The United States currently is not producing enough ethanol to even meet the mandated requirements to replace MTBE in gasoline. We have to import about 100,000 barels a day to meet this need. Corn ethanol yield per acre is about 400 gallons where Brazilian ethanol yield per acre is about 870 gallons, which may be more related to the tropical climate than to the sugar cane itself. The US probably has less than 500,000 acres under sugar cane cultivation. To replace just 50% of US gasoline consumption with ethanol derived from sugar cane, assuming the same yield as Brazil (very unlikely) would require an additional 80,000,000 acres (125000 square miles) to come under cultivation.

Martin