If all the additional oil were available for fuel, the supply impact would be an additional 500 million gallons. If the soybean oil yield were to increase from 18 percent to 20 percent a level already achievable soy oil availability would increase by 10 percent. At an assumed future domestic crush of 1.8 billion bushels the additional oil would amount to 1 pound per bushel or 1.8 billion pounds or 230 million gallons. Depending on yield assumptions either crop could produce 10 gallons per acre more oil than soybeans. Additional oil could come from switching out of soybeans to these oil crops or from switching out of other crops to sunflower or canola.
Alternative oilseeds are climatically compatible with the northern tier and high plains states.
These are primarily wheat and other small grains growing areas. Ten to fifteen million acres could be freed up to plant oil crops simply through release of the government ground. A conservative 10 million-acre CRP release could yield 600 million gallons of biodiesel raw material without drawing acres from other crops. Another 20 million acres could switch from lower value small export grains to higher value domestic oil crops. Switched acres would come from those currently used to supply the highly competitive and still distorted export markets for wheat and other small grains.