Corn ethanol spurred more cropland expansion than expected

Net U.S. cropland expansion per billion gallons of ethanol production expansion

CARB (2015) estimates 300–408 thousand acres conversion of cropland-pasture per billion gallons, not shown here as the modeling treated it as a subcategory of cropland. However, USDA has reclassified most cropland-pasture as grassland, pasture, or rangeland and its conversion would generally increase emissions. Taheripour et al. (2022) also estimates the Renewable Fuel Standard pulled 490 thousand acres of idled cropland into production per billion gallons ethanol. This is not classified as cropland expansion.
Chart: The Breakthrough InstituteGet the dataCreated with Datawrapper