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Does a gallon of ethanol really require five gallons of water?

"1,000 gallons a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

No, that's not an Exxon exec's fantasy CAFE standard. It's how much water will be required by an ethanol plant slated to open in Pennsylvania's coal country, according to this report.

My calculator informs me that "1,000 gallons a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week" amounts to about 526 million gallons of water per year. The above-linked article claims that the Pennsylvania plant will produce 100 million gallons of ethanol annually. That means it takes about five and a quarter gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol -- and that doesn't account for irrigation water for corn production.

Fascinating.

Blair’s rigged energy review

Remember the comprehensive energy review (PDF) done by Tony Blair's UK government about a month ago? The one that concluded that nuclear power is peachy, which coincidentally was a position Blair had been propounding for months beforehand?

Well, check this out:

More on Lieberman stuff

Last night I wrote about Lieberman's loss, the growing split between interest-group-based "checklist liberalism" and progressive movement-building, and the implications of both for environmentalists.

Today, Garance Franke-Ruta adds some thoughts:

What the West’s only communist nation has done right

Reports that Fidel Castro turned over power to his brother Raul last week because of surgery for intestinal bleeding have brought a flashback to the Cold War, with reporters rushing to doodle prematurely on his grave and interview the vociferous hard-right Miami expat constituency that has helped dictate U.S.-Cuba policy for the last 47 years. […]

Umbra on eco-friendly tents

Hi Umbra, When I posted this question locally, I started a brouhaha about owning a car. Hopefully you can answer more succinctly — any suggestions for a tent made out of reasonably friendly materials? Alex BernardinSan Francisco, Calif. Dearest Alex, There’s plenty to say about friendly tents, and nary a brouhaha in sight. Since I’m […]

Sardar Superstar

India dam project still hot issue after more than 20 years For citizens of India, debate over dams is soap-operatic. Take the saga of the country’s still-unfinished Sardar Sarovar dam. It has everything: protests, riots, hunger strikes, and long, protracted court battles. Proponents of the $7.7 billion dam on the Narmada River claim that, when […]

School and Unusual Punishment

Temporary deal struck to prop up rural funding amid logging-revenue decline What happens if you make funding for rural schools and roads dependent on revenues from a declining resource industry? What’s that you say? Nobody would be stupid enough to do that? Ha ha. Readers, meet the federal government. A federal program that had tied […]

To Tech With It

Investment money pours into the green-tech sector Investors are ga-ga for green. In 2005, clean energy projects in the U.S. were showered with $17 billion in investment money, up 89 percent from 2004. Just in 2005, the worldwide market for carbon credits blossomed from essentially nothing to around $11 billion. And these are not just […]

What would a Lieberman loss mean for enviros?

So, Lamont won (because, Lieberman said somewhat comically, of the "old politics of partisan polarization." Partisans in a Democratic primary? Forfend!).

Lieberman will run in the general as a third-party candidate. Conventional wisdom before the primary was that Lieberman could easily win a three-way race. Then as Lamont gained, CW shifted a bit, saying if Lieberman got creamed he would be abandoned. But Lieberman didn't get creamed, he lost narrowly. So no one knows what will happen. If Lieberman can persuade a few high-profile Dems to keep supporting him, it could work. But if they all publicly abandon him, he could flame out badly.

I won't get too much into What It All Means. There's been reams of commentary about this race -- more than it warrants, probably, and most of it, especially from the Beltway media establishment, insipid. You can find plenty with a simple search. For a sober and insightful take, check out Mark Schmitt's posts on the subject.

One thing Schmitt says -- echoed in this NYT commentary by Noam Scheiber -- is that Dem candidates can no longer get by on "checklist liberalism," the careful cultivation of the disparate interest groups that make up the left (at least those that happen to concentrate in a given candidate's state). Lieberman said:

Lamont wins Connecticut Dem primary

At the moment I write this, with 96.79% of precincts reporting, Ned Lamont leads Joe Lieberman 51.85% to 48.15%, which means the Connecticut Democratic primary is effectively over, and Lamont is the winner.

The non-political junkies among you are likely wondering, "who cares?"

Well, it's a huge deal on the left. No one has yet speculated on what it might mean for environmentalists. I shall fill that vital punditry gap later this evening.