Ethanol’s impact on water
With this post, I officially claim my place at b5media’s biggest nerd. That’s right, folks. It’s Saturday night, and I’m busy … watching the Weather Channel.
I live in Iowa. My ex-brother-in-law works at the Vera Sun ethanol plant. I have a van that runs on E85. But something gives me the heebie jeebies about ethanol. Whether it’s the tremendous amount of subsidies fueling the industry or the idea of other resources at risk because of ethanol production, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just the fact that ethanol gets about 30% fewer miles per gallon?
I was flipping the channels tonight and ran across a story on ethanol’s effect on ground water supplies, and how this could be a problem in certain areas. In particular, in Iowa. I remember the droughts of the 90’s that kept our farming communities in limbo (and keeping showers at a minimum). To hear that ethanol production uses 3 gallons of water to produce one gallon of fuel was disconcerting. Worse was hearing that we haven’t set up any way of recording exactly how much water these plants are using. We have a plan in action to change that, and imo it can’t come soon enough.
Tags: Ethanol, waterRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Ethanol - E85
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