To Manage Risk, Power Plant Planners Must Consider Impact of Water Use

WASHINGTON - November 15 - Power plants are stressing freshwater resources around the country, according to a new report by the Energy and Water in a Warming World Initiative,  a three-year research collaboration between the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a team of more than a dozen  scientists. The report, “Freshwater Use by U.S. Power Plants: Electricity’s Thirst for a Precious Resource," is the first systematic assessment of how power-plant cooling affects freshwater resources across the United States and of the quality of the data available on power plant water usage.

“Our research found that power plants can be very important in terms of the pressure put on the freshwater resources we depend on—rivers, streams, lakes, and aquifers—even in unexpected places,” said lead researcher Kristen Averyt, who is deputy director of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado Boulder.