SOLAR 2009: Water vs. energy

SOLAR 2009: Water vs. energy: "It's now widely recognized, if infrequently mentioned, that it takes water to make energy, and energy to transport and treat water.
Michael Webber of the University of Texas has been mentioning it a lot. In a recent Scientific American article, he wrote at length about the ecological death spiral that results when energy and water utilities chase a stressed resource.

Thermoelectric power plants are the largest consumers of water in the United States, Webber pointed out in a talk on Friday. To cool coal and nuclear plants, electric utilities are responsible for 39% of freshwater withdrawals. On average, it takes 20 gallons of water to produce a kilowatt-hour of power. Most cooling water is passed through and goes back into the river or lake at an elevated temperature (sometimes hot enough to cook downstream biota), but some of it disappears into the atmosphere as steam. Meanwhile, California uses 19% of its electricity production just to pump and process water. x

In hot and dry conditions, electric plants have had to shut down for want of cool water, and Webber predicts this will happen more often as climate change exacerbates droughts. The recent water wars between Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida are only the beginning. Webber suggests that John McCain lost Colorado in the last election largely because he proposed reneg"