[Vision2020] ethanol and water

[Paul Rumelhart]

Thankfully, water is a renewable resource.  It falls from the sky, for 
gods sakes.  70% of our planet is covered by it, up to thousands of feet 
in depth.  I realize that it still has to be managed locally and that 
most of it needs to be desalinated, but it's producing something that 
will help wean us off of a terribly polluting substance that is dug up 
from the ground and is not renewable on time scales less than millions 
of years.  There are no magic solutions.  Everything affects everything 
else. 

How much water goes into the production of a Chef's salad at your 
favorite restaurant?

Paul

Dan Carscallen wrote:
> Another one of those environmental paradoxes, like the one Phil Cook 
> posted a while back about bicycling:
> _http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/documents/ulrich-cycling-enviro-jul06.pdf_ 
> <http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/%7Eulrich/documents/ulrich-cycling-enviro-jul06.pdf>
>  
> and like the one I heard on the Radio Men the other day (yes, C. 
> Foster Kane's "Thee News" is *my* news source), which they probably 
> gleaned from this article:
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece
>  
> you just can't win.
>  
> DC
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
>     [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] *On Behalf Of *Mark Solomon
>     *Sent:* Monday, August 13, 2007 6:03 AM
>     *To:* vision2020 at moscow.com
>     *Subject:* [Vision2020] ethanol and water
>
>     Interesting numbers re how much water does it take to produce
>     ethanol. Including water for irrigating the corn crop feed-stock:
>     1700 gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol produced.
>
>     Mark
>
>
>
>     How much water does it take to produce ethanol?
>
>     By Nate Jenkins of the Associated Press
>     August 13, 2007
>
>     NORTH PLATTE, Neb. - The growing thirst for ethanol takes a lot of
>     water to quench, but less than many people believe and not enough
>     to cause serious problems, experts told farmers.
>
>     Last year in Nebraska, the nation's third-leading ethanol
>     producer, it took 2 billion gallons of water at 15 ethanol plants
>     to churn out 676 million gallons of the alternative fuel, Derrel
>     Martin, an irrigation and water resources engineer said Thursday.
>
>     But roughly 900 billion gallons of rain water falls annually in
>     Lincoln County, Martin said, addressing the public perception that
>     ethanol production takes an inordinate amount of water.
>
>     "These plants are not consuming a huge amount of water," he said.
>
>     Martin spoke during an agriculture conference in North Platte that
>     focused on water. Nebraska is aggressively pushing development of
>     ethanol plants and is poised to become the second-leading producer
>     in the country later this year. At the same time, it is struggling
>     to meet water demands of its farmers and those in neighboring
>     states who rely on water that passes through Nebraska.
>
>     A longtime analyst of ethanol production disagreed with Martin and
>     questioned his figures, saying it takes an average of about 15
>     gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol - much higher than
>     the roughly three gallons of water per gallon of ethanol Martin cited.
>
>     Groundwater tables in some states, including Missouri, have been
>     drawn down to dangerously low levels near some ethanol plants,
>     said David Pimentel, an ecology and agriculture professor at
>     Cornell University.
>
>     The figures cited by both Martin and Pimentel include only a
>     plant's production of ethanol, not the water it takes to grow
>     corn. After adding that, about 1,700 gallons are needed to produce
>     every gallon of ethanol, Pimentel said.
>
>     The entire water-use picture, coupled with the fuel it takes to
>     produce ethanol, makes long-term, mass production of ethanol
>     unsustainable, Pimentel said.
>
>     "I wish it were sustainable, I'm an agriculturalist," he said. "I
>     wish this whole ethanol deal was a major benefit, but you've got
>     to be a scientist first and an agriculturalist second."
>
>     Martin said the question of whether increased corn production and
>     the irrigation it requires will overburden the state's water
>     supply is an important one that does not yet have a clear answer.
>
>     Moratoriums on new groundwater wells are already in place in some
>     regions, such as along the Platte River, and the Republican River
>     basin has caps on groundwater use.
>
>     The state faces a test over whether it will control water use in
>     fragile areas or succumb to the financial allure of planting more
>     irrigated corn to meet ethanol demands, Martin said.
>
>     Corn prices have risen with ethanol production. There are 19
>     percent more acres of irrigated corn this year across the country,
>     including about one million more irrigated acres in Nebraska, he said.
>
>     Plans designed to curtail water use in some basins could become
>     "toothless tigers" in the face of such market pressures, he said.
>
>     On the Net:
>     Nebraska Ethanol Board: http://www.ne-ethanol.org/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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