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the largest category of water usage is for thermoelectric power generation, actually using more than irrigation Isn't there a lot of overlap there? Hydroelectr
by masonic 7y ago
the largest category of water usage is for thermoelectric power generation, actually using more than irrigation
Isn't there a lot of overlap there? Hydroelectric doesn't consume the water, it just takes energy from its gravity.
- minitoar 7y agoThermoelectric sort of does consume it, I guess. They inject the water down into geysers to produce steam. My home town, Santa Rosa, California, gets most (all?) of its power from thermoelectric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geysers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geysers
- sbierwagen 7y agoTo be clear, when the article says "thermoelectric", they're talking about any power plant that heats up water to generate steam, which is to say, every coal, nuclear, and combined-cycle natural gas power plant in the country.
- minitoar 7y agoAh...makes sense.
- reissbaker 7y agoI don't think that's consumption, though? Steam is still water, just in gaseous form, and it becomes liquid again via condensation.
- usrusr 7y agoI was about to post the same objection, the steam used in the turbine is in a closed cycle for all that I know. But a large amount of water is evaporated to cool the condenser in big plants that produce more waste heat than can be used by local low intensity heat consumers (district heating, greenhouses). In any case, water consumption is an incredibly weak metric if it's not somehow normalized by source and sink impact. It's irresponsible alarmism when e.g. irrigation use from a plentiful source is measured on the same scale as consumption of a non-replenishing mineral occurrence and/or water use that ends with dumping toxic liquid into a leaky artificial lake as seem with certain mining processes.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThey're injecting treated sewage, which seems like a win-win. > However, since October 16, 1997, the Geysers steam field has been recharged by injection of treated sewage effluent, producing approximately 77 megawatts of capacity in 2004... The injection of wastewater to the Geysers protects local waterways and Clear Lake by diverting effluent which used to be put into surface waters, and has produced electricity without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
- sbierwagen 7y agoInterestingly, the source report calculates this, though the article doesn't mention the distinction: https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1441/circ1441.pdf#page=50 https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1441/circ1441.pdf#page=50 95100 Mgal/day fresh water withdrawn, 3760 Mgal/day consumed. Even worse, the "pipe and tank" diagram from OP shows total water consumption, which includes seawater! (37800 million gallons per day "withdrawn", though we are not exactly worried about running out of seawater right now) Additionally, the article doesn't mention hydroelectric at all, and the report says it's out of scope. (Almost all the water coming out of a dam is either consumed or allowed to discharge into the sea)
- BurningFrog 7y agoStrictly speaking, water is almost never consumed. The molecule is nearly indestructible.