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Community thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted June 23, 2007 at 1:00 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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15 Comments
Wichita and Kansas citizens need to get serious, very serious, about the threat presented by the ethanol manufacturing industry in Kansas. Ethanol plants are proliferating in Kansas because of the presence of large quantities of valuable WATER in the Ogallala aquifer underlying Kansas and other neighboring states to the north and south.
Of course, the gravel stratas holding the Ogallala water were formed eons ago by erosion of the newly formed Rocky Mountains back in the days of the dinosaurs. It took millions of years for water to infiltrate the Ogallala stratas relatively deep under the surface of the ground.
I learned of this treasure back in the 1950’s while working summers in wheat harvests and for the Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission. It always amazed me that western Kansas pioneers scratched out a living on the bone-dry surface of Kansas while living a few hundred feet above a gigantic “lake” of water estimated to be as large as Lake Superior.
But an oil geologist I talked with estimates thousands of penetrations now reach down into the Ogallala by municipalities (a good use) and agriculture for irrigation, (questionable in many cases), for power plants (questionable) and recently for proliferating ethanol production (bad).
I noticed that an ethanol plant proposed for Newton will use effluent from the Newton sewage treatment plant. This might have potential for a good use. I hope to see more information on this alternative water source.
Drinking water is becoming more valuable than oil. Compare the price of bottled water to a similar quantity of gasoline. If Ogallala water was oil, there would be all kinds of controls and interest by government. As it is, this valuable water supply is being given away free to anyone clever enough to acquire water rights of farmers in the region.
Some politicians point to the requirement of acquiring “water rights” to use the water. Reminds me of the great movie, “Casablanca.” Remember the “letters of transit” that could not even be rescinded …”
Here in Kansas, this matter of “Ogallala letters of transit” is too important to leave up to the politicians who come and go with the summer winds of Kansas.
But when Kansas finally closes for lack of water, as Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman agreed, “We will still have Paris!!”
You are exactly correct. Real economic development hinges upon an abundancy of water and the sustaining of this resource. Developing industry that consumes vast amounts of resources, without an equal return is not wise policy. The downside of ethanol production is far larger than the upside. We should continue to look at alternative fuel sources.
While I agree that ethanol is a very poor alternative fuel and is only being promoted by the Federal Government to give farmers more money, so the government mandates the use of ethanol. This is not economically or market driven.
I suspect that many of these ethanol plants will be closed down within 15 years as the Federal Government will realize that it was a bad policy from the beginning. We tried this in the 1970’s and many people went broke.
But that being said. The difference between ethanol plants and irrigation of crops from farmers is that the ethanol plants can reclaim, treat and reuse the water they consume. The farmer doesn’t. Most of their water is evaporated.
Good points Joe. The main water concern with ethanol is and should be the water used to grow irrigated grain to feed them. That said, there IS a real future for ethanol; just a very DIFFERENT future.
ICM is building a new plant in Harvey County that may be a psrt of this future. They will use treated effluent from the local sewage plant as their process water. Also, knowing what I do about ICM they will be cutting-edge technology. One new technology is to use ‘biomass’ as feedstock. This can be switchgrass – or maybe even TRASH! ICM has their R&D over in Colwich so they will be progressing.
Biofuels will be a topic at the upcoming Kansas Environmental Conference held by KDHE in August. Ethanol is just ONE biofuel; biodiesel is another one I am interested in. “guts-to-diesel” if you will. For example, I reviewed a hog farm application in which they said they would bury carcasses on-site of hogs that die. That creates a pollution concern. Why not process it to biodiesel? There ARE technologies available.
The KDHE Conference is in Hutch August 21-23.
Has anyone seen the news story about the ethanol plant in Nebraska that is making ethanol out of animal manure? Why cant someone build massive ethanol plants out at those huge hog farms out west, or at the cattle pens, or at the Zoo for that matter… The plant in Nebraska is 100% self sufficient in energy production, it creates surplus electricity along side with its ethanol. When they ramp up production, they will use a combination of Corn and biomass for full production…
I wonder, can human waste be turned into energy? There’s lots of that around (in Washington especially)…
Tony – I think that might come up at the Conference. Did it say what company was doing it?
And yes, human waste could also be used. However, I think manure might actually be better used as fertilyzer.
Ben,
Unfortunately i don’t remember the name, but the company was looking to expand into other areas of Nebraska and possibly Northern Kansas. Basically areas with both Cattle and Corn in close proximity…
Good – I wonder if they will be at the Conference.
Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. The legislation – the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill — will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives next week.
“The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President’s funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue to pursue this measure in the coming days.”
uhhh Dick. if you are not part of the Executive branch, then give up the secret service, the underground undisclosed bunker you have been hiding in and get out of our house..
Ben: I hope you will remind us of the KDHE conference in Hutchinson in August. I might want to attend.
As a point of clarification, as you probably know, two ethanol companies are located side by side in Colwich, Kansas.
The older company, formerly known as Hi-Plains Ethanol Company, is now known as ABENGOA BIOENERGY CORPORATION after a buy-out a few years ago. Abengoa actually operates an ethanol production facility complete with tanks, pipes and distilling equipment on the east edge of Colwich. This company applied to expand its facility, which application was subjected to a public hearing several months ago because of issues with air pollution and troublesome disposal of effluent from its plant.
The ICM CORPORATION is located in brand new white buildings directly in front of the Abengoa ethanol plant. The ICM company designs, builds and manages ethanol production plants in Kansas and around the country.
It’s apparently not completely coincidental that both companies are located adjacent to each other in Colwich. I have been told they initially had a working arrangement that might not be in effect now.In any case, ICM Chief Executive, David VanderGriend, is said to have built his first fuel alcohol still a quarter century ago. ICM company is said to be a leading designer and builder of ethanol plants.
I would like to attend a public meeting led by Mr. VAnderGriend at which attendees could ask questions “to their hearts content” about the ethanol production business, water usage, biomass requirements, etc. Are ethanol plants a threat to the future of Kansas water supplies that I currently perceive them to be. And is ethanol development being driven by government subsidies as some say.
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Incidentally, for those familiar with the Colwich area, just east of Colwich a mile or so is located the Gordon Evans Power Plant owned by Westar Energy. I understand it is fired with natural gas and doesn’t have capability of burning coal. Even though located near Wichita, it doesn’t necessarily serve Wichita. It basically puts it’s generated power on the power grid to be used where needed.
Of course, natural gas burns cleaner than coal. But using less abundant natural gas presumably from Hugoton in southwest Kansas will drive up our residential natural gas bills over the long run.
So can’t we just get along by using free wind power for our electrical needs?
Regarding water used for production of ethanol, my understanding is about four gallons of water is needed for each gallon of ethanol produced.
The new Pratt ethanol plant is predicted to produce 55,000,000 gallons of ethanol per year. So multiply by four and get 220,000,000 gallons of water per year needed from the Ogallala aquifer under Pratt County and vicinity.
Now that’s a lot of water to take out of the underground aquifers around Pratt that feed the two branches of the Ninnescah River. These, in turn, provide water for Pratt, Kingman, Arlington, LAKE CHENEY AND WICHITA, Wellington and so forth.
Now, what about reclaiming and recycling ethanol effluent water?. How does this work? If true, why do they continue to need four gallons of water per gallon of ethanol produced? I understand that some of the water is turned to steam in the manufacturing process which would appear to me to pollute this water by the strong acids and chemicals used in the process? It might be treated slightly but presumably in the case of Pratt, this effluent will be put into the formerly pristine Ninnescah River on the presumption that Cunningham, Kingman, Cheney, Wichita and Wellington will spend the millions of dollars necessary to treat this new polluted ethanol effluent before it enters their drinking water supply. Whose responsibility is it to pay for this new treatment operation?
Are our legislators and governor protecting the health of Kansans on this OR is it every man for himself?
The cool mountain streams of Aspen, Colorado, are beginning to look pretty good again.
JWink – you are correct that there are two unrelated companies out there. One of the presenters at the KDHE conference is from ICM. From everything I have seen ICM runs clean plants and is pushing the technology. Thus the idea of biomass. The facility at Newton will, I think, be at their trash-sorting location. This is a ‘dream’ I have; don’t truck trash to a biomass plant; build the niomass plant at the trash. For example, how about one at the Waste Connections transfer station? And use water from the NorthWest sewage treatment plant.
Registration fee for the Conference is $150. Another topic is e-waste management; a push towards recycling. I would think the flourescent bulb issue will be part of that.
Stormwater, Equus Beds; air compliance (Sedgwick County is close to non-compliance) and other topics. Policy makers should go along with us technical types.
Ben: By coincidence, yesterday, I took an old computer and moniter to the WICHITA PC RECYCLING CENTER at 4710 W. Central, maybe three blocks west of West Street. Owner, Brian Jones, says his business is growing fast. His company repairs and sells used computers AND also dismantles computers and sells the resulting materials … selling all but the squeal as they say.
Brian told me he will soon be opening another branch, this time in Lyons, Kansas. I think he said he will soon be accepting TV’s but that mght only be in his new Lyons facility.
He does have to charge, I think it was $4, to cover taxes charged him by the state of Kansas for his disposal efforts … wouldn’t you know it?
Regarding the EQUUS BEDS AQUIFER near Halstead, the City of Wichita gets about 1/2 of its drinking water from this source. The City of Wichita does have a recharging facility up there on the Little Arkansas River?? This puts surface water back in the aquifer during times of storm water flow. I’m not completely comfortable with this because it directs untreated and polluted surface water into the underground aquifer.
Regarding MERCURY in those new flourescent bulbs, I was told yesterday there is also a bead of mercury in thermostats. In fact, I examined a thermostat and saw it. Individually, these are mercury beads about 1/3 the size of a bb (sp?). But imagine multiplying that by 100,000 flourescent bulbs and thermostats discarded in our landfill annually … this might create a future tragedy in the making for our water supply.
Yes, your idea is interesting of building an ethanol plant near Wichita’s NW sewage treatment plant to use the sanitary sewage effluent for the water requirement. Also using methane gases from the old K-96 landfill for power supply.
The goal should be to not use any of our sparkling clear Ogallala aquifer water for manufacturing until its been used for drinking water first.
In fact the highest and best use of the Ogallala water in Kansas is for a billion dollar bottled drinking water industry from the best water source in the world. Any takers?
SOME thermostats have mercury, not all of them. In fact, some light switches did as well – the ’silent’ ones. I don’t know if they still do.
A friend of mine had these in his house in Los Angeles. It was hilarious; every time we have an earthquake his lights would flash on and off! It WAS rather amusing.
The Equus recharge project is also a topic at the Conference in August. Wichita will be well represented.
Another news item on biofuels:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/25/news/companies/tyson_syntroleum/index.htm?postversion=2007062510
Tyson plans joint synthetic fuel projectThe meat producer and Syntroleum team up in a $150 million project to produce about 75 millions of synthetic fuel annually.