(313a) Energy-Water Interface

The fuel based power plant requires tremendous amount of water for power generation. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the thermoelectric power plants consumes approximately 136 billion gallon per day of freshwater, about 3% of the water is consumed or is wasted due to the evaporative losses and the remaining 97% of water is returned to the sources. The withdrawal and consumption of freshwater in making electricity is creating competition between industrial, agricultural, commercial, and residential sectors. The energy production is directly proportional to the water withdrawals and hence to the consumption/ water losses due to evaporation. The difference in the water supply and water use are creating concerns in the Southern and the Western states of the United States. The amount of water withdrawn from a freshwater body creates a potential threat to the aquatic life and can destruct the natural habitat of the aquatic species.

The need to cope up with the technological advancement and increasing population with the available water sources is a driving force to research and develop the new technologies to lower the water consumption and to utilize the freshwater sources wisely. It is time to adopt energy and water conservation practices at every user level.

The Department of Energy/Office of Fossil Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE/NETL) in conjunction with different agencies have studied the Energy-water interface and invented variety of methods and new technologies to minimize the water requirement in coal based power plants; it is an excellent resource material for the power plant industry to adopt and ensure sustainable development. This paper is an attempt to describe the energy-water interface and the remedies such as advanced cooling technologies, water reuse and recovery and detection technology, use of nontraditional sources of process and cooling water, and advanced water treatment suggested by (DOE/NETL).

New technology should be invented to burn coal in safe manner without degrading the environment. The effect of these technologies on the amount of water in groundwater aquifers should be analyzed in order to check their performance. It is also important to find out any bad effects of the water conservation methods on the power plant performance and environmental impacts after their implementation.

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