WATER WOES: Rising corn ethanol production is beginning to draw down underground water supplies in the Midwest.
Image: Flickr/Rastoney
Biofuel production is often touted as a boon to rural development, but a University of Iowa engineering professor is worried about the effect of corn ethanol plants on his and other states' water supplies.
At a biofuels energy symposium hosted by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies last week in Washington, D.C., professor Jerald Schnoor said corn ethanol production facilities require large quantities of high-purity water during the fermentation process.
This water is obtained from underground aquifers, and as ethanol production reaches a fever pitch in Iowa, the state's water supply is threatened. Even in 2009, Iowa state geologists warned that the Jordan aquifer was being pumped at an unsustainable rate in several counties, exceeding the state's 1975 base line within the next two decades.
"We're near record devotion of acres to corn right now," said Schnoor, who also headed the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council in 2007. Up to 40 percent of corn production in the United States now goes to ethanol fuel. Schnoor estimated that up to three-quarters of corn crops in his home state are devoted to ethanol production, stressing Iowa's groundwater sources.
He cited the Lincolnway Energy Plant in Nevada, Iowa, as an example. This plant, which Schnoor acknowledged was older and less efficient than newer plants, produces 50 million gallons of ethanol every year by processing 100,000 acres of corn. He said this process requires 200 million gallons of water per year.
Big consumption in small areas
The Lincolnway Energy Plant's 2012 annual report gives a number closer to 100 million gallons a year, but it does describe its water use as "significant."
According to a 2007 report Schnoor authored for the National Academy of Sciences, "because water use in biorefineries is concentrated into a smaller area, such facilities' effects can be substantial locally." The report added that "a biorefinery that produces 100 million gallons of ethanol per year, for example, would use the equivalent of the water supply for a town of about 5,000 people."
In the western United States, where corn must be irrigated because precipitation is less reliable, Schnoor said the strain on the underground water supply is even greater.
"People don't realize that we're unsustainably pumping down these aquifers," he said, calling for an end to the expansion of biofuel use for this reason.
Theresa Selfa, a professor at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, examined the socio-economic impacts of corn ethanol on small communities in Kansas and Iowa in a 2011 study. After extensive interviews, she found communities were often proud of the biofuel plants, despite the perceived impacts on the water supply.
"We did get more positive than negative comments on the survey," she said.
Drought underscores the problem
These communities had relatively high poverty rates -- one more than 20 percent -- so residents appreciated the boost to the local economy, however small. "These plants don't really have a lot of direct jobs," Selfa said.
"Any job in this town is better than none at all," said a resident in Selfa's study from Russell, Kan.
Also, she said that relative to the environmental impacts of other industries in the Midwest, like feed lots, oil refineries and meat packing plants, "the ethanol industry seemed pretty benign."
But in Russell, home to a plant owned by U.S. Energy Partners, 67 percent of community members expressed concern about the water resources used by the plant. In May 2012, Russell was placed under water restrictions due to drought.
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9 Comments
Add CommentBased on projected population growth (the U.S. piopulation is expected to grow from ~313K to >420K by 2050; world population from >7 to >9 billion) and potential potable water usage characteristics, eventually potable water is likely to become more expensive than liquid fuel...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople in general are not that well informed about their water supplies because they choose to not be informed. They love the economic aspects of corn ethanol but they do not want to hear how it will consume vast amounts of fresh water or how it will actually increase CO2 emissions or how it will impact food prices. I’m still waiting to hear how this is sustainable…What, they didn’t get into that either when those who are supposedly in charge decided to go ahead with the corn ethanol debacle? If it wasn’t so f’ing tragic I would be tempted to say you reap what you sow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis whole thing needs to go away completely as it waste more energy than it produces and especially wasteful of water resources. The person who suggested and implemented EToH for cars was a complete mo$on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe better approach is gattling geothermal wells and solar energy storing car battery power with standardized car batteries leased.
History will show that it was a terrible decision to use our food supply to power cars.
November 3, 2006
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=biofuels-discovery-promis
Biofuels Discovery Promises to End Dependence on Natural Gas
The agricultural lobby?
Biofuel History. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/biodiesel2.htm
It was in the 1970s and 1980s that the idea of using biofuels was revisited in the United States. One of the most important events occurred in 1970 with the passage of the Clean Air Act by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This allowed the EPA to more closely regulate emissions standards for pollutants like sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxide, ozone and nitrogen oxides (NOx). This set the stage for developing cleaner-burning fuels. This also set standards for fuel additives.
The agricultural lobby. more like blame shifting.
Biofuels in general might have a valid place. _Corn_-based biofuels are a waste of food. If you want to make biofuels, make them from actual agricultural waste products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo what is the trade-off here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a disgrace you are Elizabeth Harball. Once again my posts have been deleted. Why? Not because of offensive comment but because I proved a point about green culpability & to protect one of your favoured posters from an obviously misleading statement, which you have also deleted. I hope you are proud of a further green dishonesty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJürgen Hubert how do you feel? A Green endangered species that must be protected.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is this article not called 'Rising use of corn to produce cow fat causing water problems?' Most corn, 70%?, goes for making cows fat and sick, not ethanol.
In fact most of the corn left, 80%, after ethanol is made, is used as cattle feed so not much change really.
Was there ever a dumber policy than subsidizing ethanol from corn?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe if they moved the first primary to a state that grew less corn, we could end this madness.