A Thirsty Fuel - Minnesota Ethanol Plants Running Into Water Shortages

[NickB79]

"With several plants coming, Minnesota could quadruple its ethanol output. But producing the alternative fuel requires a lot of water — not always available in the corn-rich southern part of the state."

snip

"Most have been built or are being proposed for south-central and southwestern Minnesota. While rich in the corn used to make the clean-burning, alternative fuel, those areas are short on another key ingredient — water. Moreover, that water isn't evenly distributed.

With so many plants on the horizon and water shortages possible, the state is ramping up warnings to companies to be extra careful about choosing where to build. Preventing future groundwater depletion ensures water for homes and businesses."

snip

"Put all of those together and the volume of ethanol produced in Minnesota each year could quadruple, from 550 million gallons to more than 2 billion gallons. Because it takes 4 to 5 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol, ethanol-related demand for water could increase from 2.5 billion gallons to 10 billion gallons a year."

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/14891310.htm

[evlbstrd]

1. Another strike against ethanol.

On top of the fossil fuel products used to raise the corn in the first place.

[NNadir]

2. What a surprise! Who could have anticipated?

[aasleka]

3. If you think oil is expensive now

Just wait, many utilities are tightening their belts and watching what happens.

Homeland security grants for instance last year (2005) could be used for newer water meter replacements as well as amr and leak flag meters to better monitor resources.
I tried to get into that money pit but it is only for states west of the mississippi.

Anytime you hear ideas being tossed out there such as a pipeline from the great lakes to California you know you're in trouble.
All of this is the subtle effects of global warming and it will get worse.

Lately I have been pondering proposals for storm water management to offset the heavy rains when they do fall to slow down the storm water surges that will be getting worse and worse. Plus we will need to be trying to collect and store that runoff.
To get ready now for what will come in ten years is the only responsible thing to do as a munincipality. The developers sure won't care.

Some companies in my area have been thinking too. The engineers at a certain Glaxo plant have set up a collection system around their chillers to catch the condensation that normally evaporates around them.
Anyone who is paying attention can see the trouble ahead. It isn't going to be pretty either.

[msongs]

4. you should see how much water it takes to make a pound of BEEF

and how much waste cows make and how much grain they eat.

the biggest feed lot and beef operations are in areas with low amounts of water, so ground water is pumped and depleted
just to make hamburgers.

"diet for a small planet"

[Dogmudgeon]

6. It's not just beef

Beef seems to be becoming the whipping boy of the environmental movement (or at least PETA), but all forms of agriculture and animal husbandry are FAR more wasteful than they ought to be. A lot of this was accomplished by destroying the family farm system and replacing it with a quasi-industrial system of factory farming. You would think someone would have said, "gee, they tried that in the USSR in the 1920s, and as soon as they ran into an energy shortage, a famine killed ten million people in Ukraine", but why learn from history when money (supposedly) solves everything?

My primary complaint (such as it is) about the "beef-is-bad" movement is that it ignores the crisis that is overtaking all agriculture -- the increasing energy and water draw that comes from the use of the cheapest, dirtiest, most inefficient machine techniques we have. In a couple of years, that cheapness is going to lead to both a capital sink and potential food shortage -- or at least escalating food prices. And the humanitarian concern for the food animals is also substantial. Although I eat meat and don't suffer from "Bambi guilt", I'm quite willing to pay a penny a pound more to assure that my food isn't tortured to death by poorly- (read: cheaply- ) designed killing devices. On family farms that produce meat, trained hands who also raise the animals learn to kill the critter quickly and with minimum pain. The factory system has always been abominable, but has only reduced the price of meat by a few percent.

Speaking of whipping boys, the ethanol advocates' current enfant terrible, David Pimentel, is probably the most outspoken scientist on this issue of water use and agricultural sustainability. (Caveat: I don't agree with P on all issues; but it's rare I reach 95% agreement with anybody.) We need a major change in the entire system; the word "holistic" has to become more than a buzzword. We need to start planning for real sustainability, not just a disconnected bunch of ideological hobby-horses ranging from Ayn-Randianity to Voluntary Human Extinction. Ethanol production will have to become part of our overall agricultural planning. Optimizing our return should be a strong concern of any modern approach to environmentalism and agriculture.

You say you want a revolution? Let some affluent Americans go hungry. I'd prefer to act now and avoid trauma later. If I may be forgiven the atrocious mixed metaphor, hamburger may be the canary in the American food mine.

We have no shortage of intelligence, but action is at a premium. We're having enough trouble just getting a few windplants set up -- what do you think the chances are for an intelligent, sustainable agricultural policy?

--p!

[lindisfarne]

5. Why can't they reuse the same water over and over? n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Sounds like a fair question

...unless they're using some sort of LHC particle accelerator, it's pretty hard to fit that much water into that much ethanol....

[NNadir]

8. During the many droughts I've been through in California, people say...

"Why can't we just get water from the sea?"

The answer is, we can, if we are willing to pay for the energy. The purification of water, whether from bioreactors or from seawater involves energy. In the seawater case, most of the energy associated with the purification of the water constituting rainfall is solar.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Different animal, surely?

I admit to knowing naff-all about commercial ethanol production, but surely the water that's used is either lost via evaporation or just down the drain: in either case, it wouldn't require a genius to trap it and reuse it. even it it needs to be run trough a filter, it's not in the same league as desalinisation.

Unless I'm talking nonsense, or course :dunce:

[NNadir]

10. It is true that treating industrial water is cheaper than desalination.

San Diego for instance recovers its sewage water and puts it back in the tap. It does not desalinate.

However, both processes require energy. The matter is a question of quantity.

People argue all the time about the first distillation in ethanol production. Adding more distillations will effect the economics and environmental impact. The presence of impurites may, also, affect the viability of the organisms doing the fermentation. Yeast kill themselves with their own waste, the waste being ethanol.

There are other species that kill themselves off with their own waste, but I'm not mentioning names.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. lol...

Having been known to produce my own home brews, I'm am familiar with a couple of yeasts that can withstand 40% own-waste-by-volume in their environment (home brewed Amaretto. God help me). Admittedly they are GM, but I'll leave you to ponder the evolutionary implications of that possibility...

[phantom power]

12. Damn. That's like barley wine on growth hormones.

[NNadir]

14. Hey PP, if you guys need some water in AZ, we have it up here.

If you burn about half a ton of petroleum, drive up here, we'll give you a few bottles.

Just saying.

We're going to have a major flood problem up here if one of your hurricanes comes to New Jersey.

[phantom power]

15. If I ever drive back to the NE for water, it probably means I'm staying...

along with 50 million of my closest friends :evilgrin:

By that time, New Jersey might look like New Orleans, and I'll get cholera from your water. But I'm sure it will all work out, if we can just pass a gay marriage amendment to appease the Great Sky God.

[NNadir]

16. And a flag amendment.

God wants to protect the American flag.

[lindisfarne]

17. San Diego doesn't put it back into the "tap" - they use it for watering

corporate, university, and municipal lawns. They're trying to expand this system - when the recycled water comes out, the spigots are a purplish-pink color to identify that it's recycled water.

The recycled water isn't potable so it's not coming out of any tap in any house.

[JohnWxy]

13. Water usage, some more information

http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1268/htdocs/table02.html


I looked around for some useful data on water usage and located some info at link above.

Just using Minnesota as an example, from the table at that site, it showed consumption in millions of gallons per day for various uses. Here is a sample of some:   

PUblic supply................500
Domestic (households)....80.8
Industrial.....................154
Thermoelectric..............2,270

Domestic water use is water used for indoor and outdoor household purposes. Common indoor uses include drinking, preparing food, bathing, washing clothes and dishes, and flushing toilets. The major outdoor uses are watering lawns and gardens.

Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine
generators. For 2000, thermoelectric-power water withdrawals were compiled by cooling-system type because cooling-system type is the primary determinant for the amount of consumptive use relative to withdrawals.

Industrial water use includes water used for such purposes as fabricating, processing, washing, diluting, cooling, or transporting a product; incorporating water into a product; or for sanitation needs within the manufacturing facility. Some industries that use large amounts of water produce such commodities as food, paper, chemicals, refined petroleum, or primary metals.

Public supply refers to water withdrawn by public and private water suppliers that furnish water to at least 25 people or have a minimum of 15 connections. Public-supply water may be delivered to users for domestic, commercial, industrial, or thermoelectric-power purposes.