Has anyone in the state department reviewed a complete study of the groundwater table draw down from "bottled water" and corn ethanol production?
The state department should put the obvious correlation between increased corn ethanol and bottled water production water usage with national drought trends.
Overlaying national aquifer table draws from corn ethanol production and biomass usage locations over national drought maps based on the last five years reflect an obvious and disturbing trend...
Projected production of ethanol is 5-6 Billion gallons in 2007. "The production of which requires 5-7 Gallons of "very clean" water to produce PER GALLON" or 24-42 Billion gallons of clean water to manufacture.
Factoring in crop usage may push this number to 780 Gallons of water for 1 Gallon of ethanol. This number easily hits the trillions.
U.S. FUEL ETHANOL Industry biorefineries and Production CAPACITY
Ethanol Total Capacity will be 13,485,000,000,000 by 2010 - that is way to many 0's
Using a "conservative" estimate, this is Trillions of gallons of precious water.
Bottled water factories...are using more than 18 million barrels of oil and up to 130 billion gallons of fresh water a year to create 41 gallons of bottled water.
Opppss... there goes 89 Billion gallons of fresh water, because I was to lazy to use the tap or a drinking fountain.
i.e. national groundwater table draw down we are currently seeing.
Conclusion:
If they are trying, the real way to destroy the National Economy and cause a drought of biblical proportions, would be to "produce bottled water with ethanol".
Instead of using 18 million barrels of oil to make our pretty water bottles we take to soccer games, we could produce bottled water with ethanol that has a net energy loss of 20-30%.
This would take the energy of 23 million barrels of oil and maybe we could blow out 100 trillion gallons combining the two.
Oh wait, that IS what the nation is trying to do. Yikes.
See more data correlation and summary info:
U.S. Drought monitor
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
http://www.drought.noaa.gov
Water Implications of Biofuels Production in the United States (2007)
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12039&page=35
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12039&page=37
Ethanol's Water Shortage (wall street)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119258870811261613.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
Ethanol Total Capacity and energy loss
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/locations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_ethanol
Bottled Water Boom Has Environmental Drawbacks
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2007/May07/bottledwater.html
