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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."