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of the 80 million acres of corn planted in the United States, a lot goes into processed foods, more goes into cattle feed, but the single largest chunk of it, 45 percent, doesn't get eaten at all but goes to the making of corn ethanol. That ethanol is used as an additive to the gasoline you pour into your car's tank. I am not making this up: it is the [USDA] that says 45% of the country's corn crop goes into cars' tanks. Such is the tyranny of the car that not only do people give up huge portions of the public space in cities to it, but also in the United States alone we sacrifice 36 million acres of prime farmland to feed it, or at least the version of the car that needs to burn stuff to move forward. Which is a crying shame: because internal combustion engines are so incredibly inefficient that 2/3 of that corn ethanol just gets wasted as heat. And where | come from there is a word for that kind of wanton waste: it's called a sin. Think about it: 2/3 of that good farm land is wasted. Two thirds of the water to irrigate the corn, thrown away. Two thirds of the fertiliser & the attendant runoff: for nothing. Two thirds of the fossil fuels burned for energy to work the land & process the ethanol: wasted. Speaking of energy: ethanol from corn yields only 1.5 units of ethanol energy for each energy unit used to grow it. Throw away 2/3 of that, and you end up with half a unit of ethanol energy, that is, less energy than you put into the process. The word "insane" comes to mind