I have changed my mind about the value of ethanol as an alternative energy resource.

There once was a time when I thought the notion of growing corn and transforming it into a fuel to mix with petroleum-based gasoline was a critical remedy to this nation’s growing energy demand. Count me now as one who believes the idea is a bummer.

A Sunday New York Times story tells a grim tale of high corn prices, drought and dwindling demand for the fuel product.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/us/17ethanol.html

The premise of the story basically is that the cost of corn is making it more expensive to produce ethanol, which in some areas comprises 10 to 15 percent of the gasoline content people are pumping into their motor vehicles. And why is the production price spiking? Water.

And therein lies perhaps the most critical aspect of all. The Times story discusses the drought that has plagued much of the Corn Belt in recent years. Corn producers are having to reach more deeply into the ground to pump the water to irrigate their crops. That’s surely true in the Texas Panhandle, which produces its share of corn to supply the shrinking ethanol market.

About five years ago, economic developers were hailing the arrival of ethanol plants in Deaf Smith County. That chorus has been largely muted because of the cost factors associated with producing the substance.

The Times story doesn’t talk enough, though, about an issue related to the drought. I’m referring to the growing scarcity of water.

Almost every water-planning expert will say that irrigated agriculture consumes the vast bulk of water. That’s true throughout the High Plains, where irrigation drinks up more than 90 percent of the water taken from the Ogallala Aquifer.

And of the crops produced in the Texas and Oklahoma pandhandles, as well as in eastern New Mexico, which of them do you suppose is the thirstiest? If you said “corn,” you’d win the prize – whatever it is. Thus, the drought has made it more expensive for farmers to produce the corn that is processed into ethanol, but more importantly it has put intense pressure on the water supply.

The lack of moisture makes it imperative that we preserve our water. Pumping enormous quantities of water to irrigate crops to produce a fuel substance that is falling out of favor makes no sense.