Nature's Voice Our Choice

In the race to develop and produce alternative energies their impact on water resources must not be overlooked.  When searching for an alternative energy source, we expect the alternative to be better than the existing source; better economically and better environmentally.  However, in regions already under water stress, such as the Western United States, bio-fuel production will further decrease the availability of freshwater for development and limit water for ecosystem survival, food and livestock production, and for meeting the basic needs of people in the region.  Current policies in the United States promote and subsidize the production of bio-fuels and many view bio-fuels as an environmentally sustainable alternative source of energy. 

An overview of at the interrelationship between water and bio-fuel production will quickly tell you that this practice is not environmentally sustainable.  Let us look at one feedstock crop ‘corn’ which is widely used to produce ethanol in the United States.  Corn for ethanol production is grown mostly in the Corn Belt and western U.S. 

In Iowa, under partial irrigation, corn production uses about 1081 gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced.  In dry regions, such as the southwestern part of Nebraska where corn is fully irrigated, corn production uses over 1500 gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced.(1)  Thus, the 13.9 billion gallons of ethanol that was produced in the United States in 2006, required an average of 18 trillion gallons of water. This is more water than the entire US population consumes for domestic use in a year, yet it only replaces 3% of our fuel needs.(2)

In addition, bio-fuel production has an impact on water quality as well. For example, corn is the most nitrogen intensive of major field crops, excess nitrates travel through the soil and leach into ground water, contaminating both soil and water resources.  In October 2007, the National Academies of Sciences in the United States released a report that warned of the implica¬tions of bio-fuel production on water availability and quality in the United States. The report states that “if projected increases in the use of corn for ethanol production occur, the harm to water quality could be consider¬able, and water supply problems at the regional and local lev¬els could also arise.”(3)
 
The goal that is so often spoken of when discussing alternative energy is ‘Energy Independence’ which means:  Developing energy sources that can take us into the future, without further damage to the environment and without dependence on certain regions of the world for their resources.  The current means of bio-fuel production in the United States provides us with an alternative that does not lead to Energy Independence, but rather uses vast amounts of water in ‘water stressed regions’ to produce feedstock for fuel.  Fresh water is a limited resource.  If the current trend continues and bio-fuel production rapidly increases, access to water, may replace oil in its value and become a strategic resource within next 20 years.  We must ensure that, while in the pursuit of alternative energies, we do not replace energy dependence with water dependence.

Resources
1. Calculated on the basis of average ET data (for the period 1993-2004) available at “Evapotranspiration: Needs and Water Availability at Champion, Nebraska.” http://www.waterclaim.org/Presentations/etvsprecip/etvsprecip.htm and yield data from Table 28. Estimated Quantity of Water Applied and Method of Distribution by Selected Crops Harvested: 2003 and 1998, National Agricultural Statistics Services 2004 http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census02/fris/tables/fris03_28.pdf

2.  Library of Parliament – Parliament and Research Service
Biofuels - An Energy, Environmental or Agricultural Policy?
Frédéric Forge, Science and Technology Division, 8 February 2007

3. Committee on Water Implications of Biofuels Production in the United States, National Research Council, Report brief, National Academies, 2007, http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/biofuels_brief_final.pdf

Institute for agriculture and trade Policy ‘Biofuels and Global Water Challenges’ http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_en___US223&q=iatp+biofuels+and+global+water+challenges