Biomass Industry Needs to Prepare for Water Constraints

- by Phil Ciciora, March 5, 2014. Source: University of Illinois News Office

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"16","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"240","style":"width: 369px; height: 299px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","width":"320"}}]]Debates surrounding the sustainability of bioenergy have emerged in recent years relating to water quality and quantity, and those debates will only grow louder as big urban areas in the U.S. start running out of water and environmental groups and the Environmental Protection Agency push for more stringent policies to address nutrient pollution, said Jody Endres, a professor of bioenergy, environmental and natural resources law at Illinois.

“From a bioenergy standpoint, that’s when we’re going to have to figure out how we prioritize growing crops for bioenergy,” said Endres, who also is an affiliate of the Energy Biosciences Institute, a collaboration involving the U. of I., the University of California at Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and BP, an energy company.