Government researchers say more water will be needed for power plants in the future.
Mark Brush reports:
Transcript
Government researchers say more water will be needed for power plants in the future.
Mark Brush reports:
Power plants use a lot of water – often millions of gallons an hour. A lot of that water is
cycled through the plants and released back into lakes and rivers. But there’s also a lot
that is used up – mostly evaporating into the air.
The Department of Energy predicts that energy needs in the U.S. will increase 22% by
2030. The increase in power generation will drive an increase in water consumption.
And researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory say a lot more
water will be needed. That’s because of the pressure to build coal-burning power plants
that strip carbon dioxide from their emissions to slow global warming. The researchers
say the technologies needed to do this will use a lot more water. They predict that
freshwater consumption at power plants will increase as much as 50%.
For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.