dereckbc:
As noted there are sites. What is interesting if you take something like Oil of Palm (highest yield) calculate the earths aerable land, and how much the world uses it is a futile effort as it would only come up with about 20% of the worlds need with nothing to eat.
But hey you could grow oppium poppies and who cares? You got oil and Dr. Feel Good in one crop. Better yeild than soy beans we use now.
Your statement is misleading in a number of ways.
1= It ignores the stupendous potential of agoil. If we figure out how to do large scale commercial algoil production, it will literally rewrite the book on bd production.
2= Even if algae is not taken into account, your statement is correct only under some assumptions that basically boil down to the world being very stupid.
a= thus far, selective breeding and gen mod techniques have not been applied to oil crops with anywhere near the intensity they have been for food crops.
b= your statement ignores the fact that diesel is more efficient than gasoline. it also ignores the fact that the current world pattern of crude oil consumption is not going to continue. using high carbon fuels to generate electricity is going to drastically decline. transportation distances and patterns are going to change drastically. liquid fuel powered vehicles are going to be replaced by electric or hybrid electric ones. Etc etc. There are a lot of efficiency improvements that you are not considering.
c= many oil crops can grow on land that you can not raise food crops on. Thus the land pressure due to a "food crop vs fuel crop" per acre of aerable land that you assume is not as serious as you are claiming.
There is no doubt that using low oil yield food crops like corn and soy as primary oil sources is a recipe for the sort of disaster you imply. But it simply does not have to be that way;
