 467 acres

455,289,259 acres for agriculture available

So we have 1/2 the land we need to be self sufficient with ethanol, and this would require turning over _any_ land usable for agriculture to the purpose of fuel production including forests, state parks, areas for houses, San Francisco, New Jersey, etc. The entire Country would be 6 ft high corn stocks and we still wouldn't produce enough to replace half of our gasoline usage.

The above doesn't include fuel electric power generation, heating, or any other fuel source, just gasoline for transportation.

Methanol from Methane might be a better fit, but CNG would be better.

Natural Gas for Transportation (Hybrid electric would be good)
Nuclear Power for Electricity (and everything else)