When people tell me about plans for huge fossil fuel development in the developing world, I just mention that there are some hard and fast limits in the natural system that will be showstoppers for the business as usual fossil-fuel model around the world.
The biggest limiting factor is water.
Production of electrical power results in one of the largest uses of water in the United States and worldwide. Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators. In 2005, about 201,000 million gallons of water each day (Mgal/d) were used to produce electricity (excluding hydroelectric power). Surface water was the source for more than 99 percent of total thermoelectric-power withdrawals. In coastal areas, the use of saline water instead of freshwater expands the overall available water supply.
Thermoelectric-power withdrawals accounted for 49 percent of total water use, 41 percent of total freshwater withdrawals for all categories, and 53 percent of fresh surface-water withdrawals.
Two new reports that focus on the global electricity water nexus have just been published. Three years of research show that by the year 2040 there will not be enough water in the world to quench the thirst of the world population and keep the current energy and power solutions going if we continue doing what we are doing today. It is a clash of competing necessities, between drinking water and energy demand. Behind the research is a group of researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark, Vermont Law School and CNA Corporation in the US.
In most countries, electricity is the biggest source of water consumption because the power plants need cooling cycles in order to function. The only energy systems that do not require cooling cycles are wind and solar systems, and therefore one of the primary recommendations issued by these researchers is to replace old power systems with more sustainable wind and solar systems.
The research has also yielded the surprising finding that most power systems do not even register how much water is being used to keep the systems going.
“It’s a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realise how much water they actually consume. And together with the fact that we do not have unlimited water resources, it could lead to a serious crisis if nobody acts on it soon”, says Professor Benjamin Sovacool from Aarhus University.Combining the new research results with projections about water shortage and the world population, it shows that by 2020 many areas of the world will no longer have access to clean drinking water. In fact, the results predict that by 2020 about 30-40% of the world will have water scarcity, and according to the researchers, climate change can make this even worse.
“This means that we’ll have to decide where we spend our water in the future. Do we want to spend it on keeping the power plants going or as drinking water? We don’t have enough water to do both”, says Professor Benjamin Sovacool.
Water stresses in developing countries threaten to derail a massive build-out of coal capacity, according to a new analysis from the World Resources Institute (WRI).
The WRI estimates that about 1,400 GW of new coal capacity is being proposed worldwide, and of that, three-quarters of it are in China and India. Unfortunately, much of this capacity is planned for areas already under significant water stress. Most of China’s coal resources, for example, are located in the northern regions of the country, and about 60% of the planned new capacity will be located there to reduce transportation costs. Unfortunately, this portion of China has only 5% of the nation’s water resources, and power needs face steep competition from agricultural, industrial, and residential demands.
