Corn-based biofuels, is water the real problem?

In going through my iGoogle this morning I saw this interesting post from Treehugger.  In it, Matthew brings up the fact that water, or future lack thereof, presents a problem when it comes to irrigated-biofuels.  

It has been shown to take over 36 gallons per mile to irrigate the corn used for corn-based ethanol.  This as compared to 10 gallons per mile for soy-derived biofuels and 1 gallon of water per mile for non-irrigated biofuels, hydrogen and electricity from renewable sources.  

That’s a lot of water for one biofuel.  And with the wide variety of potential sources for biofuel and other biofriendly fuel additives, I really hope making a better fuel available doesn’t become a situation of robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

For more information, you can read the full article from Treehugger here.

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