Ethanol Costs LOTS of Water

 

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.

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. 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. 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. The possibility of a new ethanol plant is one reason the city of Aberdeen, S.D., decided to seek new water sources, perhaps from deeper wells, Mayor Mike Levson said. "We felt that for the current demand we had plenty of water to supply them, but that would begin to run us up to our limit," he said. Even so, there can be a cumulative effect as demand is added. But ethanol proponents say there is more danger of running out of corn than there is of using too much water, and that will wind up limiting the number of plants in a particular area. "Corn generally comes from a 50-mile radius around an ethanol plant, so there's only so many plants you can put in and get the corn you need to operate them," said Phil Shane, marketing director for the Illinois Corn Growers Association As for the plant near Champaign, the city and Urbana lifted their objections after the company proposing it agreed to study the potential impact on the Mahomet Aquifer before moving ahead. The Champaign County Board voted last month to allow ethanol plants as a special use in heavy industry zones. Source: Associated Press