Today's Star Tribune Business section had an opinion article, "Saving droplets but losing gallons" by Samuel Lieberman.
He writes that ethanol and nuclear power consume too much water.
"[E]nergy production accounts for 39 percent of freshwater use, or 190 billion gallons per day."
and
"When it comes to thirsty energy, ethanol (2,000 gallons of water per gallon of gasoline) and nuclear power (millions of gallons of water per day) are the most prodigious users. Ethanol should be eliminated and nuclear power should be downsized, and the money and water should be reallocated to more efficient options, such as natural gas and geothermal energy."
I would assume water consumption would apply to any biomass fuel. It needs the water to grow.
But would any biofuel be that much a water consumer, whether ethanol or any other carbohydrate-based fuel. When these are burned they are converted into carbon dioxide and water. Both would be put into the atmosphere and in turn consumed by plants again. Would there be a balance point that plants would consume all the carbon dioxide that humans created and the water would turn into sufficient rain for all uses? That would make an interesting equation.
Then too the water used to cool nuclear plants would also be put back into the entire system. Would the water used in this way be hotter or cooler than the water given all in burning hydrocarbons or carbohydrates?
Possibly the problem is that the recycling is not occurring fast enough. How quickly does the water that we use get back into the watersheds that it came from? And how pure will it be?
An example of the recycling not occurring fast enough is the Himalayas. The snows of the Himalayas were once adequate to provide water to Tibet and other mountain countries as well as India and China. But no longer. Lieberman writes:
"China's recent clash with Tibet was incorrectly ascribed to human rights issues. It was about rights -- water rights. China needs access to Tibet's formerly ample surplus. Tibet's water, which comes from the Himalayas, is waning, so it is unwilling to help its thirsty neighbor."
Maybe the greatest peace activity that the U. S. can do is to have a crash project to find cheap ways to desalinate ocean water and move it far inland. If the Romans with their technology could move water from the mountains to Rome; is it such a far reach for modern technology to move water from the oceans to the mountains? I think the total human cost of not doing something like this is greater than the cost of doing it.
