Much of his crop will wind up at a nearby ethanol plant.

Critics argue that precious water resources are being bled dry by ethanol when water shortages are growing ever more dire. Federal mandates encouraging more ethanol production don’t help.

Corn ethanol’s future is already muddied by concerns that it requires a substantial amount of energy to produce and that heightened demand makes corn more costly in human food and livestock feed. Now, with climate change concerns mounting and drought becoming more of a problem in many areas, the water-intensive nature of creating ethanol also is a growing concern.

“Biofuels are off the charts in water consumption. We’re definitely looking at something where the cure may be worse than the disease,” said Brooke Barton, a manager of corporate accountability for Ceres, a group backed by institutional investors focused on the financial risks of climate change.

Corn is a particularly thirsty plant, requiring about 20 inches of soil moisture per acre to grow a decent crop, but most corn is grown with rain, not irrigation. Manufacturing plants that convert corn’s starch into fuel are a far bigger draw on water sources.

Water consumption by ethanol plants largely comes from evaporation during cooling and wastewater discharge. A typical plant uses about 4.2 gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

ZED COMMENT: Numerous studies concur that it takes as much energy to make ethanol, as it releases. This zero sum so-called alternative to petroleum to many makes no sense. Further, corn diverted from food stocks contributes to starvation in the poorest countries, an issue of social negligence. Now further evaluation reveals that water consumption to produce ethanol is also causing a shortage of water for households, as well as other industry and agriculture. Some E.U. studes have referred to ethanol production from corn as “shear lunacy”. In comparison, ZED hydrogen fuel is made from water which returns to being pure water when burned. Energy for hydrogen production can be obtained from environmentally responsible sources such as geothermal or wind power with no effect on water supply, food stocks, or creating a zero-sum fuel energy source.