Okay revisiting this thread... again.

with a little help..  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTEWVjL0Yn4&feature=related

United States of America (home of the free and the brave) Ethanol production capacity as of January 7, 2010 according to the RFA.. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/locations/ is 13,028 million gallons of which 11,877.4 is up and running... (which isn't correct because it doesn't include.. http://www.calgren.com/news.html.. who had their grand opening this past December.. the sister plant of a plant near me.)

Now USDA just came out with the 09/10 crop year projecting Ethanol useage for corn of 4,200 mil bushels.. which if you crank 2.75 conversion would give you 11,500 mil gallons of production.. again as noted we also use other source stocks such as Sorghum.. which would crank out at least another 250 mil gallons for a total of 11,750 give or take.

Currently US gasoline useage is running around 9 mln barrels per day.. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_gasoline.html which.. if I am doing this correctly...??  42 gallons per barrel (weird why do they do that..?? not all gasoline in a barrel of crude.. ???) anyway times 365 gives you 137.97 billion gallons..

So therefore, 11,750 into 137,970 = 8.52%  So.. uhm.. NO.. way more than 1.9% (chuckle..)

In fact, according to the annual report http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/pdf/outlook/RFA_Outlook_2009.pdf during a year (2008) that we did 9 billion gallons or thereabouts of ethanol production in this country according to LECG,LLC we displaced 321 million barrels of Imported Crude.. which that year ($147 peak) would be worth something on the order of $32 Billion dollars (assuming $100 average).. definitely not chump change...  If you project that out at the 11.75 number above.. then you are offseting something on the order of 419 million barrels.. which even today would still be over $30 Billion dollars of savings..

$30 BILLION DOLLARS OF SAVINGS to OUR ECONOMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  In 2008 we imported almost $500 Billion into this Country.. In 1986 we only imported $34 Billion.. before 2000 we never imported more than $76 Billion.. so yal.. $30 Billion in savings is a "big deal." 

Something I talked about here..

http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=131023&mid=925397#M925397

$30 Billion dollars that stays home.. that provides jobs here.. again estimated over 500,000 US jobs.. Contributing over $65 BILLION to our GDP!!!  (again from the annual report.. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/pdf/outlook/RFA_Outlook_2009.pdf )

Which of course creates tax revenues... what would you pay for $65 Billion dollars of direct economic activity?  How about all the related industries.. Deere, CNH, CAT, Dupont, Syngenta, Monsanto and so forth for the rest of the economy?  What about holding the Crude Oil Exporters in check?  What is that worth?

Now back to our 419 million barrel import number offset.. that is ONE MONTH's IMPORTS of Crude...  In fact it's more than that.. the last reported number was in October... 336.5 mln barrels of Crude Oil and Petroleum products imported into this country.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUS1&f=M

I'd say that's pretty damn good!

Most of the grain ethanol production is now in place.. I don't foresee us going gangbusters like we have over the past five years.. we finish some projects and so forth but as you can see.. we've now made a statement on what can be done that "the powers that be" will have to pay attention to.  We'll go back and tweak some efficiencies and so forth.. add some co-products and other revenue streams.. maybe add some energy efficiencies but keep bringing down our conversion costs.. possibly tweak the feedstock so that the kernal comes "prepackaged" to be converted.. etc and so forth.

I've seen proposals that paint the blue sky scenerio that may be out there.. but still if you could accumulate a Billion tons of cellulosic material and convert it at say... 60.. 75.. 90 gallons per ton.. your talking 75 Billion Gallons of ethanol plus the 15 we'll be doing by then in grain.. and you could realistically talk about ELIMINATING Imports... not that we need to go to zero.. unless maybe if China keeps growing...???

Not going to happen this year.. nor the next.. but yal it's possible over.. a decade or two.

No one is going to talk about it now.. but the next time Crude goes north of the last record.. well.. you saw what happened the last time.

Come on Chad.. "show the love."  If you want to graze cattle.. move out here.. plenty of grass for the having... heck buy some CRP and put it in shape.  I don't think you are going to see quite the price spike on Cellulosic that we saw in grain.. but who knows??  2008 Crude went nuts!!  Also Chad.. it's a big country.. we have a lot more resources than just Corn.  I guess I get that impression from my travels across the West to visit relatives in Arizona and California..  We have a LOT OF LAND.. that maybe isn't as productive as the cornbelt.. but Wind Farms.. Solar Farms.. Nuclear power.. and yes cellulosic.. someday.. we can do it.