That's total energy. Includes electricity and propane etc. We're talking about how much gasoline is used for producing ethanol. That would be about 4.8 percent of US gasoline consumption in 2007.
If we stopped wasting gasoline to produce ethanol we would save a lot of money since, according to a 2005 report issued by the Agriculture Department, corn ethanol costs an average of $2.53 to produce, or several times what it costs to produce a gallon of gasoline. That doesn't leave much room for taxes or profits.
Where did you get the 4.8 of US gasoline consumption figure?
Farmers don’t use gasoline they use diesel except for a few farmers with 1940’s Massy Harris tractors and their pickups. Same with the trucks and trains that transport the materials. They use diesel not gasoline.
Here is the figures on oil imports, I don’t see a farm related spike for planting or harvesting nor for the increase in the production of ethanol.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mttimus1m.htm
The biodiesel folks believe they can provide enough biodiesel for farm use and with coal to diesel plants starting up I don’t see much need to worry about the so called need to import oil to create ethanol.
Since gasoline use is much greater than diesel use and we use home produced natural gas and biodiesel to make ethanol I don’t see much demand on oil imports to make ethanol.
I heard one study says that when the government subsidies and tax credits and the use of the military to protect the supply the true cost of gasoline per gallon is $5.
No American boy is going to die to protect the corn fields of Iowa like they are dying to protect the oil fields of the Mideast. The governor of Iowa isn’t some crazed dictator who is sponsoring terrorism with the ethanol dollars.