The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 606
place. Taking those figures Bryce then multiples it all together using the wrong
BTUs information, as I explained earlier, to arrive at an “energy replacement”
number.
Bryce references America’s total available cropland as 440 million acres (not
just for corn, all crops). He also cites a number used by Dennis Avery of the
Hudson Institute as the amount of land that would be needed to replace all
imported crude oil (546 million acres). Obviously, there is a significant difference
so Bryce declares it impossible.
However, in addition to the 440 million acres of cropland, America also has 939
million acres of farmland. According to land definitions, farmland is not quite as
good as cropland, but suitable for growing things such as specialized energy
crops.
According to David Blume, who's probably the single most experienced and
knowledgeable guy in the world on ethanol and ethanol production:
“Of its nearly half a billion acres of prime cropland, the U.S. uses only 72.1
million acres for corn in an average year. The land used for corn takes up
only 16.6% of our prime cropland, and only 7.45% of our total agricultural
land. Even if, for alcohol production, we used only what the USDA considers prime flat cropland, we would still have to produce only 368.5 gallons of alcohol per acre to meet 100% of the demand for transportation
fuel at today’s (2007) levels. Corn could easily produce this level—and a
wide variety of standard crops yield up to triple this.”
Therefore, as compared to Bryce’s calculations that would never compute out,
there is a vastly different side to the story. And, as Blume points out, if corn is
replaced by a higher-yielding crop then calculations become dramatically more
favorable.
Furthermore, Blume’s figures pertain to 100% replacement of gasoline and diesel. As I pointed out regarding Bryce’s immediate jump from 0% to 100%, I’d
say the same is true for Blume’s comments (and I’m sure David would agree);
let’s first make sure we get E15 into national acceptance – which is just a tiny
increase in America’s current use of ethanol. Then we can move onto E20, E30,
E50, etc., etc. Even my very aggressive plan for cutting out the production of all
new gasoline-powered vehicles takes place in five years and it never fully eliminates the use of gasoline as an engine fuel until the vast majority of gasoline
powered vehicles are retired and off the road – that would probably be at least
15-20 years later.
