Ethanol production from corn is a growth industry these days. A visit to the Renewable Fuels Association WWW site (www.ethanolrfa.org) indicated there are 115 ethanol refineries online and 86 more under construction. Many of these refineries are in the USA's Midwest/Great Plains states - the "corn belt". Iowa alone has 42 refineries in existence or under construction (www.iowarfa.org). A few months ago I heard a reputable scientist state that if all the planned ethanol plants for Iowa are built, then that state will become a corn importer.
The price of corn is now about double what it was 15 months ago, so naturally many farmers are switching to corn from other crops, such as soybeans. The USDA's Prospective Plantings report predicts that corn acreage will increase by about 15% in 2007 to about 90.5 million acres (www.ethanolrfa.org.)
Some are forecasting a possible glut of ethanol plants, but that's not my concern in this post - water is. It takes about 4 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol.
In its 15 April 2007 issue the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ("States across Midwest brace for water-guzzling ethanol plants") discussed some of the refinery impacts on water in five states: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Minnesota. The issue is not simply the amount of water an ethanol refinery uses, but the increase in water use required by switching from something like soybeans to corn; the latter requires more water than soybeans and other crops.
View the article at:
Illinois has 8 ethanol refineries with 34 more proposed. In Minnesota, the Granite Falls refinery, buoyed by an overly-optimistic assessment by the state, started pumping 200 mgy (million gallons per year) from the local aquifer, only to discover that the state's estimate of the water availability was incorrect. They now tap the Minnesota River for some of its water.
Another issue is pollution. In Iowa there have been some instances of water pollution from refineries. But another more insidious problem deals with the switch from soybeans to corn. Soybeans are nitrogen-fixers and require less fertilizer than corn. That means farmers who switch to corn may not only be increasing their water use, but may also run the risk of polluting ground water and/or contributing to algal blooms in surface water because of increased fertilizer use. Let us not forget the hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, exacerbated by nutrients in runoff derived from Midwest farms. And, since much fertilizer comes from natural gas, what was that about reducing our dependency on foreign energy?
The concern over increased ground water pollution from fertilizers was related to me by a couple of Iowa well-driller colleagues of mine at a recent National Ground Water Association meeting in Washington, DC. They are seeing more farmers make the switch to corn from soybeans, and the pollution issue concerns them more than the increased water use.
In our rush to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing ethanol production, we need to be cognizant of one thing that always lurks in the background: the Law of Unintended Consequences.
"When the well's dry we know the worth of water." -- Ben Franklin
It's good to hear BP & GM talk about alternative fuels, but 50 years to implement is too long.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/05/news/companies/bigoil_hydrogen/index.htm
Perhaps this link will spark more attention:
http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/
It is GM's electric concept car the Chevy Volt. If more people begin to demand alternative fuel cars, we should be able to speed the rate at which the technology is developed.
We have started an Investor Forum where Investors can meet and discuss topics like this:
http://investor-forum.thesubway.com/
Posted by: TheSUBWAY.com | Friday, 04 April 2008 at 07:33 AM
I never cease to wonder at our fascination with corn. Why can't Iowa build soybean refineries for biofuel? With all the drawback corn has on the environment (not to mention limited nutritional value) and all the benefits soybeans have to offer on both accounts one would assume that biofuels from soybeans would be the logical jump. Do Iowan scientists not know that "Soybean biodiesel returns 93 percent more energy than is used to produce it, while corn grain ethanol currently provides only 25 percent more energy"? Or that"Soybean biodiesel produces 41 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than diesel fuel whereas corn grain ethanol produces 12 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline" If they don't they should - it only took me 20 seconds to Google that information.
Other crops like fibrous grasses such as hemp and prairie grass produce significantly more biofuel than either corn or soybeans. While lacking the nitrogen fixing benefits of soybeans, they are hearty and drought resistant, requiring no pesticides and could easily be rotated with soybeans to reduce soil degradation without significant chemical inputs. Hemp was being used as a biofuel by Henry Ford before it was outlawed in the United States (another great move by the government since it allowed the cotton and paper pulp industries to dominate; both of which are far inferior to hemp in output quantity, quality, and most decidedly in their environmental impact). But I digress.
Markets may be complex - but its sad that they drive poor choices from [hopefully] well-meaning people when good information is so readily available.
Posted by: Barak Bruerd | Tuesday, 24 April 2007 at 08:49 AM