Drought, Corn, Ethanol Accelerate Groundwater Demand On High Plains - ENN

[hatrack]

EDIT

The region under the greatest stress is the Great Plains, an area from North Dakota to Texas dubbed the Great American Desert by early explorers but turned into a garden spot in the last century thanks to a single innovation: irrigation.

But farmers from Nebraska through northern Texas are now growing more water-thirsty crops, like corn, that offer them better cash returns due to changing trends such as the boom in ethanol and biodiesel fuels. That is only accelerating the depletion of ground water faster than it can be replenished by rain. In some cases, farm land is already being idled to conserve water.

"My sense in looking at these issues for 20 years, we're going to need at least a doubling of water productivity in agriculture if we're going to have an opportunity to meet food demand in a way that is somewhat environmentally sustainable," said Sandra Postel with the Global Water Policy Project, a group in Amherst, Massachusetts that analyzes water policies.

EDIT

But U.S. water problems have the greatest implications for world food supplies. The United States for decades has been the planet's "food reserve," the top exporter of wheat, corn and soybeans and the largest single provider of food aid to other nations. The squeeze on water for U.S. farms is pushing innovation, such as a trend away from flood irrigation to center pivot sprinklers or state-of-the art, localized drip irrigation. "Just the changing of irrigation techniques can save a lot of water. That's the first place to start," said Thomas Kimmell, executive director with the Irrigation Association.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11114

[Kickoutthejams23]

1. Ah the unintended consequences of Biofuels.

Just wait till we STOP exporting food to the third world.

I wrote about this a day or two ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=64903&mesg_id=64903

[phantom power]

2. That's perfect timing, what with the pandemic of drought.

:eyes:

[NNadir]

3. I guess the reliance on fossil water makes Texas ethanol a fossil

fuel.

There's been some ambiguity about the matter in any case.

[greenman3610]

4. this is why we need to move to non corn sources

for biofuel,
prairie grasses for cellulosic ethanol,
hemp for biofuel...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26etha.html?ex=1301029200en=7c21ddc350bd9274ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1156363231-yaCCIQKXp7djHL4MUiR/Dw

cellulosic ethanol, the kind produced from nonfood plant matter, has some advantages over food-based ethanol. Because cellulosic ethanol is derived from plant waste, wood chips or wild grasses like miscanthus and switchgrass, it would not require costly cultivation; that would mean savings on labor, pesticides, fertilizers and irrigation.

[hunter]

5. No point. For all that trouble you can make other fuels from biomass.

You can take "plant waste, wood chips or wild grasses" and break them down into something you can ferment for ethanol, you can make pellet fuels, or you can use these directly as a feedstock for synthesis gas to make any sort of fuel you want.

The advantage of the synthesis gas route is that you can incorporate other sorts of energy streams into the process, and you can make methane out of any temporary surplus which is easily stored in the ground.

But both cellulosic ethanol and synthesis gas are competing with the very simple technology of pelletized fuels.

The actual numbers will have to be crunched in industrial scale prototypes, but for now I'd bet on the synthesis gas route over cellulosic ethanol once the market for wood pellets is saturated.