MSNBC put it best when they lead off an article by noting "When it comes to solving the fossil fuel crisis, it seems like every silver lining comes accompanied by a dark cloud."

This merry-go-round that is the environmental life is a bit like being on anti-depressants: one minute you’re flying high like a kite (without any pharmacological help) rejoicing for Panasonic’s green business initiatives; the next minute, a story like this comes along.

The rush to change over to a more ecologically friendly fuel source — ie, the rush to ethanol — is systematically causing damage to the Earth’s greatest natural resource. No, it’s not the kids of the future; it’s our water!

The US National Research Council reported Wednesday that the US’ ethanol kick is going to cause damage to the water systems nearby.

"How can this be?" I hear you ask.

Ethanol 101: How to make ethanol

Returning to my old friend Wikipedia, corn ethanol is produced from corn as a biomass through industrial fermentation, chemical processing and distillation. Wikipedia goes on to list corn-based ethanol as an alternative in the United States to normal fuels like gasoline and petroleum.

The increased demand then for corn obviously means more corn needs to be grown. The problem arises here, because the corn industry relies upon fertilizers and pesticides to keep their crops healthy. In fact, experts note that these two ingredients are used for corn crops far more than for any other crop.

The natural extension of this is the run-off of these pesticides — both with high levels of nitrate and nitrite — into waterways, and then into the oceans. From this, not only are our waterways polluted, but the risk to humans increases if mixed with water sources used to quench our thirst.

To be fair, the report by the National Research Council failed to showcase the existing ways to minimize this damage. Fertilizer can be injected below the surface of the soil, and special controlled-release fertilizers are just two ways that run off can be avoided. But then we step away from a water problem to an economic one.

Water, water everywhere!

Stepping away from the polluted water, we find that there is still another water problem awaiting us. The report points to the amount of water used in irrigation of crops. The experts (who wrote the report) wrote that "there are likely to be significant regional and local impacts where water resources are already stressed."

The location of crop cultivation now becomes an issue. If the location needs irrigation, 2,000 gallons of water for every bushel of corn is the ratio required. No matter where you are, that’s a lot of water.

This water problem continues when you realize that biorefineries rely on copious amounts of water to produce the ethanol.

"A biorefinery that produces 100 million gallons of ethanol a year would use the equivalent of the water supply for a town of about 5,000 people," the National Research Council said. "Biorefineries could generate intense challenges for local water supplies, depending on where the facilities are located."

Alternative Alternatives

The answer to these issues is simple: find another source of ethanol. OK, maybe not so simple, but necessary nevertheless. One cannot simply attempt to right a wrong by choosing another wrong that will subsequently need to be righted. It doesn’t work like that, and we’ve been doing it for far too long anyway: nature is coming back to claim what’s rightfully hers.

Brazil is managing to find a solution through extracting ethanol from sugarcane, but that is a crop that is dependent on the conditions found in Brazil: a tropical climate. Experts suggest that ethanol needs to be extracted from other materials: grass, wood and sawdust, for example.

Already sources of water are being depleted across the country. The Ogallala or High Plains aquifer located underneath the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas is already being overdrawn. Its ability to refill its reserves is less than what is being withdrawn, and this is another problem that will only continue to grow.

So while we occasionally manage to boost ourselves up out of our ecological depression occasionally, Mother Nature rapidly provides us with reminders as to the real state of affairs.

MSNBC - Experts: Ethanol boom could mean water bust

ENN - U.S. ethanol rush may harm water supplies: report