The Big Thirst
Ethanol producers face a huge challenge: ensuring they don't deplete water supplies in the Corn Belt
By JESSICA RESNICK-AULT/WSJ
November 12, 2007; Page R12
Ethanol plants sprouting up across the Corn Belt have brought with them some of the best financial opportunities seen in those areas in a generation.
Producers of ethanol have pumped nearly $14 billion into a wide array of businesses, and the resulting economic boost has created more than 40,000 jobs since the corn-based gasoline additive gained popularity two years ago.
At first glance, ethanol may seem like a panacea for a weak economy in the Midwest.
But critics point to hidden costs associated with the new ethanol plants: rising corn prices for consumers, gasoline that gets fewer miles per gallon, and, perhaps most ominous, potential water shortages.
"We, and lots of environmentalists, are in a tough spot," says Timothy Male, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. "Biofuels have a lot of promise, but there's an issue with waste and water," Mr. Male says. "Any time you're putting a high-water-use industry in the middle of the desert, it's a concern." Ethanol plants are going up in places "where there were already too many straws in the ground," he says.
Aquifer at Risk?
The amount of water needed to grow the corn, process the fuel and dispose of the waste at a small ethanol plant is about equal to the water needs of a town of about 10,000, according to an Environmental Defense Fund report. And although the next five to 10 years may not see major changes to the Plains region's water levels, long-term implications could be severe, says a study from the National Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based public-policy research institute.
The council and other scientific groups are worried about the declining Ogallala aquifer, an underground body of water that stretches from Texas to Wyoming. Water levels in the aquifer have fallen more than 100 feet in the past 60 years, and may drop further as ethanol plants multiply in the region. Diminution of the Ogallala beyond a certain point could begin to harm human, animal and plant life in the region.
Yet, even staunch opponents of ethanol's rising profile say that the fuel may be able to avoid seriously sapping regional water supplies if producers and policy makers focus on addressing the fuel's thirst for drinkable water.
"As biofuels production expands and technology advances, there is a real opportunity to shape policies to also meet objectives related to water use and quality impacts," the Research Council's report says. The report made recommendations on tighter restrictions for plant locations and where corn for the plants can be grown.
The Environmental Defense Fund, too, agrees that plant placement can have an impact, and suggests that the viability of the Ogallala aquifer could be sustained if fewer ethanol plants are concentrated in vulnerable areas.
Technical Solutions
Ethanol producers say they are prepared for the challenges as the business expands and are ready to adapt quickly. Producers, plant designers and water engineers are all teaming up to try to reduce water consumption, says Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that represents ethanol producers.
Producers as small as newcomer US BioEnergy of St. Paul, Minn., and as big as Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. of Decatur, Ill., have discussed measures to reduce their impact.
"Historically, ethanol-plant constructors have tried to standardize the design, and just bang them out like cookies," says Paul Greene, global director, food, beverage and biofuels industries, for Siemens Water Technologies, a division of Germany's Siemens AG. "We've seen that you can't do that."
Ethanol plants currently require about four gallons of water to produce a single gallon of ethanol, Mr. Greene says. As the size of plants increase from producing about 100 million gallons of ethanol a year to 200 million or 300 million gallons a year, a single plant will consume as much water as a city of 30,000, Mr. Greene says.
As plants are built outside the Midwest, increasingly encroaching on drought-plagued states like Florida and California, the impact could be more severe, Mr. Greene says.
Significant technical innovations are required to reduce the amounts of water that ethanol plants consume. One ethanol plant designer, Delta T Corp., based in Williamsburg, Va., says it has created a system that will reduce consumption to just one-and-a-half gallons of water per gallon of ethanol, down from four gallons of water.
To further reduce the plants' impact on drinkable water, engineers also can route more low-quality water -- even waste water -- to functions where high purity is unnecessary. In the past two years, demand for engineers experienced in this kind of work has skyrocketed in the ethanol industry, Mr. Greene says.
Cutting the water needed to grow corn is a taller order. Still, companies can do a better job of controlling run-off from irrigation, and reducing amounts of water contaminated by fertilizer. Developing more advanced ethanol, made from crops other than corn, may also lessen the burden on the water table. Still, these fuels have yet to be produced in commercial volumes, and may have unknown environmental impacts of their own.
Despite concerns, growing more corn and building more plants may be needed to keep up with U.S. mandates for renewable fuel, according to Ron Oster, a St. Louis-based analyst with Broadpoint Capital Inc.
The U.S. can currently produce about seven billion gallons of ethanol a year, a little more than the amount required federally. New production to come online by the end of this year, and additions in the years that follow, should increase capacity by about 5.5 billion gallons by 2009.
But if the energy bill pending in Congress passes, more than 35 billion gallons of alternative fuel production will be mandated. And with ethanol as the most easily available renewable fuel, there could be a dramatic upswing in new cornfields and ethanol-production facilities.
Concerns over the ramifications of the bill have led to some unlikely bedfellows. The National Petrochemical and Refiner's Association, for example, doesn't want to see legislation taking the place of market demand when it comes to determining how much ethanol should be produced.
The energy bill's ethanol mandate could impact the bottom line of members of the Washington, D.C.-based trade organization. To help block such a mandate, the group has joined the environmentalists and others expressing concerns about water.
"There's an impact in terms of both water quantity and quality," says Bill Holbrook, a spokesman for the group. Mandated production also could drive ethanol supplies beyond the volume that the market is able to readily absorb, he adds.
The ethanol industry, for its part, is quick to point out that failing to accept the mandate might still result in a drain on water. Canadian oil reserves, seen as a possible source of conventional fuel for the U.S., produce a thick grade of oil that requires just as much -- if not more -- water for refining than ethanol does, says Mr. Hartwig.
"The water from that [refining] process is so toxic that it has to be put into holding ponds so large they can be seen from space -- and it takes 200 years to separate," he says. |
