Water -- lots of it -- is needed to make power
Huge amounts of water are needed for the extraction of traditional fuels from the earth, as well as to create power from them.
Think about the water involved in the extraction of fossil fuels, including mining and drilling. Fracking jumps immediately to mind, of course. Until techniques like "dry fracking" are better developed, enormous amounts of water will continue to be consumed, and polluted, in the hydraulic fracturing process.
Water is also involved in power generation, at least from non-renewable energy. Massive amounts of water are used by coal-fired power plants to create steam that spin electricity-generating turbines. Nuclear power plants need water for steam and for managing nuclear fuel. (Which is why, of course, these power plants are always built along rivers.)
Renewable energy such as wind and solar photovoltaic technologies do not require water to generate electricity.
The Delaware River Basin Commission reports that 77 percent of water in the Delaware River is used to generate power. That's 5,908 million gallons a day. Compare that to just 11 percent used for public water supply, even though the Delaware River supplies drinking water for over 15 million people, including residents of Philadelphia and New York City.
And power -- lots of it -- is needed to process water
On the flip side, huge amounts of energy are needed both to make water potable and to transport it to our faucets. Perhaps surprisingly, treating wastewater also uses large amounts of energy. Organizations such as the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) have used their expertise to advise utilities on how to save energy and water -- and, ultimately, the consumers' money -- at the same time.
A final thought:
Care about cleaner water? Increase your efforts to conserve energy, invest in energy efficiency and support renewable energy.
I encourage you to post a comment with more examples of the water/energy nexus.
Federal Policy Director Joy Bergey is based in Philadelphia.
