Ethanol expansion could hinge on water

BISMARCK, N.D. – Ethanol plants need more than corn: If all the proposed factories in North Dakota were built, they would use more than 1 billion gallons of water.

Drought in future years could curtail North Dakota’s burgeoning ethanol industry or at least limit potential plant sites, particularly in the Red River Valley, officials say.

Ethanol plants are big water users. The Sioux Falls, S.D.-based American Coalition for Ethanol says it takes at least 3 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol fuel.

“One of the things plants look for when they locate, they want to be somewhere where they won’t impact the water supply,” said Ron Lamberty, a coalition vice president. “They usually try to locate at places where there is plentiful water.”

In South Dakota, Lamberty said, “We’ve seen plants where they said, ‘we can’t build here because we don’t have the right quantity or quality of water.”

AP