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Biofuel Production to Cause Water Shortages?
WED Fan writes "Scientists meeting in Stockholm are reporting that increased food and biofuel production will place higher demand upon irrigation and water resources." From the article: "Demand for irrigation -- which absorbs about 74 percent of all water used by people against 18 percent for hydro-power and other industrial uses and just 8 percent for households -- was likely to surge by 2050. Many nations are also shifting to produce biofuels -- from sugarcane, corn or wood -- as a less polluting alternative to fossil fuels. Oil prices at $75 a barrel and worries about global warming are driving the shift."
I remember reading about this a few years ago in SciAm.
I think a lot of the reason it hasn't caught on is cited in your Wiki link. Its a classic case of NIMBY.
Its a town in the middle of a big farming state, its residents should be used to the smell of animal processing. All of a sudden theres sometihng new, and almost too good to be true, and they start smelling 'new' smells and begin pointing fingers.
The biggest hurdle to any new energy source is public acceptance. This is getting even harder in the States with a public that is rejecting science and accepting of short-term politically driven decisions.
biofuel != no CO2
True but it is also true that biofuel != NET increase CO2.
A biofueled economy would put CO2 in the atmosphere at the consumer end of the cycle but it takes it out of the atmosphere at the production end of the cycle. Over time, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will not increase due to biofuels.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Good grief! The only solution that the shotgun approach gives is for all humans to go live in caves--with the caveat that 5 billion or so of us dissappear (remember that farming and ranching contribute to global warming as well).
Well, many of the more fundamental environmentalists see humankind as a a plague that is scrourging an otherwise perfect earth (mother nature). It is a modern version of the old Gnosis, where the whole creation was evil, and only the Sophia was perfect.
I live in Kansas, where there are a couple of ethanol plants either under construction or in the planning stages. Ethanol plants require something like 200 gallons of water a minute to function, which is a huge amount of water. Some posters above have mentioned desalination to get water, but they're missing the point of ethanol plants: to put the plant near corn production, i.e. away from the coasts. The vast majority of the water in Kansas comes from a single aquifer, and there's a lot of debate about how long before the aquifer will run dry. It's not always an issue of having good water; sometimes it's an issue of having any water at all.
A and B are nuclear as well then...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Using 200 GPM and wasting 200 GPM are two entirely different things. Most of the water is used in
cooling the fractional distillation towers and this is entirely recirculated. Most of the mashing water is also recovered in holding ponds. So your figure is nothing more than a little interesting not a indication of a problem as you suggest.
Got Code?
LOL! You do realize you're a nut job, right?
Nuclear is safe. You're touting Chernobyl as an example of how unsafe nuclear power is? Get real. Chernobyl is an example of stuidity of mankind in its most extreme. Your argument makes as much sense as saying dynamite (the basis of most modern techonological infrastructure) should be banned because some idiot terrorist strapped it to himself and blew some people up. Simple fact is, dynamite is one of the safest explosives we have. And yes, idiots do blow themselves up with it. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Fact, Chernobyl would have never been allowed to be built in the US (even in the 50s, or any other country in the world) as it failed to meet the most basic of safety standards. Fact, Russia suffers from penis envy (compared to te US) and considers its people to be disposible; thusly they knowingly created a very, very dangerous reactor. Fact, Russia has a long history of ignoring safety at the expense of their population (comparisons to civil terrorism would not be unwarrented). Fact, it had little to no containment shielding to begin with. Fact, what failsafes they had in place had been disabled. Fact, with a skeleton crew, making them unable to react to any emergency, they decided to operate their reactor outside known safe parameters to observe what happens. Guess what, they acted like terrorists strapping dynamite to themselves and the world is shocked. Gasp! Chernobyl is an condemnation of Russia, Russian politics, and Russia's complete disreguard for humanity; however, it is not a statement about nuclear power.
In the final analysis, only an absolute idiot would use Chernobyl as a posterboy for how unsafe nuclear power is. Why do I sound so harsh? Simple, because anyone that attempts to use Chernobyl for anti-nuclear reasons obviously doesn't know anything about the details and are running scared. If you insist on attempting to make an anti-nuclear, fear mongering position, please build a case based on facts rather than ignorance and stupidity. If you're using Chernobyl, obviously you have no facts and come off sounding like an absolute, raving, tree-hugging, loon. At best, you're simply ignorant, parroting fear.
Simple fact is, nuclear power, based on current designs, is very, very safe. Simple fact is, newer, modern nuclear designs are safer yet. One can certainly argue the economic merits and the finite duration nuclear power is an option. Nonetheless, nuclear is one of the safest sources of power on earth. Anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge of the subject matter is forced to conclude, nuclear is safe. Period.
Simple fact is, nuclear power, based on current designs, is very, very safe. Simple fact is, newer, modern nuclear designs are safer yet. One can certainly argue the economic merits and the finite duration nuclear power is an option. Nonetheless, nuclear is one of the safest sources of power on earth. Anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge of the subject matter is forced to conclude, nuclear is safe. Period.
Yes, the design of nuclear power plants are such better, safer, today than they were before. However there's still the problem of where to store the wastes for the period of tyme needed to become harmless. In the US the only place being looked at for this is Yucca Mountain in Utah. Two problems come to mind here, one is that it is within ancient Shoshone lands and the Shoshone have been fighting to prevent nuclear from beeing stored there. A second problem, which as far more reaching ramifications is that Yucca Mountain is a siesmically active region with a number of earthquake faultlines and a volcano in the area. In the 1970s a government building at Yucca was damaged in an earthquake, with another one in 2002, Quake reported near Yucca Mountain. And Bush wants to store nuclear waste there?
At one tyme I was against nuclear power but with today's designs if a way to safety store long term the wastes, and they were operated in a true freemarket then I would support them. However I doubt anyone would want one if they had to operate it in a freemarket, there are laws that protect the nuclear industry from lawsuits and the industry gets subsidies.
FalconShould there be a Law?