New York Times Covers Water-Energy Nexus (and quotes River Network!)

The International Herald Tribune, which is the global edition of the New York Times, has just published a mini-series of articles on the NY Times website that explore the water-energy nexus. Two of the articles – one on saving energy through water conservation and the other on how water is becoming a constraining factor for power production – feature statistics and quotes from River Network.

The first article, called Turning to Water Conservation to Save Energy, provides a good overview of the energy embedded in water, current and looming water supply shortages, and the potential for communities to save energy, reduce costs and cut greenhouse gas emissions through water conservation and efficiency:

Just how much energy is consumed has not been measured in most places, but a 2005 energy policy report published by the state of California found that annual water-related energy consumption in the state accounted for 19 percent of electricity consumption, 32 percent natural gas consumption, and 88 million gallons, or 333 million liters, of diesel fuel. River Network, an organization that advocates water conservation, has extrapolated that data nationally. In a report last year it calculated that Americans use 520 megawatt-hours, or 13 percent of U.S. electricity consumption, on water.

This level of consumption offers an opportunity, said Bevan Griffiths-Sattenspiel, a project coordinator with the network. “Reducing your water use not only saves energy and greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s also a key way to adapt to climate change because most effects of global warming will be manifest through our water resources,” he said.

The relationship between power and water utilities is lopsided. While electric utilities pay little or nothing for their water, the largest operating cost for water utilities is often their electricity bill.

Santa Clara Valley Water District has drawn a lesson from that. Serving 1.8 million residents in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, including Silicon Valley, it has had a water conservation program since the early 1990s. In 2007, it released a report analyzing its success in terms of energy conservation, emissions mitigation and cost. From 1993 to 2006, the report said, the district saved approximately 1.42 billion kilowatt-hours of energy, equivalent to the annual power used by 207,000 households, through financial incentives, advisory programs and infrastructure investments that cut water consumption.

That translated into a financial saving of about $183 million and an avoidance of 335,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

California is not the only U.S. state with water supply issues. By 2013, at least 36 states expect shortages, according to a 2003 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The second article is called Water Adds New Constraints to Power, and it looks at the ways in which water scarcity is becoming a major constraint for power production:

In the United States, thermoelectric power generation — mainly coal, nuclear and natural gas — accounted for 41 percent of U.S. freshwater withdrawals in 2005, U.S. Geological Society data show.

Typically, project developers have wanted to use water for cooling because it’s more efficient and capital costs are less,” said Terry O’Brien, the California Energy Commission’s deputy director for power plant licensing. “That makes the project more economic.”

But there is a growing awareness in California and throughout the United States that the use of water for energy generation may be reaching its limits.
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In the past decade, water availability has increasingly had an effect on the reliability of power supplies in many countries, with droughts leading to temporary closings of nuclear plants in Australia, France, Germany, Romania and Spain. Similar shutdowns have been threatened in the United States.

For a thermoelectric plant, the cooling technology used is the biggest factor in its water needs.

The article does a great job of explaining the three main types of cooling systems for thermoelectric power plants – once through cooling, recirculating-wet, and dry cooling – and their comparative costs and benefits. The article also looks at the water implications of some low-carbon energy options currently on the table, which is where River Network gets a few words in:

But for non-thermoelectric renewable energy, various technologies have very different water footprints, said Bevan Griffiths-Sattenspiel, project director for River Network, a water conservation organization. Hydropower, for example, causes large-scale water losses, mainly due to evaporation from the increased water surface area behind the dam.

And then there is the example of corn ethanol, which is used as a transportation fuel. “The biggest example of complete ignorance of water consumption is the big biofuels mandate,” Mr. Griffiths-Sattenspiel said. “It wasn’t until after it passed that people really started looking at it and considering the consequences of it. If we were to replace gasoline with biofuels, we’d be looking at a 2- to 200-times increase in water consumption for energy-related fuels,” depending on crop irrigation intensity.

Dr. Gleick, of the Pacific Institute, said: “The best alternatives from a water perspective are wind and photovoltaics, that require effectively no water. If the only thing we cared about was carbon, the problem of climate change, we would move toward nuclear and renewables. But we also have to think about water.”

It has been amazing to watch the connections between water and energy receive increasing amounts of attention in the mainstream media since River Network launched our Water, Energy and Climate Change Program just a couple years ago. It has been even more amazing to see our work getting international attention through outlets like the International Herald Tribune and New York Times.

But despite all this self-serving rhetoric, our success is really due to River Network’s Partners, the grassroots river and watershed organizations that have been working on the ground, informing our work through invaluable stories, case studies and reports. A big thanks also needs to go out to all of the incredible researchers – from such institutions as the POLIS Water Sustainability Project, the Webber Energy Group, the Pacific Institute, EPRI the California Energy Commission, Western Resource Advocates, and many others from government funded laboratories such as Sandia National Laboratories– who have been providing River Network with so much scientifically-sound information and fodder for discussions and advocacy on water-energy issues.