another oops story: drought threatens coal power

dams without water

Australia's eastern seaboard faces electricity brownouts because coal-fired power stations are running out of water (via sydney morning herald).

Guess the Aussies are gonna need better efficiencies and renewable energies, too...preferably of the sort that don't require water.

Says one local legislator, "what we are seeing here is that the very core of the climate change problem, burning coal, is now being hit itself by climate change".

Coal power requires huge amounts of water, and yet the Aussies want to export more coal, and burn more coal in their country.

Meanwhile, dwindling dam levels are threatening power supplies.

Some energy experts believe the Sydney region will face power brownouts next year, because its main emergency generator, the water-powered turbines of the Snowy Hydro, may have to sit idle as dams drop to record lows.

Of course, wind generation, solar photovoltaic panels and energy efficiency take almost no water. Geothermal, biomass and solar thermal use some water but can be designed to be less thirsty than coal.

Okay, so America's banking on coal, too. Uh, do we have the water for that?

Published by Ken on May 28th, 2007 tagged Climate Change, Systems Thinking


One Response to “another oops story: drought threatens coal power”

  1. Gerry Wolff Says:
    May 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am

    Further information about concentrating solar power (CSP) may be found at:

    http://www.trecers.net/index.html

    and

    http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/index.htm

    Waste heat from CSP plants can be used to create fresh water by desalination of sea water.

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