Life-cycle uses of water in U.S. electricity generation

By Vasilis Fthenakis, Hyung Chul Kim. 2010

375 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Water use by the electric power industry is attracting renewed interest as periods and zones of arid weather are increasingly encountered, and various regional energy-production scenarios are evaluated. However, there is a scarcity of data on upstream water factors and discrepancies of data from different sources. We reviewed previous studies of water use in electricity generation and used full-life cycle accounting to evaluate water demand factors, both withdrawal and consumption, for conventional- and renewable-electrical power plants. Our investigation showed that moving to technologies like photovoltaics and wind offers the best option for conserving our water supply. We also emphasize the importance of employing a transparent, balanced approach in accounting life-cycle water usages.

Subfields: Ocean Engineering, Pollution, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2d6b59c4b676cdd529b991612d4696925ba1dafe

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Citations in the corpus

Renewable Electricity Futures Study. Volume 1. Exploration of High-Penetration Renewable Electricity Futures (2012, background): “volumes of water (typically roughly 500–1100 gal/MWh), but have relatively high consumptive rates (typically roughly 400–700 gal/MWh) (Fthenakis and Kim 2010).”
Life cycle water use for electricity generation: a review and harmonization of literature estimates (2013, background): “…2013 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK Previous studies address water use across this life cycle to varying degrees (e.g., Gleick 1994, DOE 2006, Fthenakis and Kim 2010, Mielke et al 2010, McMahon and Price 2011), but these studies do not provide sufficient information for water and energy…”
Considering the energy, water and food nexus: Towards an integrated modelling approach (2011, neutral): “…et al. (2010), Chaurey and Kandpal (2010), Cherubini and Strømman (2011), Dismukes et al. (2009), El-Fadel et al. (2010), Finnveden et al. (2009), Fthenakis and Kim (2010), Grossmann (2003), Hertwich et al. (1997), Ito et al. (1997), Kaldellis et al. (2009), Lee and Koh (2002), Ou et al.…”
The Environmental Costs and Benefits of Fracking (2014, neutral): “Corn ethanol (unirrigated) (47, 48) 300, 83 430, 119 2,100”
The environmental relevance of freshwater consumption in global power production (2011, background): “For fossil thermal and nuclear power generation, infrastructure and fuel provision are generally of low overall environmental importance (Peiu 2007) and water consumption is also relatively low (Fthenakis and Kim 2010).”
Types of Solar Cells and Application (2015, background): “[9][10][11] CdTe's energy payback time of less than a year enables for faster carbon reductions without short-term energy deficits.”
The blue water footprint of electricity from hydropower (2011, background): “The study does not include an assessment of the supply-chain water footprint of hydroelectric generation, which is expected to be much smaller than the operational water footprint (Inhaber, 2004; Fthenakis and Kim, 2010).”
A review on thermoelectric renewable energy: Principle parameters that affect their performance (2014, methodology): “as power plants, factories, motor vehicles, computers or even human bodies into electric power using the Seebeck effect [6–12].”
Energy-water nexus of wind power in China: The balancing act between CO2 emissions and water consumption (2012, neutral): “A number of studies have been carried out to analyse the connection of energy and water focusing on the water requirements of energy production (Fthenakis and Kim, 2010; Sovacool and Sovacool, 2009).”
The water consumption of energy production: an international comparison (2014, methodology): “Reservoirs serve a multitude of other critical societal purposes, most notably water supply storage and regional flood control (WCD 2000, Fthenakis and Kim 2010).”
Operational water consumption and withdrawal factors for electricity generating technologies: a review of existing literature (2012, background): “For the vast majority of power generation technologies, most of the water used in the life cycle of the plant occurs during the operational phase, with the exception of non-thermal renewable energy technologies that do not require cooling systems (Fthenakis and Kim 2010).”