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Humanity May Face Choice By 2040: Conventional Energy Or Drinking Water
Submitted by Andy Tully via OilPrice.com,
A set of studies based on three years of research concludes that by 2040, the need for drinking water and water for use in energy production will create dire shortages.
Conventional electricity generation is the largest source of water use in most countries. Water is used to cool power plants to keep them functional. Most power utilities don’t even record the amount of water they use.
“It’s a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realize how much water they actually consume,” says Professor Benjamin Sovacool of Denmark’s Aarhus University, one of the institutions involved in the research. “And together with the fact that we do not have unlimited water resources, it could lead to a serious crisis if nobody acts on it soon.”
The research, which included projections of the availability of water and the growth of the world’s population, found that by 2020, between 30 percent and 40 percent of the planet will no longer have direct access to clean drinking water. The problem could be made even worse if climate change accelerates, creating more heat and causing more water evaporation.
That means humankind must decide how water is used, Sovacool says. “Do we want to spend it on keeping the power plants going or as drinking water? We don’t have enough water to do both,” he says.
The researchers, also from the Vermont Law School and CNA Corporation in the US, a non-profit research institute in Arlington, Va., focused their studies on specific utilities and other energy suppliers in four countries: China, France, India and the United States.
First, they identified each country’s energy needs, then factored in projections of water availability in each country and its population level as far as 2040. In all four cases, they discovered, there will not be enough water by then both to drink and to use at electricity-generating plants.
So how to prevent this conflict? The studies agreed on starting with the simplest solution: Alternative sources of electricity that don’t require massive amounts of water.
The recommendations are improving energy efficiency, conducting more research on alternative cooling mechanisms, logging water use at power plants, making massive investments in solar and wind energy, and abandoning fossil fuel facilities in all areas susceptible to water shortages.
This last proposal may be the most difficult to implement because parched areas now include half of Earth. But Sovacool says it would be worth the investment.
“If we keep doing business as usual, we are facing an insurmountable water shortage – even if water was free, because it’s not a matter of the price,” he says. “There will be no water by 2040 if we keep doing what we’re doing today. There’s no time to waste. We need to act now.”
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"There’s no time to waste. We need to act now."
It's that "WE" that scares me...
It is interesting, "now" is also a relative term these days, followed soon by, "Its already too late!!!...(in order to get your attention to the "prophesied" dire consequences, that never happened) so that "we" should act in unison "now" and react to...
...computer models fed with false data.
Its really amazing.
Only one word: NAWAPA.
Our government has squandered and illicitly used the 14 trillion set aside in the 60's to fund NAWAPA, so once again, it's the incompetence of the idiots in Washington.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERq86OlS-_k
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/ZeroHedge
Whoever wrote this article spoke about climate change possibly getting worse, thereby demonstrating his belief in climate change. Whenever someone acknowledges they believe in climate change, I don't believe them. Do electric plants use all the water, causing it to disappear? Do they pollute it? What does he mean by , they USE water? How are they making it disappear?
I'm no scientist, but how could that be? It sounds as if they use it to cool, the heated water would evaporate and go back into the atmosphere.
Methinks this article is bullshit because the author believes in climate change. Now he is trying to scare us into another impending disaster, no doubt to impose huge fines and taxes on water usage. More grants for the EPA, etc. Give us some FACTS, buddy! http://www.gramsgold.com/blog
Don't fall into their trap. Everyone knows climate changes, this has been common knowledge for decades, and fairly well known for centuries. Don't let them rebrand their lies into "climate change", because of course there is climate change, and always has been, and always will be. To accept that bogus term is to [at least partially] let them escape their fraud and their true intentions.
They are proponents of "sufficent non-natural, non-cyclic AGW to destroy mankind". If they aren't, they're simply proponents of tyranny.
More nonsense promoted by morons who embrace AGW. Note they only propose other souces of electricity, not other sources of water. Like, oceans maybe? Nah, they don't consider that, because they have a master agenda, and that would not suit their agenda. Nor would [relatively simple] methods of preventing water run through electricity-generating systems from becoming unsuitable for drinking.
Disclaimer: 100% of my electricity is from solar-panels that I purchased and installed, and 100% of my water supply is captured from a source that would not otherwise be consumed. So I'm a huge proponent of alternate energy [and water] sources (including solar, wind, tide, etc). However, I am not a huge proponent of lies, spin and propaganda. But I'm also a propoent of ethical behavior, so individual or company that pollutes air or water that flows onto the property (or into bodies) of others is guilty of intentional poisoning. Rational and efficient solutions exist to every problem, but not as long as predators with political agendas control everything.
Giant desalination plants for coastal cities interfere with the FUD. The search for solutions is always more important than actual solutions.
http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-ucla-flooding-20140731-story...
Hooray for you! The best solution is to halt HAARP, which is screwing with the weather causing droughts and famines to achieve people control. The power plants are only evaporating water not destroying it. Where it condenses is the key, thus, HAARP.
Psychopaths are at the helm of this ship of sheeple.
The earth is a closed system. Water is neither destroyed not lost. In fact, as I recall from elementary schoold science, the earch is 70% covered by water. The hysteria about running out of water is nonsense.
This story does not pass the smell test. The power plants where I live use lake water for cooling. They take in cool water and dump back into the lake the warmer water. Yes, there is some water lost to greater evaporation but that amount is very small. Since the warmer water is available for drinking and is not consumed this story seems too alarmist and not exactly credible.