HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Water Use
Any steam generating facility, including nuclear, has enormous water needs. Water is becoming more scarce in many parts of the country. If Global Warming intensifies drought in much of the western U.S. as predicted, the very plants which hasten climate change may starve themselves of water.
- The Future Is Drying Up – in depth article in N.Y. Times Magazine
- The Last Straw: Water Use by Power Plants in the Arid West
- Electricity demand guzzling state's water Atlanta Journal Constitution December 06, 2007
- DOE Estimates Future Water Needs for Thermoelectric Power Plants
The Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory has released a 2007 update to its groundbreaking study, "Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements."