Apparently scientists (and some of our readers, surely) have known that we can grow oil for years, and not in the grow-corn-make-oil kind of way. The Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii can be tapped (ala maple syrup) for a natural diesel fuel that requires only simple filtering before being poured into a truck. (This picture is of the tree's cells.) The catch? The diesel only has a shelf-life of about 3 months.

So how many trees would it take to match the oil output of, say, Saudi Arabia? Check our stats after the jump.

Saudi Arabia Oil Output Daily
11 Million Barrels

Output of One Acre of Copaifera langsdorfii Yearly
25 Barrels

Number of Acres Needed To Match Saudi Arabia Yearly Output
182,500,000 (Total Trees: 18,250,000,000)

Number of Acres in North America Alone
6,050,697,738

Number of Acres in North America Used For Corn (2007)
90.5 million

Amount of American Corn Spent on Ethanol
15% and growing

Frequency Corn Needs Replanting
Every Season

Frequency Copaifera langsdorfii Needs Replanting
Every 90 Seasons

UPDATE: Gallons of Oil In One Gallon of Diesel
7 (thanks lailoken!)

Some interesting metrics to think about. On a worldwide scale, it doesn't seem all that impossible to alleviate oil shortages with plants...and the natural carbon offsets seem worthwhile. It's just too bad these trees take 15-20 years to mature (by which time we plan on flying around in a hydrogen Jetsonmobile).

Is anyone out there a specialist on the topic who could enlighten us in the comments? [abc via treehugger]

Additional Sources: [world factbook] [nass] [yahoo] [popular mechanics]

Send an email to Mark Wilson, the author of this post, at .