A research focusing on four different case studies in France, the United States, China and India respectively has recently revealed that it might be impossible to continue to produce electricity and meet the demand of clean drinking water worldwide by 2040.
The team found that by the year 2040 there would not be enough water in the world to quench the thirst of the world population and keep the current energy and power solutions going if people continue doing what they are doing today.
It was also found that by 2020 the water issue would affect 30-40 percent of the world and many areas of the world would no longer have access to clean drinking water, in fact climate change could make this even worse.
Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark, Vermont Law School and CNA Corporation in the US established that in most countries, electricity was the biggest source of water consumption because the power plants need cooling cycles in order to function. The only energy systems that did not require cooling cycles were wind and solar systems, and therefore one of the primary recommendations issued by these researchers was to replace old power systems with more sustainable wind and solar systems.
In the reports, the researchers emphasized on few general recommendations for decision-makers to follow in order to stop this development and handle the crisis around the world, which includes improve energy efficiency, better research on alternative cooling cycles, registering how much water power plants use, massive investments in wind and solar energy, abandon fossil fuel facilities in all water stressed places (which means half the planet), close up on France, the US, China and India.
The research has also yielded the surprising finding that most power systems did not even registered how much water was being used to keep the systems going.
Professor Benjamin Sovacool from Aarhus University said that this means that it was now necessary to decide where to spend the water in the future. Should it be spent on keeping the power plants going or as drinking water? Because there's not enough water to do both.
