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Your calcs are better than mine. I was going from Stuart's article (since Robert hadn't written his when I prepared this).
Stuart's graphs show that current ethanol production is consuming about 20% of the corn crop, but that the fraction of corn crop covered by capacity in production or under construction is up to 35-40% (and changing substantially year-on-year).
cheers
Phil.
The number I was using last year was 20%, so I was estimating this year would be around 25%, before I realized there were a variety of numbers "out there". One of the commenters on Robert's post uses 20%.
Gail, I feel your pain! Comparing different data sources is a perilous undertaking.
Here's another citation:
Ethanol to take 30 pct of U.S. corn crop in 2012: GAO
"About 27 percent of this year's corn crop will be used to make ethanol, according to the Agriculture Department."
Unfortunately I don't have the Ag Dept stats themselves.