Water Sustainability // Current

Water for peace? County engineer helps Israel, Palestine work on water accord

Scarcity of water in arid lands can be a cause of friction anywhere, but make that location the borderlands of Israel and... more

GeoffNI
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Water Partners International: Thank You From Kodaeta Village

In the community of Kodaeta, located in the Eastern Tigray region of Ethiopia, your donations have helped villagers to build a... more

JanforGore
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Energy's Water Demands Worrisome

Add another requirement to the clean-energy checklist: low water usage. Two Virginia Tech researchers released a study this week examining the water-use requirements for 11 different energy sources, ranking them in terms of efficiency.
One of the most important aspects of the study was to raise awareness of the role water plays in energy production, said Rachelle Hill, a recent Virginia Tech graduate who co-authored the study.

"We need to do more research and really study what goes into energy production, not just what comes out," Hill told United Press International.

And a lot of water goes in. According to the study, U.S. thermoelectric power plants consume 136 billion gallons of water per day, averaging out to 25 gallons for every kilowatt-hour produced. Water is used in almost every aspect of energy, from the cooling and cleaning of machinery to the production of steam to turn turbines. And as energy demand rises in coming decades, so will the amount of water required to produce it.

Water usage has become a major concern in recent years because supply has dwindled, said Eric Evenson of the U.S. Geological Survey, a federal science agency.

An ever-growing population has increased water usage in a number of sectors, leading to shortages in some areas, Evenson said, and policymakers should examine any strain on supply.

"Any one factor, like water needs for energy, or for public supply, or for agriculture ¿¿ bears on the quantity of overall water availability," he said.

And energy has a big impact, said Mike Hightower, a member of the Energy-Water Nexus National Lab Team, a group of scientists from a number of national laboratories researching the issue.

"In the United States on a daily basis, about 40 percent of our fresh water withdrawals are for energy production," said Hightower, a technical staff member at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

While much of the water used in energy production is not consumed but returned to its source and later reused, the energy sector's reliance on water's availability could cause problems down the road, Hightower told UPI.

"Even if you don't consume a lot of water, if you use it, you need it day in and day out to operate," he said. If a drought occurs, "then water levels lower, you can't withdraw any more and that's going to impact your energy supply."
Add another requirement to the clean-energy checklist: low water usage. Two Virginia Tech researchers released a study this week... more