Ethanol: Water Use and Pollution

  • What About the Land?
    By Julia Olm­stead, 05 Dec 2006 A look at the impacts of bio­fu­els pro­duc­tion, in the U.S. and the world 
  • Water Sup­ply Can’t Meet Thirst For New Indus­try Min­neapo­lis Star Tri­bune, Decem­ber 26, 2005.

    “the region’s predica­ment offers an ear­ly glimpse of the sorts of water short­age issues expect­ed to be com­mon­place across the coun­try in decades to come as demand rises…Nowhere is the grow­ing clash between eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and water con­ser­va­tion more evi­dent than in the push to build ethanol plants that typ­i­cal­ly guz­zle 3½ to 6 gal­lons of water for every gal­lon of fuel pro­duced. Min­neso­ta’s 15 ethanol plants togeth­er con­sume about 2 bil­lion gal­lons of water per year”

  • Drunk on Ethanol by Ted Williams, Audubon, Aug 2004.

    “MTBE pol­lutes ground and sur­face water, but so does ethanol. With each gal­lon of ethanol you get 12 gal­lons of sewage­like efflu­ent pro­duced by the fermentation/distillation process.”


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