Bioethanol's impact on water supply 3 times higher than once thought
August 5, 2009
Production of bioethanol may consume up to three times more water than previously thought, scientists are reporting. Credit: American Chemical Society
At a time when water supplies are scarce in many areas of the United States, scientists in Minnesota are reporting that production of bioethanol — often regarded as the clean-burning energy source of the future — may consume up to three times more water than previously thought. Their study appeared in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Sangwon Suh and colleagues point out in the study that annual bioethanol production in the U.S. is currently about 9 billion gallons and note that experts expect it to increase in the near future. The growing demand for bioethanol, particularly corn-based ethanol, has sparked significant concerns among researchers about its impact on water availability.
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 scientists say.
The scientists made a new estimate of bioethanol's impact on the water supply using detailed irrigation data from 41 states. They found that bioethanol's water requirements can be as high as 861 billion gallons of water from the corn field to the fuel pump in 2007. And a gallon of ethanol may require up to over 2,100 gallons of water from farm to fuel pump, depending on the regional irrigation practice in growing corn. However, 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 results highlight the need to take regional specifics into account when implementing biofuel mandates," the article notes.
More information: "Water Embodied in Bioethanol in the United States", Environmental Science & Technology.
Source: American Chemical Society (news : web)
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JD1 - Aug 06, 2009
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Does this work account for co-products e.g. DDGS that is used as an animal feed. How does the total water demand of all end products when they're produced from one feedstock compare with total water demand when products are grown seperately in different fields or even parts of the world? Accepting in any case that local water demand must not exceed local water supply!- report abuse
Apr 08, 2009 |
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