What was that about no good deed going unpunished? As TTAC has opined previously, the current vogue for bio-fuels is set to ratify the Law of Unintended Consequences. Reporting from the World Water Week conference Sweden, researchers from the Stockholm International Water Institute forecast that biofuel production will double current agricultural demand for water. Cuba's Granma News Agency quotes Spokesman David Trouba's warning that the shift will take its toll on indigenous people. "Where will the water to grow the food needed to feed a growing population come from if more and more water is diverted to crops for bio-fuels production?" The problem of water for ethanol production is hardly confined to the third world; an average American plant uses about 2m gallons of water per day. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (amongst others) is studying the issue.
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And so, the search continues for that magical alternative to gasoline that has no serious environmental drawbacks…
Most of the ethanol plants in the U.S. are in the Midwest where there is ample rainfall. Farmers around here are constantly trying to get rid of the water with tiling and such. Just got another soaker here in North Iowa last night. Rain is like sex. Use it or lose it. Ethanol plant usage is nothing compared to the billions of gallons of water that fall out of sky and run off down the Mississippi.
Unless it rains 2million gallons a day right into your ethanol plant, then you are going to need water storage, or divert from existing waterways. If existing storage (e.g. municipal water supply) is used, then the plants put demand pressure on these systems. One way or another, expansion of biofuel production is going to require additional storage capacity. Not necessarily the end of the world as long as that water isn’t diverted from more important uses.
I would be pretty pissed, however, if my water bill went up because an ethanol plant (subsidized by my tax dollars) was using so much water that I had to pay for expansion of storage and treatment facilities.
I hear there’s lots of fresh water in those melting glaciers and ice caps. That should supply enough to solve the problem, right?
Here in Indiana, they are planting ethanol plants all over the place. The plants are being located in rural areas where there is no municipal water supply. These plants are going to suck the local aquifers dry…along with everyone’s wells. This concern seems to get dismissed by local governments, wanting desperately to bring any kind of business to the area, no matter what.
I’m an equal opportunity braying mule on alternative drivetrains.
Just as building superfast electric cars is a strange notion — so is bio-fuels. Politicans are always looking for ways in which to channel funds to farmers, without arousing protests, and biofuels is it. No objections, just channel the money to where it shouldn’t be channeled.
Generous estimates indicate that for every energy unit expended to crate biofuels, we get, 1,34 energy units return. Add all the problems this “solution” creates: increased prices for essential commodities that are now competing for ground with biofuel; depletion of the water table; highly questionable viability in northern climes (Brazil is one thing. Stick a seed in the ground and watch it grow to maturity before lunch).
Chiefly, this is a fly-by-night maneuver by politicians and farmers’ organizations. It’s not a motive fuel solution that makes sense.
Cuba’s Granma News Agency quotes Spokesman David Trouba’s warning that the shift will take its toll on indigenous people. “Where will the water to grow the food needed to feed a growing population come from if more and more water is diverted to crops for bio-fuels production?”
Possible translation: “Where will our money/support come from if biofuels help make a dent in our pimp daddy Hugo’s petro-income and/or his influence in the region?”
I’m not saying that there is no issue with biofuels and water. However, direct and indirect beneficiaries of high petrofuel prices have every interest to overstate this problem and discount solutions (e.g. do algae need clean water?).
Ethanol from corn is one of the biggest taxpayer ripoffs ever.
(e.g. do algae need clean water?).
Pssst… we are not talking about algae. Other than that, a great idea. Let the ethanol plants use treated sewage. Afterall, ethanol is a great disinfectant.
If they are out in the sticks, make them clean the water up and put it back to where they got it (river, well, lake, whatever).
Ethanol from corn is one of the biggest taxpayer ripoffs ever.
True. But try explaning that to the average politician.
Ethanol from corn is one of the biggest taxpayer ripoffs ever.
True. But try explaning that to the average politician.
I’m pretty sure the average politician knows this and also knows how to make sure he gets all the credit for the pork flowing his states way.
The corn states are used to being coddled, if they weren’t wasting federal money on this it would be something else.
dimitris, are you saying you actually think that we could produce biofuels without the energy from oil? Have you ever heard of subsidization?
rpn453:
Subsidies are generally counter-productive, whether for corn ethanol, corn syrup or for security for medieval regimes’ sales channels, so no argument from me there.
Even if a biofuel requires petro-input (e.g. fertilizer), as long as it has a positive energy yield, it still displaces more fossil energy than it consumes. You seem to imply that biofuels somehow have to be energy-negative, and from what I’ve read here and elsewhere that doesn’t even seem to be true for today’s plain jane north american corn ethanol, never mind brazilian or cellulosic or algae etc.
That’s not to say that it’s good and ready. Externalities, like water use, soil erosion and nutrient depletion, along good old cost, are essentially the things being worked on right now in biofuel R&D around the world.
As to how strategically important even a “small” dent in fossil demand can be, here’s a data point from stratfor:
[…]the 1997-1998
Asian financial crisis slashed a “mere” 10 percent off of global oil demand, and that sent prices down by 75 percent.
BTW, a lot of that R&D is funded by DARPA, by the way. Wink wink.
It may still be a long shot, but seeing Granma (Cuba would be in much more hurt were it not for Venezuelan fuel and petromoney) above bleating about biofuels harming indigenous populations seems very enlightening in this context, doesn’t it?
It also, to make this off-topic excursion a little more TTAC-relevant, makes Detroit’s patriotic advertising subtext seem truly, painfully sad, given their gas-guzzler junkie status.