With gas prices crossing $4 a gallon, the EPA says cheaper, more ethanol-rich fuel will ease the pain. The math doesn't really add up—but the risks sure do.
Per Wikipedia, the world’s largest photovoltaic power station is China’s Talatan Solar Park, which generates 18,000 GWh annually. It occupies an area of about 420 square km.
4,430 TWh/18,000 GWh gives us 246.1 Talatan Solar Parks to power the country photovoltaically, occupying a combined area of 103,000 square km, or around a quarter of the total corn area. That’s not even very efficient in terms of annual electrical generation per unit land area, and it’s a mere fraction of the land we waste on corn
Also, corn has very low ROI for farmers even with “free equivalent land”. Corn futures prices have not risen anywhere close to 100% fertilizer cost increases this month. Solar has much higher profit/ROI potential than ethanol corn for the land owners, with far less work.
I’m not trying to debunk you, I just like recreational math and blue text
We’ve planted approximately 95 million acres worth of corn this year. That’s about 384,000 square km, for normal people. In 2025, the United States generated 4.43 thousand terawatthours (TWh) of electricity.
Per Wikipedia, the world’s largest photovoltaic power station is China’s Talatan Solar Park, which generates 18,000 GWh annually. It occupies an area of about 420 square km.
4,430 TWh/18,000 GWh gives us 246.1 Talatan Solar Parks to power the country photovoltaically, occupying a combined area of 103,000 square km, or around a quarter of the total corn area. That’s not even very efficient in terms of annual electrical generation per unit land area, and it’s a mere fraction of the land we waste on corn
Also, corn has very low ROI for farmers even with “free equivalent land”. Corn futures prices have not risen anywhere close to 100% fertilizer cost increases this month. Solar has much higher profit/ROI potential than ethanol corn for the land owners, with far less work.
Corn is used for many industrial raw materials, not just ethanol.