SOTU

[gfish]

Lower oil dependancy through radical new technologies? Sounds pretty good to me. Maybe I'll submit a grant proposal for research into these crazy ideas I like to call public transit and bicycles.

Comments

[xmurf.livejournal.com]

US oil consumption is currently 2e7 barrels per day. I don't know how much of that is for fuel vs. chemical feedstock. From another source, gasoline usage is 464 gallons per man-year, or about 9e7 gallons per year. The U.S. produced 1.77 billion gallons of fuel ethanol in 2001 using 690 million bushels of corn. If we assume a gallon of EtOH has the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline (it doesn't, but it's close enough), we need 77 times that amount, or 5e10 bushels. At 143 bushels per acre that's about 3e8 acres. Total US corn production for 2007 is estimated at 8e7 acres. So we'd need approximately 4.7 times the current US corn production to meet all our needs assuming (a) we don't reduce gasoline consumption (we clearly can), (b) technology doesn't improve (it will), and (c) we use only corn (which is stupid, because corn is among the most expensive EtOH feedstocks, it's just convenient.).

So I think it's safe to say that the total agri output of the US, with modern technology, could produce just enough EtOH to sustain current demand... and things will get better.

BTW, that 80 million acres that's the total US corn production is about the size of New Mexico.

And It Is Claimed(tm) that 1e6 acres of PV panels would meet all US energy needs (not just gasoline)... somehow I doubt that PV panels are 374 times as efficienet as corn->EtOH, so something's probably wrong with these numbers. Not surprising since it's 4am.