Troubling interdependency of water and power
By Felicity Barringer, New York Times
In Modesto, utility records chart an 18 percent rise in farmers’ energy use in 2014 compared with 2013. No evidence shows exactly why this happened, but California’s drought, now in its fourth year, sent many farmers to their wells to pump from hidden aquifers water that normally would be found at ground level.
Such measures are a timely illustration of the way water needs power — not just to move it, but to clean it and even, with desalination, to create it from brine. A large desalination plant being built to provide 7 percent of San Diego’s water will require about 38 megawatts of power, enough for more than 28,000 homes. And it is no coincidence that primary owners of the 2,250-megawatt, coal-fired Navajo generating station near Page, Ariz., are water managers; they need the power to move water.
The converse is also true: Water is required for power — for hydropower; for extracting oil, natural gas and coal; and, most of all, for cooling power plants. A report from the Congressional Research Service projects that 85 percent of the growth in domestic water consumption from 2005 to 2030 will come from the power sector.
NYT’s; “No evidence shows exactly why this happened”, an interesting line from such a supposedly informative & prestigious newspaper. . .as the story goes on to illustrate, actually water & energy are inextricably linked, especially absent any gravity flow, as the Delta shuffle for ownership of water shows. . .they are “joined-at-the-hip”…
Water is known to be one of the heaviest compounds in chemistry (combining oxygen & hydrogen) at 7#’s/gallon (i.e., a 3 ft. by 3 ft. by 3 foot cube weighs 1800 pounds). . .
So water conservation is also energy conservation in alternative & green building scenarios, you save one, you don’t have to spend more on the other. . .but it has been so cheap for so long that these issues are unknown, so now a rude awakening occurs when shortages arrive. . .like now. . .
Unfortunately, that “troubling interdependency” has always been a reality, just most people don’t know it. . .wait ’til the populace finds out that their municipal water supplies are being sold to the entrepreneurial mind-set that now knows it’s been sold too cheap for eons, so will attempt to make up the difference quickly. . .
That ‘interdependency’ cannot be any other way. . .@ 7#’s’gallon. . .and the corporate world has now figured that out. . .especially with so many mismanaged water utilities to buy. . .