Ethanol no water hog, Neb. expert says

Ethanol no water hog, Neb. expert says

	Published : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:07 By : Agencies Print this Story

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) - The growing thirst for ethanol takes a lot of water to quench, but less than many people believe and not enough to cause serious problems, experts told farmers.

Last year in Nebraska, the nation's third-leading ethanol producer, it took 2 billion gallons of water at 15 ethanol plants to churn out 676 million gallons of the alternative fuel, Derrel Martin, an irrigation and water resources engineer said Thursday.

But roughly 900 billion gallons of rain water falls annually in Lincoln County, Martin said, addressing the public perception that ethanol production takes an inordinate amount of water.

'These plants are not consuming a huge amount of water,' he said.

Martin spoke during an agriculture conference in North Platte that focused on water. Nebraska is aggressively pushing development of ethanol plants and is poised to become the second-leading producer in the country later this year. At the same time, it is struggling to meet water demands of its farmers and those in neighboring states who rely on water that passes through Nebraska.

A longtime analyst of ethanol production disagreed with Martin and questioned his figures, saying it takes an average of about 15 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol -- much higher than the roughly three gallons of water per gallon of ethanol Martin cited.

Groundwater tables in some states, including Missouri, have been drawn down to dangerously low levels near some ethanol plants, said David Pimentel, an ecology and agriculture professor at Cornell University.

The figures cited by both Martin and Pimentel include only a plant's production of ethanol, not the water it takes to grow corn. After adding that, about 1,700 gallons are needed to produce every gallon of ethanol, Pimentel said.

The entire water-use picture, coupled with the fuel it takes to produce ethanol, makes long-term, mass production of ethanol unsustainable, Pimentel said.

'I wish it were sustainable, I'm an agriculturalist,' he said. 'I wish this whole ethanol deal was a major benefit, but you have got to be a scientist first and an agriculturalist second.'

Martin said the question of whether increased corn production and the irrigation it requires will overburden the state's water supply is an important one that does not yet have a clear answer.

Moratoriums on new groundwater wells are already in place in some regions, such as along the Platte River, and the Republican River basin has caps on groundwater use.

The state faces a test over whether it will control water use in fragile areas or succumb to the financial allure of planting more irrigated corn to meet ethanol demands, Martin said.

Corn prices have risen with ethanol production. There are 19 percent more acres of irrigated corn this year across the country, including about one million more irrigated acres in Nebraska, he said.

Plans designed to curtail water use in some basins could become 'toothless tigers' in the face of such market pressures, he said.

(This version CORRECTS overlines to Nebraska.)