Ethanol Plants' Water Demands Substantial - ENN

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — City officials in Champaign and Urbana took notice when they heard that an ethanol plant proposed nearby would use about 2 million gallons of water per day, most likely from the aquifer that also supplies both cities. "There was concern about impacting a pretty valuable resource," said Matt Wempe, a city planner for Urbana. "It should raise red flags."

The proposal for a 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant is just one of many that have popped up in the past several months across Illinois, which already has seven operating plants and is the nation's No. 2 ethanol producer after Iowa. High oil prices and support from Washington have inspired such interest in the corn-based gasoline additive that the Illinois Corn Growers Association now says at least 30 plants are in various stages of planning across the state. All will use a lot of water. It would take about 300 million gallons of water for processing the product and cooling equipment to make 100 million gallons of ethanol each year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. While water scientists in Illinois and Iowa say they're concerned about the impact of that much demand, they're not sending out alarms yet.

"On a statewide scale, it's not a huge amount of water," says Allen H. Wehrmann, director of the Center for Groundwater Science at the Illinois State Water Survey. "Illinois is a fairly water-rich state, so I don't think this is going to drain us." The demand for water by the two dozen operating ethanol plants in Iowa has not damaged water sources or supplies, said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. Improving technology means new plants use as much as 80 percent less water than plants built just five years ago, and most plants recycle their water so it has more than one use, he said.

Still, the draw on Midwest water supplies is a concern. "It's an issue that is certainly at the forefront of our minds," said Paul VanDorpe, a scientist at the Iowa Geological Survey in Iowa City. But he does not perceive as much concern among the public, he said.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10692

know about how much water is used for meat production (and which is subsidized). Or if they care.

EDIT:
or if hemp would be more efficient. or algae.

One can get a pretty hot discussion of how much grain is involved in ethanol, but there is seldom a discussion of water.

One fellow in particular has pushed the talking point that since Pimentel is critical of ethanol production, he's a fascist, a Nazi, and in the pay of Big Republican Oil.

I, too, think Pimentel is too pessimistic in his assessment of fuel ethanol from grain, but he's "on the money" when he points out that it is not going to be a freebie with its demands for water, ever-more-expensive sources of nitrogen, and the risk of dramatically increasing soil runoff. Pimentel ought to have "hero" status on this forum, or at least command the respect he deserves, even when items from his work are superceded or even refuted. Like M. King Hubbert, for years, he was the only one pointing out these problems as they evolved into looming crises.

And Pimentel is at heart a farm boy with a PhD. He know we gotta eat -- and that getting drunk on grain alcohol on an empty stomach takes all the fun out of it.

--p!

I don't know if he's right; I don't know if he's wrong. I'm not qualified to say.

I do believe that it is common to overstate the potential of biofuels. If I had to guess, I would say that probably the best of that class is probably algae based biodiesel, which is theoretically available in high yield from low amounts of water.

In the ethanol case, I continually suggest the experiment in which an ethanol farm operates as a closed system. One can do this with several ethanol farms in several different areas to test the hypotheses involving Dr. Pimetel and his detractors.

I should have posted elsewhere in the thread, or at least made the distinction clearer. You actually raised a point that Pimentel often has (about water use), which is why I posted in reply. I apologize for the ambiguity. That brain tumor has been acting up again. :)

I'd also read several anti-Pimentel notes that were written over the past few days. My guess is that one or more of the big "green" orgs has been going after Pimentel hammer-and-tong for his deviation on the ethanol issue, and a lot of the environmentalists have been picking it up there. Along the lines of your argument that many/most anti-nuclearists are diletantes whose choices of energy supply are guided more by their whims than the needs of the human race, the anger at Pimentel seems to be similar. There has been scant acknowlegement of Pimentel's warnings about the impact of energy crises on agriculture; but he dissed ethanol, one of the biofuels that Mother Earth has provided like milk from her teats, and he thereby bears the Mark of Cain.

It's starting to look like the Culture Wars have come to the discussions of energy, climate, and environmental issues. Here we are, in the last decade we have to avoid serious misery -- and a cocktail party breaks out.

--p!

;-)

That just adds to problems

Oil guy can't spell MTB, Bet they forgot that mess they made.

Why underground tanks had to be double walled. Ran a lot of Mom and Pop fuel sellers out of the game. Small amount in ground water goes a long way to mess it up

Renewable Energy: Economic and Environmental Issues; David Pimentel, G. Rodrigues, T. Wane, R. Abrams, K. Goldberg, H. Staecker, E. Ma, L. Brueckner, L. Trovato, C. Chow, U. Govindarajulu, and S. Boerke; BioScience, Vol. 44, No. 8, September 1994 (also available on http://www.dieoff.com/page84.htm).

Here is the first part of the abstract:

Solar energy technologies, paired with energy conservation, have the potential to meet a large portion of future US energy needs...

Pimentel and his colleagues discuss the use of methanol in general; here is the main section:

Methanol. Methanol is another potential fuel for internal combustion engines (Kohl 1990). Various raw materials can be used for methanol production, including natural gas, coal, wood, and municipal solid wastes. At present, the primary source of methanol is natural gas. The major limitation in using biomass for methanol production is the enormous quantities needed for a plant with suitable economies of scale. A suitably large methanol plant would require at least 1250 tons of dry biomass per day for processing (ACTI 1983). More than 150,000 ha of forest would be needed to supply one plant. Biomass generally is not available in such enormous quantities from extensive forests and at acceptable prices (ACTI 1983).

If methanol from biomass (33 quads) were used as a substitute for oil in the United States, from 250 to 430 million ha of land would be needed to supply the raw material. This land area is greater than the 162 million ha of US cropland now in production (USDA 1992). Although methanol production from biomass may be impractical because of the enormous size of the conversion plants (Kohl 1990), it is significantly more efficient than the ethanol production system based on both energy output and economics (Kohl 1990).

Compared to gasoline and diesel fuel, both methanol and ethanol reduce the amount of carbon monoxide and sulfur oxide pollutants produced, however both contribute other major air pollutants such as aldehydes and alcohol. Air pollutants from these fuels worsen the tropospheric ozone problem because of the emissions of nitrogen oxides from the richer mixtures used in the combustion engines (Sillman and Samson 1990).

This isn't exactly an endorsement; it's a thumbnail sketch of one possible fuel, not a demand that methanol production begin at once. The paper is an overview of potential energy sources.

Pimentel also offers criticism of nuclear power, although it is more informed than most of what passes for anti-nuclear activism in either the press or the on-line world. Still, Pimentel does not make a comprehensive case against nuclear energy; here merely presents a criticism in the context of cost analysis. It is similar to many of the other energy issues he discusses.

Considering that Pimentel IS endorsing integrating renewable energy sources into the our energy stream, I find it strange that so many of the local Greens consider him to be the Big Bad Wolf of energy science. As an agricultural scientist who has diversified his area of expertise to include energy sustainability issues, he's one of the scientists who have at length gotten us off our collective duff to actually develop new technologies. And he's also warned us about the damage such technologies could cause, so this time, we don't make a complete mess of things.

I've started to collect a list of on-line articles by and about Dr. Pimentel, aiming to rehabilitate his reputation, which I feel has been unfairly -- and foolishly -- tarnished over his warnings about the side issues of ethanol production. The man has made great contributions to the science involved in Green proposals, and does not deserve this kind of culture-war disdain. However, if you have any substantive critical information, let me know, and if it really is substantive and not simply idle invective, I'll be certain to include it. But I've been seeing his stuff off and on for several years, mainly reading for background in environmental issues, and I haven't come across anything worth screaming "TRAITOR! WHORE" over. And keep in mind, (layman though I may be) I, too, think he erred on the side of pessimism with his assessment of ethanol production. I am no more inclined to worship the words of scientists any more than I am to dismiss them when they produce evidence I dislike.

The issues involved in energy demand our most informed action. Demonization of scientists based on a few isolated, context-scrubbed opinions is a bad, bad policy. What may appear to us to be an unforgivable dissent may turn out to be a warning that makes our overall progress a lot easier, safer, and productive. I urge you, and all the DU detractors of Pimentel, to take another look at his work. And, moreover, to suspend blanket judgments and snap reactions for such flimsy reasons as "he's not one of US" or "he's a Suit" or "he consulted for an eeevil oil company/financial firm/political group". Most scientists' work is for hire; their integrity is not, and those who break that trust are not scientists for long -- or ought not to be.

Ultimately, this isn't about David Pimentel. My intent isn't to persuade anyone to play "nicey-nice", but to avoid hasty rejection of ideas we may not initially like, but which may be key to our long-term survival and happiness.

The stakes, as most all of us are aware, are extraordinarily high.

--p!

Pigwidgeon receives no money or other consideration from David S. Pimentel, the Trustees of Cornell University, or any business, activist, religious, or political entity.

Not that he would mind, of course.

Farmers are the ones keeping the land fit to use into the future.

Homes moving onto what once was farm ground is going to kill the future.

People use up crops but don't put back the manure to feed the ground. How long can that go on.

You don't have to buy expensive nitrogen

I don't care if you can drive your SUV with ethanol or bio diesel I want it for growing crops. Too many people to go back to horses.

Didn't reply to the right post its for msg 3

Which was the point of my longer-winded posts: it's erroneous to slam the guy over a couple of scientific disagreements when he has a long history of doing environmentally supportive scientific work. He's one of the few scientists who has been active in bringing these issues to public attention.

There are a lot of people who seem to have picked Pimentel as a bad guy, and quite recently. Was there some kind of "exposé" done on him in the environmental press lately?

--p!

The more I do on Google on Pimentel the less I like.

No expose he just keeps coming up on talks about Ethanol.

He doesn't change his info to take in account new things

Certainly the use of water is something of concern. But not just for production of a renewable, green fuel. I wonder how much of that water going to Champaign Urbana is sprayed on lawns so they will look pretty? (I'll bet it's plenty!).

Improving technology means new plants use as much as 80 percent less water than plants built just five years ago, and most plants recycle their water so it has more than one use, he said.