The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 457
"I am frequently asked, 'How much water does it take to make a gallon of ethanol?' I respond, Yes, and there are myriad moving parts, and approximations,
too."
I read this opening paragraph once, twice, three times. I shook my head and
read it again. Then I poured myself a cup of coffee and read it again. Even with
a fresh shot of caffeine to stimulate my brain, I couldn't figure out how his response is an answer to the question he says he is frequently asked. It appeared
to me to be just double-talk.
So then I did what I often do when I'm confronted by this kind of situation, I go
to the master, the world's foremost authority, Professor Irwin Corey, and I
watched one of his videos on YouTube. Sure enough, Jack Flobeck was writing
in double-talk.
Well, as he continues, Mr. Flobeck uses wrong information, irrelevant information, and he takes information out of context. He has created a con-man shell
game - for unknown reasons.
He writes: "Most of our ethanol is made in Iowa, and ... a quick and dirty answer
to our question might be the way the citizens of Burley, Idaho, analyzed the
question of constructing an ethanol plant in their town; simply by dividing the
water used at the plant by the gallons of ethanol produced. When that number
came to 1/8 of the town's daily total water supply, or 3 gallons of water for every
gallon of ethanol; they simply squelched the plant. However, they neglected to
consider the amount of water to raise the corn used by the plant. With 50 acres
needed to grow corn for a gallon of ethanol, we calculate that it would take
5,480-acre feet of water to grow the corn, which doesn't appear high, unless
you realize that equals 1.7 billion gallons of water, or 75 more gallons of water
per gallon of ethanol."
Here's what is wrong with Mr. Flobeck's statement: Iowa does not make most
of our ethanol, only about 20% is made in Iowa. Twenty percent of something
is not "most." Iowa also does not grow most of the corn used to make ethanol,
they grow less than 2% of the total corn grown in the U.S. However, whatever
the Iowa numbers are, what does it have to do with Burley, Idaho? And if a town
in Idaho is reluctant to utilize a significant portion of their water resources to
make ethanol, what does that have to do with the towns in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and the 18 other states that make more ethanol per year than Iowa. Mr.
Flobeck is playing a shell game.
