The Water and Energy Link

Our modern supplies of water and energy are miraculous – and tightly interlinked. Only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh. And 99% of that is frozen in glaciers or stuck underground. That means just 1% of fresh water is on the surface where we can easily access it – for agriculture, mining, industry and our consumption. To get that water to us requires energy. First it’s pumped, sometimes over long distances, from a reservoir or river to a water treatment plant. There, it’s filtered, purified and chlorinated.  It then flows to our houses and factories. When we’re done with it, it goes into a wastewater treatment system, where it’s cleaned again and discharged. Because water is heavy, moving it through these processes can consume 40% of a city’s electricity. And to make all that energy requires – yes – water.  Oil and gas wells use water, in drilling mud and to fracture rock.  Coal, natural gas, and nuclear powerplants boil water into steam to turn a generator, while water cools the plant. The generators in hydroelectric dams turn under the power of water.  Even solar farms use water, to wash their panels. Wind turbines don’t use water directly, but the factories and smelters that make their parts and steel certainly do.  And to get them that water… takes energy. We rely entirely on both. And couldn’t have one without the other.