The Great Corn Rush?

It would certainly be nice for our country to become energy independent in this troubled world. Our nation imports 150 billion gallons of gasoline in the form of crude oil each year.

E85 is a flex-fuel which is a mixture of 15% gasoline with 85% ethanol. E85 can be used to replace gasoline used in our cars and trucks. This is certainly seems to be good news for those of us here in heart of corn country because the ethanol is produced from the fermination of corn.

An E85 production facility with an annual capacity of 100 million gallons of E85 needs 350 million gallons of water and 35 million bushels of corn per year. Up to 200 bushels of corn can be grown on one acre of land with an average yield of 175 bushels per acre. To produce 100 million gallons of E85, it would require 200,000 acres of land which is 310 square miles.

Corn as ethanol is certainly a renewable energy resource. But for the US to become energy independent, it would require 465,000 square miles of nothing but corn fields to produce E85. As a matter of comparison, this represents a land mass one-eighth the size of the contiguous 48 states.

Is anyone hungry?