Quote:
Originally Posted by spinner
If you want to see the paper, then click here.
After their explanation of water consumption and water withdrawal, with examples of closed-loop and open-loop cooling systems, I'm not confident that the authors even understand whether water consumption is applicable. They do not make it clear that water is being made to disappear. Certainly existing consumption in the generation of energy seems absurdly bloated. For example, in closed-loop cooling, the same water is being reused over and over again, whereas the report suggests there is a steady rate of consumption in proportion to the output. Nonsense?
Water is a pretty renewable resource. Did I miss something in my interpretation? |
You're understanding of a closed-loop cooling system isn't quite correct. Although the water is typically recycled multiple times, it is lost to evaporation, leaks, etc. The key is that the water is not returned to its original source.
After reading the article, it seems the authors can definitively say that water consumption applies to the mining of coal, natural gas, and uranium as well as the operation of power plants that use these fuels based on the 1995 figures they quote.
In my opinion, their suggestion to research means to use non-fresh water for power plant cooling is the most likely to relieve this problem.