Re: Why is the supply of E85 fuel so tightly controlled?

In reply to John_H's comment below...

> > AFAIK the largest manufacturer of ethanol in Oz is currently CSR,
> > using mol***** from sugar (which is a crop)... their Sarina plant
> > (south of Mackay) has a capability of around 300ML pa.  Manildra run
> > second at 60ML.

I just ran some figures through the calculator.

Based on Victoria having 4 million cars and each of them using 70l of
petrol a week, to run the fleet on E85 we would need around 2,184
megalitres of ethanol a year, just for Victoria.

How much land would you need to set aside to grow crops to cater for that
sort of production? 

And what sort of energy requirements would you need to plant the crops,
grow the crops (and water, fertiliser, etc.) and then to harvest the crops
and finally to process the crops into ethanol?

When you look at how much oil we must need in order to supply the world
markets, the gross figures must be HUGE. How the **** would we cope once
oil production drops to the point where we're forced to look for
alternative fuels, whether it be ethanol, H2 cells, solar/electric or
whatever?