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The Global Water Crisis – The Elephant In The Room: Coal Fired Power Plants

By Iris Cheng


22 March 2015
Greenpeace

 Water Use by Power plants Infographic

Why are so few talking about coal's impact on already scarce water resources?

Despite the global water crisis being identified as the top risk to people across the globe, very few are taking a stand to protect dwindling water resources from the huge planned global growth of coal-fired power stations.

Although, water and energy are two hotly debated topics in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals discussions, no one seems to be joining up the dots by linking these two critical issues. The fact is that the planned coal expansion will contribute to water crises, as the energy sector usually wins against us when it comes to who gets access to this precious resource

Water risk is connected to two other big risks: failure to adapt to climate change and the food crisis. The World Economic Forum Global Risk Report has also reclassified it from an environmental risk to a societal risk, recognising the urgency to tackle water scarcity on various fronts.

 

1350 coal fired power plants by 2025

Despite the looming water scarcity crisis, there are plans for more than 1350 new coal plants expected to go online by 2025. Much of the proposed coal expansion is in already water stressed regions - regions that already have limited available water for sanitation, health and livelihoods.

Climate scientists made it blatantly clear again in January 2015 that we need to keep more than 80 percent of current coal reserves in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change. So, besides coal being the largest threat to our climate - building 1350 proposed coal plants will make the 2 degree limit impossible – if the current expansion goes ahead, our scarce water resources will be diverted away from agriculture and domestic use to be used instead to burn coal and drive even more dangerous climate change. What's more important? Electricity to power an ever more imbalanced global economy or billions of people having enough food and water to sustain themselves?

With energy, we have lots of options to choose from. With water, we don't.

You know why renewables like wind and solar PV don't need water? We don't use fuel. We don't wash fuel. We don't burn fuels. No need to use water for cooling. No need to use water to wash away the ash. No toxic wastewater to manage.

In addition to water savings, renewable energy also cuts CO2 – two benefits for the price of one. Voila!

These conflicts are unfolding on an unprecedented scale but are avoidable.

Tweet your thoughts about why Coal is the enemy of water, rather than an 'Inseparable Friend'

  

Thirsty coal impacts on people – The Facts

    • Let's try to put coal's water use in human terms: the World Health Organization (WHO) says that between 50 to 100 liters of water is needed per person per day for the most basic needs. That's 36.5 cubic meters per person per year. Coal plants globally consume 37 billion cubic meters (bcm) of water, according to a 2012 study by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Thus, globally coal plants consume as much water as the basic needs of 1 billion people.
    • 1.2 billion people, or almost one-third of the world's population, now live in countries with physical water scarcity (water resources development is approaching or has exceeded sustainable limits).
    • South Africa, a water-stressed country with a water availability of only 973m3 of water per capita, is over 90 percent dependent on coal for electricity generation. Eskom, South Africa's main energy company, consumes the same amount of water in one second to run its power plants as one person uses in a year. As a result, some local residents are forced to buy bottled water, because no clean drinking water is available.
    • India, with the second biggest proposed coal plant fleet in the world, is already a water-stressed nation, with an alarming 3.5 percent of the world's water resources to support 1.2 billion lives.
    • India's coal plants will consume water that can irrigate at least one million hectares of farmland. Over the last decade, 40,000 farmers have committed suicide in the state of Maharashtra due to lack of water for irrigation.
    • For China, the biggest proposed coal plant fleet in the world, has an alarming 5 percent of the world's water resources for 1.3 billion people.

Billions of cubic liters of water is used at each stage of the coal lifecycle. Water is used to extract and to wash coal, and in power plants, water is used in three main processes: cooling, pollution control and for managing coal ash.

Every 3.5 minutes a typical coal-fired power plant withdraws enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Coal's massive water grab will tip the water crisis over the edge, but it can be averted by
fast-tracking clean, abundant renewable energy resources, just look at the difference it would make, not just for our climate, but also to our water usage for power generation.

 

Iris Cheng is a Climate and Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace International

 

Thirsty Coal: A few Photographs

The following photographs illustrate water use and impacts at different stages of the coal lifecycle:

Water is used to extract and to wash coal. In power plants, water is used in three main processes: cooling, pollution control and waste management.

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

Greenpeace activists install a large banner next to an open-pit coal mine which is undermining the embankment of the Yellow River in Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia China. The banner reads "Yellow River: Off-limits to Coal." Massive cluster of coal processing plants are operated at dozens of industrial parks spanning hundreds of miles along the Yellow River. All these projects are highly energy, water and carbon intensive, and discharge huge amounts of waste water and flue gas. 12/12/2014 © Zhu Jie / Greenpeace 

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

Sink-holes at the Hulun Buir grassland in Inner Mongolia, China. There are currently as many as 139 wells pumping water from the Hulun Buir grassland with an estimated daily displacement of 26 tons. This ranks Hulun Buir as the second most severe rate of water depletion caused by coal mining in China. 06/25/2012 © Lu Guang / Greenpeace

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

Komari, a 50 year-old farmer, and his wife Nurbaiti, at their damaged farm near a coal mine site in Makroman, East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Toxic waste from the mining operation, which began in 2007 have contaminated the water and soil in the area destroying the means of livelihood of surrounding communities. 11/24/2012 © Kemal Jufri/ Greenpeace

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

A lone house is left standing at an abandoned village after a nearby mining concession degrades the surrounding environment. Coal mining also contributes to the irreversible destruction of the community's land, water and air resources and endangers health, safety and the livelihoods of communities that lives on the fringes of mines. 11/23/2012 © Kemal Jufri/ Greenpeace

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

AMD (acid mine drainage) leaches from a working open pit coal mine in the Brugspruit Valley. The polluted water turns a yellow orange color as a result of iron oxide, known to miners as "yellow boy" from the yellow precipitates it forms. This water is highly acidic, mobilizing heavy metals from the sediments over which it flows. 09/02/2008 © Graeme Williams/Panos/ Greenpeace

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

At the coal processing plant, coal ore is crushed into smaller pieces and impurities (stones, ash, Sulphur) are removed through washing, sedimentation, and drying. Chemicals are often used. In this image, waste water from Ningdong Industrial Park's waste water treatment plant. The yellowish-green pollution stinks even after “treatment“, and is directly dumped into the local river. 04/02/2014 © Lu Guang / Greenpeace

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

What appears to be a sludge dam, which is 500m away from MNS informal settlement, in the eMalahleni (Witbank) area. Before coal can be used in Eskom's coal power stations, it must first be crushed, sized, washed and dewatered. The rock, coal and clays, which must be processed, contains a wide range of heavy metals including arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium, manganese and iron - all of which dissolve in the water. The leftover water from the coal washing process is often toxic, and there are serious concerns about the neurotoxic and carcinogenic effects, particularly on workers in the plants. 12/03/2013 © Mujahid Safodien / Greenpeace

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River  

Coal plants use massive amounts of water. A typical 500MW coal plant using wet cooling withdraws an Olympic sized swimming pool worth of water every 3.5 minutes. In this picture, Zhang Dadi, a farmer from the Adaohai Number 1 Commune, has a 150-meter deep well that he uses to irrigate his corn field. Last year he planted 20 mu of land, but could only irrigate 15 mu (1 hectare). This year he planted 15 mu but could only irrigate 8 and the remaining 7 mu didn't get irrigated. The groundwater levels drop every year and it also doesn't rain. Corn planted over a month ago still hasn't started to sprout. For ten years, the Chinese state-run organisation Shenhua Group, has been exploiting water resources at a shocking scale from the Ordos grasslands to use in its coal-to-liquid project (a process for producing liquid fuel from coal) and illegally dumping toxic industrial waste water. Shenhua's operations have sparked social unrest and caused severe ecological damage including desertification, impacting farmers and herders who are facing reduced water supplies in what was once an abundant farming area. 06/10/2013 © Qiu Bo / Greenpeace

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

Far in the background, a coal-fired thermal power plant built by Indiabulls Power Ltd. in Amravati Industrial Area, Nandgaonpeth, Amravati district, Maharashtra. Indiabulls has been allocated 87.6 million cubic meters of water per year, which is the irrigation supply of 23,219 hectares of farmland. A group of farmers in Amravati fought the decision for 16 months. 03/16/2012 © Vivek M. / Greenpeace

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

The dried bed of Nirguna river near Balapur, district Akola, Maharashtra. 04/23/2013 © Greenpeace / Sudhanshu Malhotra

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

Dried sugar cane crop at Pathare village, taluka Sinnar, in the district Nasik, Maharastra. 04/26/2013 © Greenpeace / Sudhanshu Malhotra

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

Coal combustion creates millions of tonnes of coal ash and scrubber waste. The coal waste is either piped using water, or transported as dry ash to ponds, which can leach and contaminate water sources with heavy metals, mercury and other toxins and pollutants. In this picture, old cooling water area near Afsin-Elbistan A and B Plants, Çogulhan-Kahramanmaras, South East Turkey. Local people claim that the plants have been responsible for serious health effects and that the ash produced dries up rivers and agricultural lands in the area. 03/01/2014 © Umut Vedat / Greenpeace

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

This pond in the outskirts of Vilhale Village is not a designated ash dumping site of the state owned Bhusawal thermal power station(1420 MW). Yet ash from the nearby ash pond contaminates this water source which is used by the villagers for domestic purposes. Despite the obvious signs of pollution and contamination in the pond the villages nearby depend on this water source for their daily chores. More than 80,000 MW of coal-based power plants are being proposed in the state of Maharashtra. This can lead to large scale pollution of water resources as well as water scarcity in the rivers and reservoirs of the state. 02/28/2014 © Zishaan Latif / Greenpeace

 

Coal Banner Action Along the Yellow River

A woman collects polluted surface water outside the Wayaohui coal ash disposal site of the State Development and Investment Corporation's Qujing Power Plant, in Baishui, Qujing, Yunnan province. This disposal site lacks retaining walls; coal ash is dumped freely and left to pile up. During the summer rainstorm season, these unprotected heaps of coal ash can easily collapse or even get entirely washed away. These kinds of disposal sites are quite common in southern China. 07/12/2010 © Simon Lim / Greenpeace






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