7/27/2019 Energy Water Collision http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/energy-water-collision 1/9 IEEE.org | IEEE Xplore Digital Library | IEEE Standards | IEEE Spectrum | More Sites Follow on: En ergy wise En ergy Fossil Fuels Collision Between Water and Energy Is Collision Between Water and Energy Is Underway, and Worsening Underway, and Worsening By Katherine Tweed Posted 18 Jul 2013 | 18:32 GMT Share | Email | Print When a heat wave spread across the Midwest in the summer of 2012, the Powerton coal plant in central Illinois had to temporarily shut down a generator when its water supply became too warm to effectively cool the plant. Although 2012 was a year of severe drought in the U.S., the problems seen at various coal, nuclear, and hydropower facilities last summer are only likely to increase in coming years unless the power sector quickly changes its way of doing business, according to a new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) [PDF]. The problem is that the power sector is not known for moving quickly. Related Stories Related Stories Topics Reports Blogs Multimedia Magazine Resources Search Energywise Energywise IEEE Spectrum’s energy, power, and green tech blog, featuring news and analysis about the future of energy, climate, and the smart grid. Contributors Contributors Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Sign up for the EnergyWise newsletter and get biweekly news on the power & energy industry, green technology, and conservation delivered directly to your inbox. Editor Editor Bill Sweet New York City, USA Contributor Contributor Dave Levitan New York City, USA Contributor Contributor Peter Fairley British Columbia, Canada Sign Up Sign Up Advertisement converted by Web2PDFConvert.com
Power generation in the United States relies heavily on water. For some
plants, like the ones that run on coal or nuclear power, the water is needed for
cooling, while hydro directly uses water for energy production. More than 40
percent of fresh water used in the United States is withdrawn to cool power
plants. Renewable energy generally uses far less water, but there are glaring
exceptions, such as geothermal and concentrating solar.
The report, part of UCS’s Energy and Water in a Warming World Initiative,
noted that even though the oldest and most water-hungry, coal-fired power
plants are being retired, the shift to cleaner energy isn’t happening fast
enough to overcome increasing water shortages.
“We set electricity and water on a collision course years ago. Now we must
build a power system hard-wired not for risk, but for resilience,” Peter
Frumhoff, UCS's director of science and policy and chair of the project’sScientific Advisory Committee, said in a statement.
The report found that although coal use would drop significantly through
2050, the change would not significantly reduce the power sector’s carbon
emissions because demand would rise and natural gas would mostly replace
coal. Other estimates find coal use dropping more quickly. With the looming
mercury and air toxic standards (MATS) rule from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Black &Veatch recently estimated that nearly 60 gigawatts
of coal generation will retire by 2020.
As coal use plummets, there could be serious water savings under a business-as-usual scenario, because most new power plants would use recirculated or
dry cooling and gas-fired power plants require less cooling. The study
estimates freshwater withdrawals could drop more than 80 percent by 2050
and water consumption would go down by more than 40 percent. The savings
would not be same across the country, however, and water use for power
could even rise in some areas, such as the Great Lakes region.
There also could be even further complications. Even though gas-fired power
plants use less water than coal or nuclear, the process of extracting gas by
hydrofracking requires far more water than conventional drilling.
Also, even though some newer plants might use far less water, they could find
that there’s far less water available as water temperatures go up and water
flows go down. Another study found that nearly half of 423 U.S. plants were at
risk of lower power output during droughts because their intake pipes for
water were less than 3 meters below the surface.
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