Comment by Manuel_D
2 days ago
Note that water use is not the same as water consumption. If 100 gallons of water passes through a heat exchanger and 99 gallons go back into the river, only then 100 gallons were used but only 1 gallon was consumed. Thermoelectric cooling makes up a lot of water use, but on 1-2% of water consumption because most of the used water is returned: https://watercalculator.org/footprint/water-use-withdrawal-c...
Furthermore, heat exchangers can use wastewater. This is done at the Palo Verde nuclear plant, for example.
Thanks. So the water of water consumed is by agriculture and “public use”.
More importantly, though, is that agricultural water is mostly consumption. That water is either evaporated or absorbed by plants.
By contrast, the overwhelming majority of water used by thermoelectric plants is not consumed. Electricity generation amounts to 1-2% of water consumption. There's hardly any water to be saved by changing power generation.