Posted on 08/07/2014 7:01:52 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
A set of studies based on three years of research concludes that by 2040, the need for drinking water and water for use in energy production will create dire shortages.
Conventional electricity generation is the largest source of water use in most countries. Water is used to cool power plants to keep them functional. Most power utilities dont even record the amount of water they use.
Its a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realize how much water they actually consume, says Professor Benjamin Sovacool of Denmarks Aarhus University, one of the institutions involved in the research. 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.
The research, which included projections of the availability of water and the growth of the worlds population, found that by 2020, between 30 percent and 40 percent of the planet will no longer have direct access to clean drinking water. The problem could be made even worse if climate change accelerates, creating more heat and causing more water evaporation.
That means humankind must decide how water is used, Sovacool says. Do we want to spend it on keeping the power plants going or as drinking water? We dont have enough water to do both, he says.
The researchers, also from the Vermont Law School and CNA Corporation in the US, a non-profit research institute in Arlington, Va., focused their studies on specific utilities and other energy suppliers in four countries: China, France, India and the United States.
First, they identified each countrys energy needs, then factored in projections of water availability in each country and its population level as far as 2040. In all four cases, they discovered, there will not be enough water by then both to drink and to use at electricity-generating plants.
So how to prevent this conflict? The studies agreed on starting with the simplest solution: Alternative sources of electricity that dont require massive amounts of water. The recommendations are improving energy efficiency, conducting more research on alternative cooling mechanisms, logging water use at power plants, making massive investments in solar and wind energy, and abandoning fossil fuel facilities in all areas susceptible to water shortages.
This last proposal may be the most difficult to implement because parched areas now include half of Earth. But Sovacool says it would be worth the investment. If we keep doing business as usual, we are facing an insurmountable water shortage even if water was free, because its not a matter of the price, he says. There will be no water by 2040 if we keep doing what were doing today. Theres no time to waste. We need to act now.
That's what struck me as particularly egregious in this latest crisis. Where's the explanation as to how the water used in energy production is wasted? Just because an industry consumes a resource, that doesn't mean said resource is destroyed in the process. After all, if anything could ever be thought of as renewable it's water.
It's consumed then released back into the environment but even if contaminated evaporation separates it from the dissolved contaminants. That's basic science.
This latest alarm is all based, albeit subtly, on the presupposition that man-made global climate change is real. That's what this is really about: we have to change our ways or else the entire planet is going to become as dry as a desert, as the heat rises and evaporates all the water away.
If they want to promote this man-made climate change clap-trap at least have the honesty to admit it out in the open. Then again, these are leftists here, I doubt honesty is in their vocabulary.
Desalinization.
Last I checked both east and west of us is a big puddle of water. Not a single nuclear powered desal plant anywhere. Better to let billiones die and save the delta smelt and snowy plover.
Professor Sovacool of Airhead er Aarhus University of course has all the answers. He’s the smartest guy in the world. Let’s do what the brilliant prof. says. (snicker)
That’s what’s never discussed in these chicken little “all the water is evaporating” doomsday scenarios. Right now, NOW, desalination is economically not feasible. But if naturally fresh water becomes scarce enough (and that’s a big if in of itself) we do have such technology and it will then be economically feasible.
The oceans are pretty huge. I don’t think we’ll ever use THAT much water in thousands of years!
Wonder how much tax payer money these shysters get for coming up with this crap?
I believe the water used for cooling the power plants goes up in vapor and comes back down in the form of rain just like natural heat caused vapor.
Much more water is used for irrigating farms, do we need to quit eating also?
Oh, BS!! Once a utility converts water to steam and runs it through a turbine, it exhausts the spent steam into the atmosphere, thereby returning it for reuse. The only way to “destroy” water is to convert it to energy in a thermonuclear reaction. Otherwise, it just keeps recycling. That’s what evaporation and condensation are all about.
That's why London doesn't exist anymore. Oh, ... wait, ... that didn't happen did it?
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about this issue. This post had some very interesting information:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3181628/posts?page=104#104
Like when you drink 3 cups of coffee the liquid is only borrowed.
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