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posted by chromas on Wednesday October 23 2019, @07:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the fire-water-burn dept.

Replacing Coal with Gas or Renewables Saves Billions of Gallons of Water:

"While most attention has been focused on the climate and air quality benefits of switching from coal, this new study shows that the transition to natural gas—and even more so, to renewable energy sources—has resulted in saving billions of gallons of water," said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

[...] "For every megawatt of electricity produced using natural gas instead of coal, the amount of water withdrawn from local rivers and groundwater is reduced by 10,500 gallons, the equivalent of a 100-day water supply for a typical American household," said Andrew Kondash, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke, who led the study as part of his doctoral dissertation under Vengosh.

[...] If all coal-fired power plants are converted to natural gas, the annual water savings will reach 12,250 billion gallons—that's 260% of current annual U.S. industrial water use.

Although the magnitude of water use for coal mining and fracking is similar, cooling systems in natural gas power plants use much less water in general than those in coal plants. That can quickly add up to substantial savings, since 40% of all water use in the United States currently goes to cooling thermoelectric plants, Vengosh noted.

[...] Even further savings could be realized by switching to solar or wind energy. The new study shows that the water intensity of these renewable energy sources, as measured by water use per kilowatt of electricity, is only 1% to 2% of coal or natural gas's water intensity.

"Switching to solar or wind energy would eliminate much of the water withdrawals and water consumption for electricity generation in the U.S.," Vengosh said.

Quantification of the water-use reduction associated with the transition from coal to natural gas in the U.S. electricity sector, Environmental Research Letters (DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab4d71)


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:31PM (5 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:31PM (#910768) Journal

    The authors of the paper are such gloomy guses. Look, the more CO2 that gets pumped into the atmosphere, the more of the sun's energy the atmosphere retains. The more energy the atmosphere retains, the warmer it will get. The warmer it gets, the more water evaporates from the world's oceans, and that water forms clouds and falls back to the earth in the form of rain.

    So coal use use is accelerating the rate at which pure, clean water will fall from the sky. You're welcome.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:56PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:56PM (#910775) Journal

    The warmer it gets, the more water evaporates from the world's oceans, and that water forms clouds and falls back to the earth in the form of rain.

    There's no warranty that water will fall where and when is needed.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @02:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @02:14PM (#910797)

      I wanted to say woosh but then I saw GP's username.
      I think you're speaking to deaf ears here.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:33AM (1 child)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:33AM (#911074) Journal

    Jesus tapdancing Christ. You must be taking the piss...

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 25 2019, @11:20AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday October 25 2019, @11:20AM (#911584) Journal

    Acid Rain
    Some stay dry and others feel the pain

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