[CINC] Biofuel Threatens Water Supplies

[Deb4nb at aol.com]

Informative article...
 
_http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30158655/_ 
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30158655/) 

Study: Biofuel threatens water supplies

Gallon of ethanol may require up to more than 2,100 gallons of water

The production of bioethanol may use up to three times as much water as 
previously thought, a new study finds, becoming the latest work that could 
burst the biofuel bubble.

A gallon of ethanol may require up to more than 2,100 gallons of water from 
farm to fuel pump, depending on the regional irrigation practice in growing 
corn, according to the study detailed in the April 15 issue of journal 
Environmental Science & Technology.

But the water usage isn't quite so high everywhere: A dozen states in the 
Corn Belt consume less than 100 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol, 
making them better suited for ethanol production, the study found.

The results highlight the need to take regional specifics into account when 
implementing biofuel mandates," the authors wrote.

Bioethanol, typically made from plant sources such as corn or switch grass, 
is often touted as a clean-burning alternative to gasoline or other fossil 
fuels, which give off significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other 
pollutants.

Other studies have questioned the benefits of biofuels, noting that they 
may require more energy in production than they provide; they may not reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions as much as hoped; and the fertilizers required to 
grow the crops to make the fuel may exacerbate oceanic dead zones as a result 
of chemical runoff into streams.

Annual production of bioethanol currently sits at about 9 billion gallons a 
year, but many experts expect this number to rise, sparking concerns over 
water usage in the production process, particularly in areas where there are 
already water shortages.

Previous studies estimated that a gallon of corn-based bioethanol requires 
the use of 263 to 784 gallons of water from the farm to the fuel pump. But 
these estimates failed to account for widely varied regional irrigation 
practices, the authors of the new study said.

For the new study, Sangwon Suh of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, 
along with his colleagues, made a new estimate of bioethanol's impact on the 
water supply using detailed irrigation data from 41 states. The water 
requirements of the bioethanol produced in 2007 was possibly as high as 861 
billion gallons of water from the corn field to the fuel pump, the researchers 
found.

The study was funded in part by USDA/CSREES and the U.S. Department of 
Energy and the Legislative Citizen’s Commission on Minnesota Resources.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.rain.org/pipermail/channel_islands_naturalist_corps/attachments/20090424/2fdc3d2e/attachment-0001.html>