APR 10

So it turns out the reason that everyone was getting all angry about ethanol last year was the wrong reason. The alternative bio-fuel, which is mostly made from corn, was widely blamed last year for skyrocketing food costs. But, this year, a Congressional Budget Office report has concluded that only a small percentage of the increase in food prices was due to ethanol.

But that doesn't mean we should all jump back on the ethanol bandwagon. According to a new University of Minnesota study, producing ethanol from corn requires about three times more water than previously thought. The study says that ethanol production required about 861 billion gallons of water. This is water that, in recent years, has been in significant decline in America's food-growing states. 

A gallon of ethanol, depending on irrigation practices, might require up to 2,100 gallons of water to produce. While, in areas more suited to corn production, it can take as little as 100 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol. The worst news of all of this, is that from 2005 to 2008 water use for ethanol production increased 246%, whereas U.S. bioethanol production has increased only 133%. This means that corn ethanol production has pushed into land that is not well-suited for growing corn, thus increasing water use far more than it increased yield.

So while you can stop worrying that you're burning the poor's food in your gas tank, you should be worried that you're burning your children's water. Let's hope that cellulosic ethanol can take over for the limitations of corn.

Comments (15)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by LaMoine, April 11, 2009

I think you should do a little research and check out the numbers before blindly quoting someone. The actual acres for corn harvested has dropped the last four years and last year less than 15% of those acres were irrigated. Which makes it theoretical impossible to pump as much water on the corn as you have quoted. They would have had to put almost a foot of water on every acre of corn in the USA to used as much water as you quote.

Even if you used Dr. Pemental's water usage from his studies it would only be around 5 gallons of water compared to over 100 gallons to make one gallon of gasoline.

Please check out your sources before citing them as gospel.

• 
• +1
• 
• 

Authority
written by Droogba, April 11, 2009

@LeMoine

What are your sources? Dont deprecate without backing yourself up. Biased of how much is consumed to produce, we should move towards the direction of not having to consume at all in order to produce. Obviously that is impossible, but making viruses that produce energy instead of burning up food stuffs seems a bit o' earth friendly to me. Sure now it doesn't eat up much food but if the earths population continues on its upward trend what are we going to do where there is 20 billion of us?

• 
• +0
• 
• 

numbers
written by filo, April 11, 2009

These numbers mean nothing if they are not compared to the fuel sources that they are intended to replace. How much water is used to produce petroleum, coal or electricity for example.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Article is devoid of any credibility
written by Ted, April 11, 2009

Are you adding the water to grow the crop? Because this source of water would be independent of ethanol unless you are arguing that the corn is better use in another way in which case this is simply a value statement that has nothing to do with water usage. Second much of the water used in direct ethanol production is recycled. I agree with the preceeding posters, your article is badly research and fundamentally faulty. More propoganda than news.

• 
• +1
• 
• 

How about talking about ethanol and the
written by Bobby Fontaine, April 12, 2009

I never get comments like you're getting on the article I wrote at the website address below. That's because ethanol supporters can't argue against it. Feel free to borrow any of the material in it for your next article and check out the hundred links that support it. It contains the the story of the losing direction the ethanol industry is heading with anhydrous ethanol, especially when they could be producing hydrous and not having many of the problems they are having now.

They could switch to producing hydrous ethanol and make their industry work. I think the reason they don't is becasue they are just too lazy and dumb to do it as long as they have Washington forcing anhydrous ethanol on the market, which is an oxygenate, not a fuel.

Hydrous ethanol is a fuel. But the government doesn't mandate hydrous ethanol and the ethanol industry doesn't want to rock the mandate boat by setting our political leaders straight so they are lying to everyone about what ethanol is and how to use it correctly, which is a really stupid thing to do. But that's what happens when a bunch of cow-tippers go from hanging out in the barn with their sheep to trying to lead the United States energy industry.

http://thelortonshow.com/TownHallMeeting/articleObamahealth.htm

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by CNCMike, April 13, 2009

Have to agree with the other posters, the numbers don't make any sense. There is a lot of corn grown where I live and only 1 field is irrigated and he uses a rainwater collection system for that. Any water used in the actual production of ethanol is either reused for the next batch which can be done about 5 times and then it can be used to irrigate and fertilize because only the starch is consumed in the process and all the nutrients and fats are still present in the grains and liquids.

If you go back just a year or two you will find studies by the same university praising ethanol so I wouldn't put too much faith in this study.

The most important thing to remember is that corn grown in this country is not food for people. Only 1% of all the corn grown here is eaten by people. 12% is used to make junk like high fructose corn syrup, corn chips, corn flakes and a few semi useful products like corn flour, corn meal, etc... Very few other countries will accept our corn to feed people because it is all GMO. On top of all that, all the corn that is used to make ethanol is then used as a much higher quality animal feed than the corn itself is. 30lbs produces more meat and milk in less time than 100lbs of corn. So in reality the water was used to grow animal feed and we just produce a much higher quality fuel than gasoline with the normally wasted starch and produce a better animal feed that increases the food supply for people.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

forgot to mention
written by CNCMike, April 13, 2009

Only 11% of the recently planted 78.7 million acres of corn in this country was used for ethanol production. That 11% is part of the 87% of our total corn that was used to fatten up livestock. Sicne the starch in corn causes serious problems in the digestive tracts of animals, especially cattle which can develope feelot bloat and acidosis which can kill the animals, all of that 87% should be used to make ethanol. We would then have a large supply of high quality fuel that produces 95 to 98% less pollution than gas or diesel and produces a high quality animal feed that would reduce veterinary bills for farmers by a substantial amount.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Moronic journalism
written by Phil, April 13, 2009

This publication if it were printed on paper would not even be suitable for wiping the shit from an asshole.

This site is written by a moron for morons.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by MarkR, April 13, 2009

what the hell are you talking about? Ethanol is crap all the way around. I don't understand why you guys continue to support crap like Ethanol and throw H2o to H under the bus. THEY ARE THE SAME SCAM!!!!!!! THEY BOTH REQUIRE MORE ENERGY TO MAKE THAN THE FINAL YIELD OF THE PRODUCT. STOP WASTING MY TAX DOLLARS!

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by CNCMike, April 14, 2009

Uh MarkR, IT's gasloine that requires more energy to make than you will ever get out of it by burning it in your car. The only reason gas is as cheap as it is - it is the most subsidised fuel in this country.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Time to Take the Next Step
written by T1 Rex, April 14, 2009

Corn-based ethanol should be considered more as a proof of concept program rather than something that should go into full scale production. Now that we know we can build industrial distilleries and auto fuel systems for E85, the focus should shift to cellulose and other non-food sources of ethanol.

Can you imagine how fast we could get away from the tyranny of imported oil by mandating all new vehicles be capable of running on E10 to E85 fuel and increasing the percentage of E85 capable hybrids in the fleet.

No, that won't solve the problems of Co2 emission, but it can act as a stop-gap until we can get electric and hydrogen support infrastructures in place.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Co2 emissions
written by shek, April 14, 2009

T1 Res:
Biofuels do not inherently add to CO2 emissions since most of the fuel sources are biomass which remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The biggest contributor to CO2 related to biofuels is all of the transportation and processing, but these can be cleaned up with renewable energy sources.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Silvestre, April 21, 2009

First thing of all, the one who said that the Earth is a closed system is right! There are a lot of biochemistry things that need to be studied before talking about ethanol and water wastes.
We should talk about sugar cane ethanol, the one that is made in a clean proccess, because you can use the products as fertilizers, sugar cane can grow on dry soils and when the cellulosic ethanol technology that you mencioned is ready for industry, it can be used here too.

But, althought I'm a sugarcane ethanol defensor, It doesn't mean that you can talk like this about the corn ethanol, because you have been too much supercial.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Fred, July 07, 2009

Ethanol usage needs more water sounds like water prices will be going up

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by xringone, January 30, 2010

so what about the carbon dioxide that is produced by the fermentation process used to make ehtanol? starnger still no university has ever done a study of it quoting that many different variables make it impossible to correctly measure.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment