Submitted on December 15th, 2008 by Mark Mansley (not verified)
I can't help but be a litte suspicious about the figures - yes the power sector "uses" an awful lot of water, but most of it is returned to the system once used rather than being removed permanently. And obviously water use in the power sector various as much as carbon impact (with wind again doing well). We know agriculture is very greedy user of water, and is a further reason to be cautious of current generation biofuels but the future for biofuels will be based on next generation biofuels, with low water use (inter alia) a prerequisite for acceptability.
The significant of water use is also of course very geographically dependent meaning we should be very cautious about drawing conclusions about the impact of water use from generic figures.
It is an interesting debate, and one worth further investigation, but not one to jump to conclusions just yet. And given the track record of the fossil fuel industries in scientific debate, the need for caution is doubly great - having lost the climate debate is water the next argument to used for inaction and unsustainability?
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Water and energy use
Submitted on December 15th, 2008 by Mark Mansley (not verified)I can't help but be a litte suspicious about the figures - yes the power sector "uses" an awful lot of water, but most of it is returned to the system once used rather than being removed permanently. And obviously water use in the power sector various as much as carbon impact (with wind again doing well). We know agriculture is very greedy user of water, and is a further reason to be cautious of current generation biofuels but the future for biofuels will be based on next generation biofuels, with low water use (inter alia) a prerequisite for acceptability.
The significant of water use is also of course very geographically dependent meaning we should be very cautious about drawing conclusions about the impact of water use from generic figures.
It is an interesting debate, and one worth further investigation, but not one to jump to conclusions just yet. And given the track record of the fossil fuel industries in scientific debate, the need for caution is doubly great - having lost the climate debate is water the next argument to used for inaction and unsustainability?