A Body Blow for Ethanol

There's a massive development underway in the U.S. and elsewhere to produce "bio-fuels" as a renewable alternative to petroleum resources. In theory it sounds good: grow corn and then transform it into fuel. Grow corn, make gas, grow more corn, make more gas and on it goes.

Would that it were that simple but it's not. A couple of days ago I posted an item entitled "When the food runs out" based on a Gwynne Dyer piece about the earth's inability to produce enough food for the existing population. Dyer touched on the bio-fuel craze and pointed out that, if we don't have enough farmland to feed our people, how can we take lands out of food production to make fuel. He drove the point home by noting that to make enough ethanol to fill up an SUV once requires enough grain to feed a person for a full year.

Turns out there's another looming problem, one much more likely to doom this corn-based biofuel project. America's corn belt is located in a handful of states that all rely on what's known as the High Plains Aquifer. Mid-western farmers have been dependent on the HPA for decades. Its bountiful supply allowed them to turn prairie grasslands into productive farmlands.

For more than a decade stories have been coming out about the drop in the High Plains Aquifer from excessive irrigation demands. There were forecasts of eventual water disruptions. That dire warning is now coming true.

In some parts of western Kansas, the aquifer has been sucked dry or so nearly dry that farmers are having to shut down their wells. One local paper quotes an official of the Kansas water office as saying, "It's a big, complex problem. ...We can't have near the amount of irrigated corn and alfalfa that we have. We don't have the water."

The paper quoted another fellow who has been involved with state water issues for decades as saying the agricultural depletion of the HPA, "..is like a drunk running a liquor store."

The question is how much farmland can the United States lose before it has to walk away from using the fields for fuel production instead of food?

This is a problem the United States is going to have to tackle aggressively. It is going to require compromises and sacrifices. I expect it will also draw renewed attention to Canada's apparently bountiful fresh water resources. That is a genuine Pandora's Box issue that remains unresolved in the scheme of our free trade arrangements.

The High Plains Aquifer problem isn't unique. Around the world burgeoning populations are overtaxing ground water resources. Part of the problem is that it's "out of sight, out of mind." Compounding that is the fact that we don't tend to deal with the dwindling supply problem until it's too late, until the wells start running dry. That makes planning and adjusting much more difficult.

Compared to some parts of the world, the United States is relatively fortunate. India's aquifers are draining even faster. The same situation is going on in China. Investors are eagerly looking forward to stepping in to these enormous emerging markets for commodity water.

Lets learn from what so much of the rest of the world is experiencing or will soon face and begin to grasp the significance of Canada's water resources. If we don't understand it, it'll be much harder for us to stop those who would sell it elsewhere.