Hi water groupies!
It’s been almost a year since we started this water blog. Don’t know how useful y’all are finding it, but I’ve had a good time mouthing off about stuff I barely understand. I was happy to see one or two comments from readers on some recent posts. Please keep commenting or feel free to email me and discuss, criticize, suggest stuff for this blog: smatlock@sfnewmexican.com
UNM meteorology and climate professor Dr. David Gutzler is back with the latest three years of studies on how climate change might impact NM water supplies. His
paper is published in the periodical New Mexico Earth Matters published by NM Tech.
From an energy insider Frank Maisano in Washington, D.C. this funny note after last week’s climate change meetings:
“Last week was about as crazy a week as I have ever seen in Washington with climate events practically occurring by the minute. In fact, last week, perhaps the most dangerous place to be was standing between Chairman (Edward) Markey and anybody writing a story on climate issues.”
Maisano, who seems to have no love lost for the biofuels folks, had this to say about recent studies on the fallout over ethanol:
“As we have been highlighting since the beginning of the year, increased corn production for ethanol has increased the consumer price of everything from food to popcorn to booze. It will potentially cause increases in pollution that have united the environmental community against it and international economic development groups have said ethanol offers a cure that is worse than the disease they seek to heal. Here are some key facts: According to a number of studies, there are very few cost benefits to be ‘passed down.’ A FarmEcon.com study said only last week that ‘[i]n total, the costs of ethanol paid by taxpayers, fuel purchasers and the food system is about $31 billion in 2007, or about $4.40 per gallon of ethanol produced. Corrected for the energy content of ethanol relative to gasoline, this is equivalent to a wholesale gasoline price of $6.67 per gallon. Ethanol is not a cheap source of energy, it is about 3 times as expensive as gasoline.’”
Why is all the ethanol debate important on the water front? Because obviously it takes water to grow corn. It also takes water to grow another potential source of biofuels – algae – something Carlsbad is experimenting with as you might have seen from the AP story in our paper today.
Water, water, water. It’s kind of like money in our society – everything we do seems to require some of it.
Hasta,
