Three years ago researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography warned Lake Mead has a 50-50 chance of running dry by 2021 and that the reservoir's water level could dip low enough to reduce or stop electricity production as early as 2013. Although this year's run-off probably forestalled this dramatic assertion, utilities around the country have already been forced to reduce or stop electrical production because of water issues. According to a survey done in California's 2009 Water Plan Update, states from Virginia to Nevada and Texas to North Dakota have all curtailed energy development projects because of water quality or quantity concerns.
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One reason for this problem is that electricity, as we've chosen to produce it, is pretty wet stuff. Plug an appliance into an outlet and you might as well open a faucet as well. Running an average refrigerator all day uses about as much water as a ten-minute shower (without a low-flow showerhead). According to the U.S. Geological Survey, electric power generation accounts for nearly half of the nation's water usage; it takes on average 21 gallons of water to produce one kilowatt hour of electricity. In the arid West, those numbers add up. A report by Western Resource Advocates notes that "thermoelectric power plants in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah consumed an estimated 292 million gallons of water a day in 2005 - approximately equal to the water consumed by Denver, Phoenix, and Albuquerque, combined."
Pretty much every step of energy production requires water, from mining to refining, processing to generation. Some of this water is "consumed" - evaporated as steam. Some of it is returned to watersheds in altered forms - like water heated during coal-fired electrical production and stored in cooling towers or ponds before being released - at higher temperatures - back into rivers. "Produced" water from coal-bed methane extraction releases underground water with high mineral content into watersheds. Deep drilling for seams of underground gas deposits rely on chemicals used in "fracking fluids," which contaminate water sources when they leak.
Other potential fossil fuel energy sources, like oil shale, require so much water during its production cycle that energy companies in Colorado have stealthily acquired rights to develop hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water, even before they've invented a viable technology to turn that rock into oil. An acre foot of water is 325,851 gallons, or enough to cover an acre of flat farmland with water a foot deep.
That's enough water to escalate the state's already intense water disputes into open warfare. "If oil shale energy does become commercially viable, it will be a huge new water drain," says Dan Luecke, a Colorado-based hydrologist and Western water consultant.
Many current energy debates have focused on the massive carbon footprint of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas. But many renewable sources of energy, like corn-based ethanol, have a huge and potentially troubling "water footprint." Corn ethanol made from irrigated crops, for example, can use more than 1,000 times more water than oil refining, according to calculations by Sandia National Laboratory. Industrial concentrated solar arrays can require 800 gallons of water to produce a single megawatt hour. Mike Hightower, a senior researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, cautions that reducing carbon emissions, while crucial, is just one part of the energy equation: Virtually every time you lower the carbon footprint in industrial energy production, he says, "you end up with a bigger water footprint."
As planners look to the future, they have to grapple with some tough trends: the more energy we need, the more water we need. But the availability of fresh water has already reached crisis proportions in many parts of the world, and some experts warn we should be more worried about "peak freshwater" than "peak oil." According to Peter Gleick and Meena Palaniappan, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, water availability is a growing global problem, especially in regions like the Western U.S. where "almost all major rivers and aquifers and already tapped out." Unlike oil, they write in dry, understated concern, water is absolutely essential for life. "For many uses," they conclude, "it has no substitutes."
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12 Comments
Add Comment"In California today, just delivering water accounts for 20 percent of the state's energy consumption."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCount me as skeptical of this claim. I'd like to see the numbers, but I'm guessing they're off by an order of magnitude or two.
Ok -- nice overview, but what's the point (except "use less water")? Why should people? They will not if water is not more expensive (reflecting scarcity, not just delivery cost).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, and there are two errors: CA uses 19% of it's ELECTRICITY (not energy) to pump and treat water. Second, Lake Mead "serves 22 million" along with several other water sources.
Finally, you're citation of the Scripps Report (like most) fails to mention their assumption of "demand as usual." Demand can clearly fall (higher prices and/or markets), preventing their simulated disaster.
David at aguanomics (author, end of abundance)
* your (miss my edit mode...)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is just another reason to cover every available rooftop with solar cells and develop wind power as much as possible. In the arid parts of the country, they should start imposing a surcharge on water usage so that its scarcity is better reflected in its cost. There's no reason to grow rice in the desert (I've seen it with my own eyes!) or cattle feed the way we do currently if the cost of water is adequately reflected. There's also no reason to waste kilowatt HOURS on inefficient lightbulbs, drafty buildings and electronics that consume too much power when not in use if we're looking at running out of water in some places in about 10 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne would think the market-driven supply and demand argument would be a 'no brainer'. It's not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in a municipality of ~17,000 people. We rely on a watershed of 84 sq. mi. for 90% of our water supply. In addition to the municipal demand there are something like 18 acequias (rural irrigation associations) with senior water rights tapping the system.
Hugely convoluted water rights adjudication cases have gone as far as the US Supreme Court. Every time the city tries to relieve the strain on the surface water supply to accommodate the acequias, local ranchers dependent on ground water scream bloody murder because their wells run dry.
Every time the municipal politicians try to raise water rates to force conservation the citizens go ballistic and vote the offending pols out of office. The whole thing is a great, increasingly dusty, mess.
Who wins in the end? Who else -- lawyers and consultants...
The latest estimate to alleviate the municipal problem? $208 million. For a town of 17,000. Right.
"In California today, just delivering water accounts for 20 percent of the state's energy consumption"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBaloney. How about some actual 'science' from Scientific American. About 92% of the energy used in California is carbon based...most of that in transportation. Of the remaining 8%, 'perhaps' 20% is used delivering water.
That's 2.5% (not 20%) to deliver water...MAX!
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2005publications/CEC-700-2005-011/CEC-700-2005-011-SF.PDF
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...water-related energy use consumes 19 percent of the state’s electricity, 30 percent of its natural gas, and 88 billion gallons of diesel fuel every year – and this demand is growing."
I don't know how much of the state's energy consumption "30% of its natural gas and 88 billion gallons of diesel" represents, but maybe 20% of total energy consumption is not inconceivable...
Please read the clarifications by davidzet and J Hubert. Wow, it's so cool when people actually go out and get facts before spouting off reactionary nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishere are a couple official reports that confirm the quantity of electricity used to move (pumping water over the sierras uses tonnnns of electricity, you'd be ignorant to disagree. Try carrying a bucket of water up a hill if you still don't believe it) and treat water in California as reported in this article reports.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/edrain/contents.asp
and,
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-999-2007-008/CEC-999-2007-008.PDF
“Grapples with climate change" what nonsense! World temperatures have not changed in the last 10 years and all the indications are that, due to a drop in sunspots, we're headed for a cooling period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a friend who is an expert in water supply and leads the Third World Centre for Water Management. He insists that the world is not short of water it's just that it manages it badly. Obviously, California manages it extremely badly. And instead of putting a value on water, it gets into all sorts of convoluted legal and environmental tangles.
And given that man made carbon dioxide can no longer be accused of causing dangerous global warming there is no need to squander billions of dollars on hugely expensive intermittent and ineffective new energy technologies like solar and wind.
The best way to conserve water is with reforestation. Water does not disappear in itself. How we control its use permits wiser distribution of it, especially in arid regions. Climate change, is also linked to global human population growth with its disproportionately growing appetite for cheap transportation. What kind of military superiority is useful if we ignore sunspots, planning, communication and cooperation among the less politically gullible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statement that "Electric power generation accounts for nearly half of the nations water usage....21 gallons of water to produce 1 Kwhr of electricity...." does not pertain to hydroelectric power generation, specifically where the author was identifying Hoover Dam with the Lake Mead water supply. Water passes through a hydroelectric generating facility, generates electricity, and comes out water on the downstream side. There is no diminishment in the amount of water, nor is there any contamination of the downstream water. Therefore, hydroelectric generation is a win - win situation. You use a renewable resource (water) to generate electricity; you don't consume the water source; you generate electricity with zero emissions,; and you create a reservoir (Lake Mead) which supplies water to numerous states and cities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis was a poorly written article (as witnessed by numerous other comments) that mixed-up various forms of electrical generation with the overall claim that we are running out of water.