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Archive for April, 2010

Water Used in Generating US Electricity

April 2nd, 2010 | Author: Iowa Solar

Water Used in Generating US Electricity

In my four-article series on water use (The Resource Matrix), I took you on a journey to reveal the layers of The Resource Matrix in order to help you understand how water will be a highly contested commodity tomorrow, possibly as much as oil is fought over today.

You learned about your water footprint and a website where you can calculate it, virtual water and virtual water transfers, whereby choices here affect water availability elsewhere, to the point of some people not having enough water to drink in order to produce inexpensive dyed cotton, along with insane choices such as growing crops in the desert.

You learned that on average it takes 1854 to 3000 gallons to produce one pound of beef.

Yep, it’s it’s been a great journey through the sidetrip city of the Resource Matrix.

Today, we’ve found the on-ramp to the Green Lighting Interstate and are driving to take a look at water use in generating electricity.

For a simple reason. It takes a lot of water to produce electricity.

How much? 5% of all US water? 10%? Can’t be as high as 25%?

Electricity and water?

I thought the issue was fossil fuels and greenhouse gases

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated water use in the United States in 2000.

Their grand total: 408 billion gallons per day withdrawn for all uses.

The number 1 spot, weighing in at 48%, was thermoelectric power.

Irrigation earned the runner-up prize at 34%.

The 195 billion gallons need to come from somewhere, and actions have consequences. Environmental ones, as in 40 million fish in the Great Lakes killed each year due to being trapped against water intake devices. That’s a lot of Friday night fish dinners.

How much water is used in generating electricity?

Large fossil fuel and nuclear plants require incredible quantities of water for cooling and ongoing maintenance.

Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators. It uses 48% of all water in the US.

According to the Pace Energy and Climate Center, the amount of water used for power plant cooling varies by each specific power plant’s electricity generating technology and size. Nuclear reactors require the most water for cooling, and baseload fossil fuel power plants come in second.

The Salem Nuclear Generating Station alone takes 3 billion gallons a day from the Delaware Bay, according to the Pace Energy and Climate Center.

Nationally:

Steam electric generating plants across the nation draw in more than 200 billion gallons per day.
Nuclear and fossil fuel power plants drink over 185 billion gallons of water per day.
Geothermal power plants add another 2 billion or so gallons a day.
Most renewable energy technologies require little or no water for cooling.

These numbers are starting to sound like the same ones the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank use.

Imagine watching your favorite science program where astronomers explain that the universe is 78 billion light-years wide (78 billion units of 5,878,630,000,000 miles). There is absolutely nothing in our experience to help us wrap our mind around it.

How much is 3 billion gallons per day?

The Delaware Bay feeds Salem Nuclear Generating Station 3 billion gallons a day.

Imagine this rectangle: a football field with end zones (360 feet long x 160 feet wide). Then add to it walls on each side of the rectangle to create a container to hold the 3 billion gallons you pour into it.

How high do you need to make those walls to contain 3 billion gallons? 6915 feet high. Or 1.3 miles.

Maybe 6915 feet high is still hard to imagine. So how deep do you cover the field in order to feed the Salem plant every minute? Answer: 5 feet deep. Every minute.

48% of all water use: We’re Number One!

How much is 195 billion gallons per day?

Using the USGS figure for 2000, thermoelectric power nationwide used 195 billion gallons a day, or 48% of all water used in the US. My guess is the water use has grown since then.

How high are the walls on our football field now? 449,475 feet or 85 miles high. We’re back to US Treasury and astronomy numbers again.

So, let’s get a higher-level view to help us.

Lake Erie holds 116 cubic miles of water.

Nationally, thermoelectric power uses 195 billion gallons a day – or 64.2 cubic miles a year.

We drain Lake Erie every 22 months.

But the water used is returned to its source.

So what’s the issue about water use?

Power generation returns 98% of the water back to its source (bay, lake, river, ocean).

It’s the environmental consequences.

The Pace Energy and Climate Center explains it neatly:

Withdrawal of large volumes of surface water for either power plant cooling or hydropower generation can kill fish, larvae and other organisms trapped against intake structures (impinged), or swept up (entrained) in the flow through the different sections of a power plant.

Examples include:

The Salem Nuclear Generating Station is responsible for an annual 11 percent reduction in weakfish and 31 percent reduction in bay anchovy.
At the Indian Point 2 and 3 reactors on the Hudson River, the number of fish impinged totaled over 1.5 million fish in 1987.
The 90 power plants using once-through-cooling on the Great Lakes kill in excess of 40 million fish per year due to impingement. (Once-through cooling needs a continual flow of new water, and uses 30 to 50 times that of a closed cycle system. Closed cycles cool down water from steam then reuse it.)

The diversion of water out of the river removes water for healthy in-stream ecosystems:

Stretches below dams are often completely de-watered.
Fluctuations in water flow from peaking operations create a “tidal effect,” disrupting the downstream riparian community that supports its unique ecosystem.
A dam’s impoundment slows water flows, which hinders natural downstream migration of many fish species.
By slowing river flows, dams also allow silt to collect on river and reservoir bottoms and bury fish spawning habitat. Silt trapped above dams accumulates heavy metals and other pollutants. Disrupting the natural flow of sediments in rivers also leads to erosion of riverbeds downstream of the dam and increases risks of floods.
The impoundment of water by hydropower facilities fundamentally reshapes the physical habitat from a riverine to an artificial pond community.
This often eliminates native populations of fish and other wildlife.
Dams also impede the upstream and downstream movement of fish and other wildlife, and prevent the flow of plants and nutrients. This impact is most significant on migratory fish, which are born in the river and must migrate downstream early in life to the ocean and then migrate upstream again to lay their eggs (or “spawn”).
As mentioned above, withdrawal of water into turbines can also impinge or entrain significant numbers of fish.

The cleanest kilowatt is the one never used:

Back to those compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs

PowerScorecard.org explains the solution:

By re-directing electricity dollars to support environmentally benign energy resources, consumers are empowered, in states that offer supply choice, to influence the existing generating resources that are deployed to meet demand.

They can also support the construction of new and cleaner electricity resources that will be built to meet overall growth in demand in the future. By supporting these power options, consumers can minimize many water use and consumption impacts. Still, directing your dollars to cleaner power products in no way helps remediate damages that already have occurred. Consumers can stop the construction of new hydropower facilities or alter conditions of siting and operation, but they cannot undo previous environmental degradation that occurred at existing hydropower facilities.

In short, reduce your use of electricity.

More Info:

We used several sources for this article, including the PowerScorecard.org website, which is produced by the Pace Energy and Climate Center, which is part of the Pace University School of Law’s Center for Environmental Legal Studies, Pace University, White Plains, New York.

On PowerScorecard, you can get:

Ratings of Electric Power Choices for some service areas.
More info on electricity and the environment:
- Technologies
- Climate change
- Acid rain
- Ozone depletion
- Water use (our article today)
- Water quality
- Land: on-site and off-site impacts

Thanks for letting us keep you updated . . .

To your green, brighter future,

Cinnamon Alvarez,

A19

And now I would like to offer you free access to powerful info on energy efficiency that’s easy to read and cuts through all this “green” information clutter — so you can literally start making positive changes today.

You can access it now by going to: http://www.a19.com/pub/articles/

From Cinnamon Alvarez: Founder, A19 — woman-owned green manufacturer of hand-made ceramic lighting fixtures

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Report Greenhouse Gases (GHGs)

April 2nd, 2010 | Author: Iowa Solar

Report Greenhouse Gases (GHGs)

The newly formed Obama administration has listed greenhouse gas (GHG) tracking and reporting as a major goal, with the objective of protecting the future of the environment by reducing today’s carbon footprint. If no action were taken, the makeup of the earth would significantly altered. Future actions will establish a market drive carbon cap and trade program to drive GHG emissions reductions.

Greenhouse Gas tracking is outlined in The Climate Registry Protocol, which details the requirements for mandatory monitoring and tracking. The premise around greenhouse gas tracking are included in the U.S. Clean Air Act, aimed at improving air quality and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes mandatory reporting of the gases contributing to global climate change from about 13,000 facilities nationwide. These facilities account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions within the United States and present a logical starting point for emissions reductions in the US. The regulation would cover companies that either release large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) directly or produce or import fuels and chemicals that when burned emit large amounts of carbon (CO2) gases.

One of the major focuses of the Greenhouse Gas tracking protocol is refrigerant gases used in refrigeration and cooling systems by numerous facilities, including manufacturers, food processors, retailers, grocery stores, office buildings, municipalities and hospitals, just to name a few. Because of their chemical makeup, refrigerant gases contain significant levels of carbon in the form of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs). Use of these compounds has been regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act for several years.

Greenhouse gases absorb and release radiation into the atmosphere, setting off a global warming effect on earth. The intent and overall goal of GHG tracking relates to better collection and management of the emissions data now so informed decisions can be made about future carbon trading schemes. The tracking protocols also help government entities to more accurately inventory the amounts of emissions reaching the atmosphere. The new GHG legislation puts in motion the data collection, organization, and first stage reporting mechanisms to allow the US to accurately calculate and maintain a GHG emissions baseline across the entire economy. This will allow for better understanding today as well as to determine progress for future Cap and Trade programs. With this accurate information, it can be determined if the guidelines are effective in lowering the harmful effects of these substances to the ozone layer.

Greenhouse Gas tracking involves measuring direct and indirect emissions and keeping extensive records on its usage, maintenance, leak containment and disposal. Heating and cooling systems, as well as other energy consumption, are defined as direct emissions.

Better and more effective GHG management is an objective of the current US government. No longer will the US sit by and watch the world attack the issue of climate change. The US is now taking action to lower carbon emissions to the betterment of future generations. By taking no action, the earth’s makeup would significantly change, with humans and animals adversely affected and marine and plant life severely damaged.

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) management and reporting is now falling under the EPA regulations contained within The U.S. Clean Air Act because the causes of global climate change is now well know. Human activities and the use of global warming substances, like refrigerant gases, are all leading to increased global warming. The substances are carbon dioxide, chlorine, bromine, nitrous oxide, chloroflurocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, methyl bromide, methyl chloroform, sulfur hexafluoride, hydroxyl, perfluorocarbobs, halons, carbon tetrachloride, fluorine, and the fluorinated gases hydrofluorinated ethers and nitrogen trifluoride. The mandatory law is aimed at reducing the use of these substances to lower the effects of global warming.

Beginning in 2010, GHG management, tracking, and reporting will be environmental law for the highest emitting facilities. Part of the management will revolve around better tracking and reporting of refrigerant gases. Entities must submit usage reports and service records for all refrigerants having high GWP. Special calculations are applied to refrigerants when any leads occur. The GHG emission reporting rules and related protocols allow for progressive companies to take advantage of software already created to help with carbon emissions reporting. Some web applications allow organizations to track GHGs to the asset level across global, distributed facilities.

Software provided by Verisae tracks carbon dioxide (CO2) gas emissions according to The Climate Registry protocols across all sites so companies can manage their carbon emissions and work towards reducing their carbon footprint. To learn more effective refrigerant management tactics and the tools, you can research http://www.Refrigerant-Tracker.com

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