17 replies to this topic

[eds]

With the global population growing at a rate of approximately
. . . 80 million people a year, by 2030 it is estimated that the world will need
. . . . . . 30% more water,
. . . . . . 50% more food,
. . . . . . 50% more energy.  

Growing populations, increasing demand for energy, food and water,
. . . will create the "Perfect Storm" by 2030.

It takes a lot of water to produce electricity,
. . . from most of the generation sources used today.
It takes a lot of energy to pump, deliver and clean
. . . the water we use every day.

A study from the California Energy Commission found that,
. . . water efficiency improvements could save as much
. . . energy as some of the existing
. . . energy-efficiency programs in the state,
. . . but at about 1/2 the cost, and
. . . water conservation measures that saved
. . . . . . 320,000 acre-feet annually,
. . . . . . 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and
. . . . . . 87 million therms of natural gas.

2013-09-05 Source:  Water-Energy  Water-Food-Energy

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[Shortpoet-GTD]

eds, on 05 September 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

With the global population growing at a rate of approximately
. . . 80 million people a year, by 2030 it is estimated that the world will need
. . . . . . 30% more water,
. . . . . . 50% more food,
. . . . . . 50% more energy.

Obviously, the numbers keep changing (and don't stay on the site too long, it's too depressing) but
the population numbers for Germany, Japan and Russia are falling.

The countries that are cranking kid's out like candy are China, Mexico and India.

The graft shows that population was more or less flat lined until the 1800's, and then it started to skyrocket.
http://www.worldomet...rld-population/

[Shortpoet-GTD]

According to Sustainablog; only 1% of the world's water is drinkable.
Article also contains several reference links
along with the statement, that it takes.....

1400 gallons of water to produce a computer.
  http://sustainablog....r-conservation/

[Dustoffer]

I remember the article called Perfect Storm 2030 from about 2006, and the book "The 2030Spike".   2003;
http://www.amazon.co...ords=Spike 2030
So this time of 2030 has been kicked around for 10 years.
I look at it as the beginning of the misery.  Increasing death rates, financial collapse probably before that, decreasing birth rates, and water especially reducing in supply per capita along with food and power.
Of course, if coal and other fossil fuel power and all the slash and burn farming with deforestation keeps on then we will have passed the tipping points of open ocean self warming in the Arctic along with tundra methane self release.  CAGW will become more and more a fact of life.   The rate of population growth will be slowing down, but not stopping at a peak until after more aquifer losses and crop losses from climate fluctuation beyond historic, probably the late 2040s.  A world depression worse than the 1930s will be settling in by the 2030s, and techno-fixes become mostly at a plateau.
It is possible the crash could start in the 2030s instead of late 2040s, which would leave more resources left and less pollution will add to the atmosphere, oceans and land.  The survivors would have more, but there still would not be a lot left.   If the tipping points of natural reactions to effects of the existing pollution have been passed, then our species and most others still don't stand much of a chance as AETM settles in over a 300 to 500 year period.

[Besoeker]

eds, on 05 September 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

It takes a lot of water to produce electricity,
. . . from most of the generation sources used today.
It takes a lot of energy to pump, deliver and clean
. . . the water we use every day.

You provided quite a long post but forgive for replying to just two points

Most of the electricity in the world is produced by fossil fuels and nuclear.
The processes are quite similar when it comes to the use of water.
Water is heated to produce steam that drives steam turbines that drive electrical generators (alternators).
The exit steam goes into condensers and cooling towers to be recycled. and turned back into high pressure steam.etc. Using new water isn't an option for various reasons.
So I take slight issue with the claim that it takes a lot of water to produce electricity.

On the other point, yes it does take a lot energy to pump and deliver potable water.
I have worked on a few in terms of designing and supplying the electrical content.
One system has 15 pump sets, each rated around the 1,000HP mark.

[Besoeker]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 08 September 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:

1400 gallons of water to produce a computer.
  http://sustainablog....r-conservation/

But what happens to that water afterwards?

[eds]

Besoeker, on 09 September 2013 - 10:10 AM, said:

Most of the electricity in the world is produced by fossil fuels and nuclear.
The processes are quite similar when it comes to the use of water.
Water is heated to produce steam that drives steam turbines that drive electrical generators (alternators).
The exit steam goes into condensers and cooling towers to be recycled. and turned back into high pressure steam.etc. Using new water isn't an option for various reasons.
So I take slight issue with the claim that it takes a lot of water to produce electricity.

Please excuse my use of video,  and %.

Jeremy Rifkin claims that over 40% of the water in France, is used to cool Nuclear in this video.  

[Dustoffer]

Why don't you read up on modular Gen IV reactors that do not use water????   Get rid of all previous generations of reactors, and all fossil fueled power plants, and outlaw slash and burn farming globally.   Along with electric and hybrid vehicles ONLY, including ships, planes and road/farm vehicles.  More solar, wind, wind-hydrogen, tidal and wave power, too.  We have 3 to 9 years to accomplish this or condemn life on  and In Earth to an ELE.

[Besoeker]

eds, on 09 September 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

Jeremy Rifkin claims that over 40% of the water in France, is used to cool Nuclear in this video.  

40% of the fresh water.
Thus presumably untreated.

But I'd like to know where he gets that figure from and what its real significance is.

[eds]

Besoeker, on 09 September 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

40% of the fresh water.
Thus presumably untreated.

But I'd like to know where he gets that figure from and what its real significance is.

At the end of the video, he says he meet with France's President Hollande in the spring and
. . . they discussed France's moving toward a 3rd industrial revolution model.
. . . It would seem reasonable to me to assume, that they would discuss
. . . the way energy is currently being produced VS the new way they will produce energy.
I read somewhere that Germany is selling excess electricity to france.
. . . That surprised me, because with all of France's Nuclear,
. . . I would have thought it would have been the other way around.

[Phil]

The idea that water is used is not the same as used up.  Either it gets treated and recycled or treated and released back to the environment.  If France is using 40% of it's water for cooling it doesn't just disappear.  One must distinguish between lack of potable water and lack of water overall, (drought, etc.).

[eds]

Phil, on 09 September 2013 - 01:48 PM, said:

The idea that water is used is not the same as used up.  Either it gets treated and recycled or treated and released back to the environment.  If France is using 40% of it's water for cooling it doesn't just disappear.  One must distinguish between lack of potable water and lack of water overall, (drought, etc.).

That's so true, "it doesn't just disappear."

The Fukushima site now has more than
. . . 338,000 metric tons of water stored in more than
. . . 1,000 tanks, with additional water remaining untreated in
. . . reactor basements and service tunnels.

Water, food and energy have always been linked and
. . . actions in one area more often than not
. . . have impacts in one or both of the others,
. . . especially as the world population increases,

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[Phil]

Bet they wish they could make that disappear!    I wonder how long they'll have to store all that, how many more tanks they'll have to construct.  What a sad situation.  

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Besoeker, on 09 September 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

But what happens to that water afterwards?

[Dustoffer]

This is on one type of Gen IV, others in operation, I believe 8 so far around the world, use liquid sodium.

From what I have read, there is 500 years worth of power that can be used by them in the form of nuclear waste from previous generation reactors.
So there doesn't have to be  a power shortage without fossil fuels.  The jet age and diesel shipping are over, or should be.
Aquifers, surface waters on land, soils, and other slow renewable resources that are critical to human life are running out, as AGW is negatively impacting food supplies and will continue for some time even if people stop emissions 90% soon, to stop a worse thing, AETM and its ELE, or called thermageddon.  Overpopulation is the root cause and even one child families will not work to lower population enough to prevent a mass die-off from lack of food and water before mid-century.  I guess you could call that a nexus of sorts.

[Besoeker]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 10 September 2013 - 04:06 AM, said:

Very funny!

[Besoeker]

Phil, on 09 September 2013 - 01:48 PM, said:

The idea that water is used is not the same as used up.  Either it gets treated and recycled or treated and released back to the environment.  If France is using 40% of it's water for cooling it doesn't just disappear.  One must distinguish between lack of potable water and lack of water overall, (drought, etc.).

I was a sponsored student. That is, I was in employment and during the vacation periods I worked for my employers - and got paid!
On one such vacation period I was seconded to the company power station. It had three steam turbines. Historically, the low pressure pass-out steam was used for part of the plant's manufacturing process. Huge ovens for curing floor covering material.

The steam, after doing the heating, was piped to steam traps, condensed, and the condensate pumped back to the power station to be recycled. But about about 10% of it was being lost. A major problem. I was dispatched round the plant to investigate where the losses were. Nice. Get to walk around acres of the site and it was summer. I did a lot of walking.....got to see bits of the plant I didn't know existed.

I did get to the bottom of some of it. The steam traps were crude affairs and designed to condense steam at a low pressure. The low pressure pass out steam had increased in pressure - not a lot - but enough to render the steam traps not very effective.

That problem, rather than being resolved, went away. The products requiring curing were discontinued.
There were conventional condensers and a cooling tower but their capacity was insufficient.and the generators were having to run at less than rated capacity.

My next summer job was to do the project engineering on the installation of a 1500 kVA diesel gen set.
I was back at my studies before it was commissioned but I gather it went well.

Anecdotal, I know.

[eds]

Ecology Nexus: Energy, Water & Food.

Example: India builds Solar PV over canals, to generate Energy,
. . . shades Water from evaporation,
. . . irrigating fields to grow more Food.

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