Why Sugar Cane and Not Corn?
Ethanol will lead to energy independence. If all the corn produced in America last year were dedicated to ethanol production (14.3 percent of it was), U.S. gasoline consumption would drop by 12 percent. For corn ethanol to completely displace gasoline consumption in this country, we would need to appropriate all U.S. cropland, turn it completely over to corn-ethanol production, and then find 20 percent more land for cultivation on top of that. The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes that the practical limit for domestic ethanol production is about 700,000 barrels per day, a figure they don’t think is realistic until 2030. That translates to about 6 percent of the U.S. transportation fuels market in 2030. Source: Click Here The short answer is that corn has already reached it’s peak practical production output. See page 4 of the USDA’s Chief Economist, Keith Collins. Any more and we start to reverse the benefit of corn ethanol because it costs more that we benefit. Where we
