Climate change may drive a shift to more renewable energy generation, to conserve water, a U.S. Department of Energy report said this week. The report, The Water-Energy Nexus: Challenge and Opportunities found a risky mutual dependence between water and energy.
Energy was needed to pump, treat and transport water, while water was needed to cool electricity generating equipment in thermal power plants such as gas, coal, nuclear and concentrated solar power. Such thermoelectric power accounts for 40% of all U.S. freshwater use.
Among thermoelectric generation technologies, nuclear power was the most dependent on water, withdrawing around 45,000 gallons per megawatt hour, followed by gas, coal, concentrated solar and geothermal power.
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