Originally Posted By: supton
I read a National Geo article years ago that said the natural aquifiers in the midwest were getting pumped dry trying to grow corn. Not sure what the situation is today.
That is a lot of water per gallon of ethanol!
Gonna be hard pressed to tell that to the folks who live in the Midwest! Truth is, 15% of farm ground in the U.S. is irrigated. That is mostly produce farm ground like the veggies you buy at the store that come from Imperial Valley and the San Joachin Valley type regions. Sure, some midwest farm ground gets some irrigation, but it doesn't hardly make a blip on the radar. Irrigation is a little more common west of the Missouri River. Most corn growing areas in the Midwest use no irrigation at all.
And water to make ethanol, sure. But it also takes water to make petroleum fuels! Didn't know that, eh? Guess what, ethanol production only uses less than a quarter more volume of water to produce a gallon of ethanol than the refineries use to produce a gallon of gasoline. That's right, it takes 2-2.5 gallons of water to produce one gallon of gasoline and it takes just under 3 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. I know, facts can be tough to handle. But to also make the point, most of the water used for each purpose is recycled, so that the actual volume of water used is considerably less than the amounts shown for both gas and ethanol would imply from the per gallon rate.
And 1" of rain on one acre of ground is equivalent to 27154 gallons of water per the U.S. Geological Service. And given that Iowa, for one, gets over 35" of rain a year, I don' think anything is in jeopardy because a lot of corn is grown there. Kinda hard to fathom that corn and ethanol are depleting water when Iowa, for one, gets on average almost 1 million gallons of water per acre per year from Ma nature. The other mega corn producing states in the region, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota (a little less rain though), etc are in the same rain belt as Iowa.
