Newswise — Charge a smartphone in the United States and about half a liter of water has to flow through kilometers of pipe to cool the nation's power plants. Your flashy little phone may not drink much, but add up all the half-liters used to generate the 17-some-odd megawatt-hours that the world will burn through this year. Trust us, it's a lot of water. In the United States alone, on just one average day, 500 million metric tons of fresh water flow through the country's power plants--about the same amount that irrigates its fields for agriculture or more than twice the volume flowing through the Nile.
Just as you need water to juice your iPhone, you need electricity to flush a toilet. If you live in Phoenix, say, a portion of the water that went down the loo got there through 540 kilometers of pipes, pumps, and canals that every year carry a couple of billion megaliters uphill from the California border, using nearly the yearly output of one 300-MW generator. That energy, by the way, comes from a huge coal-fired power plant that draws up to 42 000 megaliters per year from the Colorado River, an over-apportioned and chronically drought-stricken river.
As heavily populated parts of the world slide unpredictably into and out of prolonged droughts or inundation, we will increasingly find ourselves struggling to balance the two poles of the nexus. In some places the struggle will be desperate. Managing the need for both energy and water is growing from a routine bureaucratic chore to one of the defining issues of this century.
"The Power of Water" by Sally Adee and Samuel K. Moore A lack of water in the Colorado River's system puts coal-fired power plants at risk, could shut down hydropower at Hoover Dam, and is throwing a wrench into California's green-energy plans.
"The Carbon-Capture Conundrum" by Samuel K. Moore Today's carbon-capture technology, if deployed widely, would nearly double the amount of water a typical coal-fired power plant consumes.
"The Long Haul" by Anne-Marie Corley with Yu-Tzu Chiu The most ambitious water scheme ever attempted would bring water from China's southern rivers to supply the North's production and energy output. But the project is running into some immovable obstacles.
"Life in Drought" by Jean Kumagai Australian farmers and city dwellers alike find that saving water often means spending more watts.
"Biofuel's Water Problem" by David Schneider Gallons (of water) per mile could be as important as miles per gallon. A look at how much water irrigated biofuels crops would need versus how much is consumed in producing petrol, shows that they don't make much sense, at least in the United States.
"Pumping Punjab Dry" by Seema Singh India's agricultural heartland, Punjab, has overpumped groundwater to such an extent that it may be gone in 20 years. A main culprit is the state's electricity scheme.
"Wizards of the Water Cycle" by Sandra Upson Singapore has gone from having no water of its own to being almost entirely water independent. But that independence is paid for in the form of a bigger dependence on imported energy that lets the island turn its population's pee into drinking water.
"The Saline Solution" by Sally Adee IEEE Spectrum explains how to make seawater potable using today's systems and technology coming in the near future.
"Malta Takes Control" by Harry Goldstein The Mediterranean island is installing the first combined water and electricity smart grid in the hope of saving its dwindling water supply and its money, too.
"Carbonated Water" by Samuel K. Moore It's not enough to worry just about a power source's carbon footprint. You also have to consider its water footprint.
"5 Crazy Ideas" by Sally Adee Check out our collection of water and energy schemes that are so crazy, they just might work.
RSS