142 gallons of water needed to produce 1 gallon of fuel additive
Posted: May 04, 2009
12:46 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
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A new study shows that ethanol production consumes much more water
than was previously thought, as much as 2,000 gallons of water for
every gallon of ethanol produced in states where crops must be
irrigated, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Publishing results in Environmental Science & Technology,
scientists from the University of Minnesota concluded, "The results
show that as the ethanol industry expands to areas that apply more
irrigated water than others, consumptive water appropriation by
bioethanol in the U.S. has increased from 1.9 to 6.1 trillion liters
between 2005 and 2008, whereas U.S. bioethanol production has increased
only 133 percent from 15 to 24 billion liters during the same period."
The national average showed 142 gallons of water were needed to produce one gallon of ethanol.
As the Energy Tribune reported, "The water dependency of corn
ethanol looks even more unsustainable under various scenarios of
climate change, which ironically this fuel is intended to help
mitigate."
"Simply put," it stated, "if water in the West and Southwest is
likely to be in even tighter supply in the future, the last thing we
should be doing with it is to divert it to the production of such a
water-intensive oil substitute."
As WND has reported,
the California Environmental Protection ruled that the corn ethanol
fails to meet the agency's mandate to effect a 10 percent reduction in
the carbon intensity of California's fuels by 2020 for two reasons: 1)
converting corn into ethanol is a very coal intensive process, and 2)
the conversion of carbon dioxide-absorbing land now populated with
trees into cleared farmland producing corn for ethanol increases the
carbon dioxide footprint of ethanol.
Meanwhile, the ethanol industry has been plagued by a series of
bankruptcies, despite a 45 cent per gallon federal subsidy and a
federal mandate that requires U.S. gasoline producers to use 12 billion gallons of ethanol this year, with the requirement increasing to 15 billion gallons by 2015.
A Congressional Budget Office report issued this month, entitled "The Impact of Ethanol Use on Food Prices and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions,"
concluded that "when the price of gasoline is more than 90 percent of
the price of a bushel of corn, it is profitable to produce ethanol."
Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation"
and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers
list, wrote that with corn currently trading at about $3.80 a bushel,
gasoline would have to cost about $3.40 a gallon for the production of
ethanol to be profitable, even with government subsidies
But with oil trading at around $50 per barrel, gasoline over
the last month has settled into a range at a national average of about
$2.05 per gallon.
Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political
science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with
banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial
services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing
broker/dealers and insurance
subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to
their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different
third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales
levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.
In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted
financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and
numerous articles in professional financial services journals and
magazines.
For more information on the future of ethanol and for financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert,
the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer,
columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."
For the complete report and full immediate access to Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, subscribe now.