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Ethanol production consumes large quantities of unsustainable petroleum and natural gas. Even with the most-optimistic energy return on investment claims, in order to use 100% solar energy to grow corn and produce ethanol (fueling farm-and-transportation machinery with ethanol, distilling with heat from burning crop residues, using NO fossil fuels), the consumption of ethanol to replace current U.S. petroleum use alone would require about 75% of all cultivated land on the face of the Earth, with no ethanol for other countries, or sufficient food for humans and animals.[115]
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