Love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage ... You can’t have one without the other ... — Frank Sinatra and the theme song for “Married with Children” Water without energy. Laurel without Hardy. A Wang without a Chung. Absolutely unthinkable! One of the key periled commodities of the future is water, safe naturally mineralized drinking water. Just this year it was announced that bottled water sales exceeded sales of chemically enhanced carbonated and non-carbonated beverages. Ok! So what does this have to do with alternate energy? In a word EVERYTHING. The volume of fresh water used by energy producers, to grow and process the grain for ethanol, to slush the shale rock formations, to cut and transport coal, to drill, lubricate, and permeate gas and oil pockets in hydrofracking, to cool thermoelectric power plants, to refine gasoline is enormous. Yes, even hydroelectric power actually consumes water due to evaporation in the reservoirs, which is surprising high. Now, there are arguments made about solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and wind turbines; however, unlike the other sources theirs is a one-up charge in the use of water, once the solar panels and wind turbines are built, the only water used is to clean them. See the accompanying graph that makes my point. While all the other key facilities use water, solar photo voltaic and wind use no water as direct function of power production. There is solar thermal, which does use water, however this technique is no longer being built because photovoltaic prices have dropped considerably. However they are used for desalination of water. At this juncture I will focus on the issues of water usage and occasionally drift into the spurious environmental factors such as algae buildup, bacteria infestation, toxic metal suspensions, and oxygen depletion. These things factor into the equation because this water is no longer palatable or useful but, in fact, harmful. None of these viands do solar PVs or a wind turbines create. Since most solar panels are made in China, lax air and water pollution control laws effect a larger carbon imprint. That’s something we in the United States will see here in short order with the marginalizing of the EPA and the subsequent non-enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act. These “reforms” however will benefit the numerous failing coal companies greatly, not the solar cell manufacturers who are already in compliance. The price tag for these “reforms” will be discussed in a later column. The need for clean drinking water is growing at an exponential rate while its availability is rapidly declining. The American standard of living consumes approximately 30 percent of the world’s annual output of energy. This for only 4.5 percent of the world’s population. It means that as a species, in order to satisfy a just distribution of resources for an equitable quality of life for everyone, we must produce nearly seven times what the world uses today. As for water the statistics are far more staggering. For example, India uses only one gallon per person per day while in the U.S., we consume over 450 gallons per person per day. This American figure is derived from all uses of water for our daily consumption, i.e. the water for irrigation of our crops, for producing energy, for personal hygiene and for drinking. India and China are rapidly moving to the American standard of living. Yet in spite of all of this, aquifers are being bought up to provide water for shale oil and hydrofracking. In places like Colorado where there are consistent patterns of drought conditions and wildfires, aquifers that contain the most healthiest of drinking water are being used to process shale oil. Sometimes, it seems, we are not the most intelligent creatures. Till next time.
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AuthorJames Bobreski is a process control engineer who has been in the field of electric power production for 43 years. His “Alternate Energy” column runs monthly. Archives
June 2020
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