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 don’t even record the amount of water they use.
“It’s a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realize how much water they actually consume,” says Professor Benjamin Sovacool of Denmark’s 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 world’s 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 don’t 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 country’s 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 don’t 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 it’s not a matter of the price,” he says. “There will be no water by 2040 if we keep doing what we’re doing today. There’s no time to waste. We need to act now.”
Humanity - other than the United States.
socialists
communists
National Democrats
are all about “we need to ration ‘X’”
By 1990 we were going to be in an ice age
By 2000 we were going to run out of oil
By 2000 we were going to have overpopulation
By 2000 we were going to run out of food
By 2000 unless we surrendered to the USSR, WW III was going to kill us all
By 2000 unless we rationed healthcare with duty to die, illness would depopulate the world.
These are all just a reason to ration and the left to control rationing.
“making massive investments in solar and wind energy, and abandoning fossil fuel”
Same song, same nonsense. Water of course is ‘destroyed’ by many processes only to never be found again!(sarc)
By date uncertain, UN Agenda 21 calls for reduction of the Earth's population by 85%. I suggest that all the liberals/progressives/socialists/communists/Marxists kill themselves NOW, to get a head start! Or should we help them along?
What do these idiots think happens to all that water? Does it just vanish? Does it get “used up?” Shanghaied by aliens?
I’m always reminded of the poem by Percy Shelley:
I pass through the pores of oceans and shores;
I change but I cannot die.
He was basically talking about water.
They do know it rains, don't they??...and that most water gets recycled one way or another.
Pure BS.
Power plants use water for cooling....and then they return the water, generally as clean (or cleaner) as the water from the source...just a little warmer.
And global warming causing more evaporation? That means more rain.
I thought this article (from the title) was going to be about the need for desalination plants. Sigh.
Humanity May Face Choice by 2014: Following the continually idiotic and Marxist policies of the Demonic Party or Sanity
The operative word: “May.”
... or may not. Probably not.
Geez....global warming isn’ t working.....uhm....oh yeah...we are going to run out of drinking water...that’ s the ticket!
Lefty Loonies....never cease to disappoint me..
Yeah, and to keep the sky from falling, we should build lots of windmills and solar panels.
“Geez....global warming isn’ t working.....uhm....oh yeah...we are going to run out of drinking water...that’ s the ticket!”
My first thought, as well. Yeesh!
Reduce the population and make it dependent on the elite...
That’s the overall permeating constant.
LOL. What a joke. Cue the science fiction / Armageddon movie about how evil rich Capitalists of the future will cause the poor to die from thirst so they can have flood lights at their all night parties. If the use of water in energy production is no longer cheap because there are competing needs for it, the market will find a solution. It always does.
... or may not.
I'm betting on the latter because I'm thinking commies are going to be crushed.
You forgot that in 2000 all of our computers were going to crash because of y2k
Always. The money goes to those who cry the loudest and scariest.
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