Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Water–CO2 trade-offs in electricity generation planning

Abstract

In 2011, the state of Texas experienced the lowest annual rainfall on record1, with similar droughts affecting East Africa, China and Australia. Climate change is expected to further increase the likelihood and severity of future droughts2. Simultaneously, population and industrial growth increases demand for drought-stressed water resources3 and energy, including electricity. In the US, nearly half of water withdrawals are for electricity generation4, much of which comes from greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel combustion. The result is a three-way tension among efforts to meet growing energy demands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water withdrawals, a critical issue within the so-called water–energy nexus. We focus on this interaction within the electric sector by using a generation expansion planning model to explore the trade-offs. We show that large reductions in CO2 emissions would probably increase water withdrawals for electricity generation in the absence of limits on water usage, and that simultaneous restriction of CO2 emissions and water withdrawals requires a different mix of energy technologies and higher costs than one would plan to reduce either CO2 or water alone.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2: Uncertainty in the annual CO2 emissions and water withdrawals as a function of water and carbon limits.
Figure 3: Uncertainty in the mix of technologies used to generate electricity as a function of water and carbon limits.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Forsyth, J. Grim predictions say 9 more years of Texas drought possible Reuters (29 September 2011); http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/29/us-drought-texas-idUSTRE78S6J520110929.

  2. Wetherald, R. T. & Manabe, S. Simulation of hydrologic changes associated with global warming. J. Geophys. Res. 107, 4379–4394 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Energy Demands on Water Resources (US Department of Energy, 2006).

  4. Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000 (US Geological Survey, 2004).

  5. King, C. W., Holman, A. S. & Webber, M. E. Thirst for energy. Nature Geosci. 1, 283–286 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Gleick, P. H. Water and energy. Annu. Rev. Energ. Environ. 19, 267–299 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Rothhausen, S. G. S. A. & Conway, D. Greenhouse-gas emissions from energy use in the water sector. Nature Clim. Change 1, 210–219 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Sovacool, B. K. & Sovacool, K. E. Identifying future electricity-water tradeoffs in the United States. Energy Policy 37, 2763–2773 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Stillwell, A. S. & Webber, M. E. A novel methodology for evaluating economic feasibility of low-water cooling technology retrofits at power plants. Water Policy 15, 292–308 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Stillwell, A. S., Clayton, M. E. & Webber, M. E. Technical analysis of a river basin-based model of advanced power plant cooling technologies for mitigating water management strategies. Environ. Res. Lett. 6, 034015 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Cost and Performance Baseline for Fossil Energy Plants Volume 1: Bituminous Coal and Natural Gas to Electricity DOE/NETL-2010/1397 (National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2010).

  12. Goldstein, R. & Smith, W. Water and Sustainability: US Electricity Consumption for Water Supply and Treatment: The Next Half Century (Electric Power Research Institute, 2002).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Loulou, R., Goldstein, G. & Noble, K. Documentation for the MARKAL Family of Models (Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme, 2004); http://www.etsap.org/tools.htm.

  14. Hobbs, B. F. Optimization methods for electric utility resource planning. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 83, 1–20 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Palmintier, B. & Webster, M. Proc. 2011 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting 1–7 (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2011).

  16. Perez-Arriaga, I. J. & Meseguer, C. Wholesale marginal prices in competitive generation markets. IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 12, 710–717 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. ERCOT Planning 2012 Long-Term Demand and Energy Forecast (ERCOT, 2011); http://www.ercot.com/content/news/presentations/2012/2012%20Long-Term%20Hourly%20Peak%20Demand%20and%20Energy%20Forecast.pdf.

  18. Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Electricity Generation Plants (US Energy Information Administration, 2010); http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/pdf/updatedplantcosts.pdf.

  19. Water Requirements for Existing and Emerging Thermoelectric Plant Technologies DOE/NETL-402/080108 (NETL, 2009).

  20. Moniz, E. et al. The Future of Natural Gas (MIT Energy Initiative, 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Clarke, L. et al. Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric Concentrations: Sub-report 2.1A of Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.1 by the US Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research (US Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, 2007).

  22. Paltsev, S. et al. The future of US natural gas production, use, and trade. Energy Policy 39, 5309–5321 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. McKay, M. D., Beckman, R. J. & Conover, W. J. A comparison of three methods for selecting values of input variables in the analysis of output from a computer code. Technometrics 21, 239–245 (1979).

    Google Scholar 

  24. Annual Energy Outlook 2013 (Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy, 2010); http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo.

  25. Anadon, L. D., Bosetti, V., Bunn, M., Catenacci, M. & Lee, A. Expert judgments about RD&D and the future of nuclear energy. Environ. Sci. Technol. 46, 11497–11504 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Chan, G., Anadon, L. D., Chan, M. & Lee, A. Expert elicitation of cost, performance, and RD&D budgets for coal power with CCS. Energy Proc. 4 (2011).

  27. Anadon, L. D. et al. Transforming US Energy Innovation (Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 2011).

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank M. Webber and A. Stillwell for helpful comments. We gratefully acknowledge support from the US National Science Foundation grant number 835414, from the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program, Integrated Assessment Research Program, Grant No. DE-SC0005171, from the Martin Family Foundation, and from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All authors contributed extensively to this work. M.W. conceived the experiments and wrote much of the manuscript. P.D. performed the analysis, and contributed to the manuscript writing. B.P. developed the underlying model used and contributed to the analysis and the manuscript writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mort Webster.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Webster, M., Donohoo, P. & Palmintier, B. Water–CO2 trade-offs in electricity generation planning. Nature Clim Change 3, 1029–1032 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2032

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2032

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing