Water & Energy Facts (Blog Action Day on Water)

This post is part of our participation in Blog Action Day 2010, which is on the topic of Water.

If you didn’t know, we use water to pump crude oil out of the ground, remove pollutants from power plant exhaust, flush residue after fossil fuels are burned, cool power plants, and much more. Our energy resources rely on water, much more than we probably realize. Exactly how much water?

A study from the Virginia Water Resources Research Center found a couple of years ago that:

1. “Fossil-fuel-fired thermoelectric power plants consume more than 500 billion L of fresh water per day,” or about 95 L of water for 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity.

2. Comparing water use efficiency of different fuel sources, natural gas is the most efficient fuel source and biodiesel is the least efficient (this analysis did not include solar or wind energy).

3. When it comes to power generation technologies, hydroelectric, ironically, is the most water efficient, followed by geothermal and solar thermal. Nuclear energy is by far the least efficient, followed by fossil fuel thermoelectric (also very high).

How Do Solar PV and Wind Compare?

Want some water use info on solar PV and wind energy? This is what the California Energy Commission found regarding the water use efficiency of solar PV and wind energy:

WATER CONSUMPTION–WIND AND SOLAR

Technology	gallons/kWh	liters/kWh

Wind [1]	0.001	0.004
PV [2]	0.030	0.110

Now, compare that to what the California Energy Commission found regarding water use efficiency of conventional power plants:

WATER CONSUMPTION–CONVENTIONAL POWER PLANTS

Technology	gallons/kWh	liters/kWh

Nuclear	0.62	2.30
Coal	0.49	1.90
Oil	0.43	1.60
Combined Cycle	0.25	0.95

As the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) notes, “Wind therefore uses less than 1/600 as much water per unit of electricity produced as does nuclear, and approximately 1/500 as much as coal.” Solar PV isn’t quite as water-efficient as wind energy, but it is also tremendously more efficient than other energy sources.

So, aside from the other environmental benefits of solar and wind energy, water is another big one to take note of. With water resources being used up at completely unsustainable rates, this will become an increasingly important part of the equation and will surely have a stronger and stronger effect on the costs of different energy sources.

Photo Credit: bkusler via flickr

Zachary Shahan (2291 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on your favorite social network, go to: zacharyshahan.com

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Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Excellent post on Energy and Water. Congratulations Zachary Shahan.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
- Anonymous
  
  Thanks, Anumakonda
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MR

This is good data to know! Oh, and if water that goes into nuke plants “come’ out clean”, then someone should tell that to the folks cleaning up the Hanford site here in Washington, with million s of gallons of contaminated water storied in tanks under the ground….

Thanks Zach
- http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
  
  haha, thank you, MR
  - Charles
    
    Due respect to contributors to this subject.
    
    Hanford site was part of the process to weaponize atomic energy doring WWII and the Cold war.
    
    Not a “Nuke Plant” as the statistics is based on. but a University Research ctr (like others that time).
    
    Cleanup is about to take place now on the site to remedy old “misguided” notions about application of nukes. I’m following the work being performed there.
    
    Normal nuclear fission energy generation doesn’t supposed to contaminate the coolant.
http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan

great additional point, chuck. i think that’s a post topic definitely worth coming back to.

send me a reminder if i don’t get to it in the next month
- charles
  
  Zac I’m on the same page as chuck is on. I follow cleantechnica daily with great interest. Happy when I read intelligent comments. We need to have more exposure to physics and science in general to improve the or relevance of comments to contemporary environmental and energy issues.
chuck

If you want to compare nuclear with other power generations means on a water consumption basis it would have to be done on the basis of what the water is used for. A lot of the water ‘consumed’ by nuclear power plants is actually used to cool the uranium. However, water never comes into contact with uranium so it leaves the power plant as clean as it came in, the only difference being that it exits a few degrees warmer than it came in. Of course, huge amounts of water are used in all power plants, no matter the fuel source. However, it is immensely important whether or not the water comes out dirty once it’s been ‘used’. So, next time, please look up some sources that break down water usage into different categories based on the cleanliness of the water that has been ‘used’.

Thank you for considering this.
http://www.smallbuck.com Donald Rush

Water is definitely where the cheap power is. I spent alot of time looking into this for Haiti. Power is so unreliable , but they have tons of rivers. A single hydro turbine on a small river could power several villages. There just is not enough organization or infrastructure to get it done.
- jean
  
  People have to introduce these things into there life most of them do not understand the tec.you raise awarness and you will get action Jean
  - http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
    
    thanks a lot, Jean, great point — awareness-raising leads to action
- http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
  
  thanks, Donald. hydro is something that is definitely interesting me more and more. make sure to check out the post i just did on a new microhydro book out: http://cleantechnica.com/2010/10/15/new-microhydro-book-is-the-microhydro-book/
http://twitter.com/davelucas Dave Lucas

Thanks for participating in the Blog Action Day Initiative! Remember, +|O:| – WATER IS LIFE!
http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-action-day-2010-resource-we-take.html