Quote:
Originally Posted by bailaviborita
Both posts very interesting, thanks.
I've heard some critisizm over Brazil's "flex" system and how it wouldn't work for us. On the other hand, I've heard that if only Congress would let Guatemalan and Haitian farmers sell their sugar here, we could do the flex thing better, since sugar is more efficient than corn. Any opinions on those ideas?
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Yes, Sir. I did some quick calculations; you might find them interesting.
A barrel of oil is 42 gallons.
Total global sugar production is: 161.7 million tons (
LINK
One ton of Brazilian sugar cane can be concerted to 152 gallons of ethanol. For this calculation, assume similar efficiency without regard to origin.
LINK
So, we have 152 X 161.7 X 1,000,000 = 24,578,400,000 gallons of ethanol.
Total global production of crude oil is 85.54 million barrels per day.
LINK
So annual crude oil production is 85.54 X 365 = 31,221.1 million barrels per year.
Or:
31,221.1 X 42 = 1,311,328.2 million gallons per year
Or:
1,311,328,200,000 gallons per year
Dividing the two numbers,
Global sugar production converted entirely to fuel would equal less than 1.9% of the total.
It can be argued that diesel and gasoline consumption are only a portion of total crude oil consumption.
A 42 gallon barrel of crude, after processing generates 44 gallons of product, including 20 gallons of gasoline and 7 gallons of diesel.
LINK
Ratio of Gasoline and Diesel to barrels of crude oil: 27/41 = 0.61
So the total gobal production of crude times the ratio hints at global consumption of gasoline and diesel.
Global fuel consumption = 1,311,328,200,000 X 0.61 = 804,679,000,000
If we convert all global sugar production to fuel, we get:
24,578,400,000 gallons of ethanol
divided by
804,679,000,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel consumed
Or...slightly more than 3%.
Cane ethanol may help Brazil, but it won't do much for the world.
By the way - if peak oil theory is correct, we will, within a decade or so, start seeing declines of 4% or more each and every year.
Hence my conclusion - biofuels won't solve the problem.