Quote:
Originally Posted by PhishPhood
Good point.. how many 1000 acre plants ( @ $1 Billion each ) would be needed to cut our oil usage by say 20%?
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Answer: almost 7,000 plants ( $7 Trillion )
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Just so everyone is clear, your analysis is WRONG.
First, this $1 Billion facility is designed to produce 1 billion gallons of ethanol per year, not 6 Million gallons, as you've claimed. So, only 40 of these plants would be required to produce 20 percent of our fuel needs at a cost of $40 Billion. That's not nearly the $7 Trillion that you've made it out to be.
While your land figures are correct, they are somewhat misleading. While it would take 7 million acres of land to produce the ethanol, that is less than 11,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, New Mexico (where this plant is being build) is roughly 121,000 sq miles. Thus it would take less than 10 percent of new mexico's land space to produce this ethanol. I'm sure there is WAAAAY more than 11,000 sq miles of non-arable land (i.e. desert or whatever) in the US that can be used for this purpose.