This article is American, but serves to highlight our looming infrastructure problems, the link to global warming, and the results of our focus on uninhibited growth instead of sustainability.
Water consumed by electric utilities could account for up to 60 percent of all nonfarm water used in the US by 2030.
– from the Christian Science Monitor
The drive to build more power plants for a growing nation – as well as the push to use biofuels – is running smack into the limits of a fundamental resource: water.
Already, a power plant uses three times as much water to provide electricity to the average household than the household itself uses through showers, toilets, and the tap. The total water consumed by electric utilities accounts for 20 percent of all the nonfarm water consumed in the United States. By 2030, utilities could account for up to 60 percent of the nonfarm water, because they use water for cooling and to scrub pollutants.
This water-versus-energy challenge is likely to be most acute in fast-growing regions of the US, such as the Southeast and the arid Southwest. Assuming current climate conditions, continued growth in these regions could eventually require tighter restrictions on water use, on electricity use, or both during the hottest months, when demand for both skyrockets, researchers say. Factor in climate change and the projections look worse. This is prompting utilities to find ways to alleviate the squeeze.
Read the rest of the article here…
My favourite bit:
In the end, “there is no single silver bullet” for coping with the projected effects of global warming, Mr. Jones says. “Renewables will play an important role, but energy efficiency is the only way you can deal with it without environmental impacts.”
Who would have thought!!! Of course, that Timothy Jones is not to be confused with our own Tim Jones here in Aurora.
