Friday, November 6, 2015

Why is the US using all of Yellowstone National Park to grow corn for Ethanol?

Sort of...

This bar graph was derived from US Dept of Agriculture data.  I found it on Twitter HERE.  The numbers on the left are in "1,000's", so add 3 zeroes at the end of the numbers you see.

My perspective is Corn for Fuel is, on net, a bad policy.



Just to put the numbers in some perspective, in May the number of bushels to of corn used to produce fuel alcohol was 450,000,000 (450 million!).

US Dept of Agriculture estimates the average number of bushels of corn harvested in 2015 was 168 per acre.

To find the number of acres required for the corn used to make ethanol in May alone, divide 450,000,000 by 168.

That equals 2,678,571 acres.  Yellowstone National Park is 2,219,000 for comparison.


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