IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v131y2014icp508-516.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transitioning to zero freshwater withdrawal in the U.S. for thermoelectric generation

Author

Listed:
  • Tidwell, Vincent C.
  • Macknick, Jordan
  • Zemlick, Katie
  • Sanchez, Jasmine
  • Woldeyesus, Tibebe

Abstract

Drought poses important risks to thermoelectric power production in the United States because of the significant water use in this sector. Here a scoping level analysis is performed to identify the technical tradeoffs and initial cost estimates for retrofitting existing thermoelectric generation to achieve zero freshwater withdrawal and thus reduce drought related vulnerabilities. Specifically, conversion of existing plants to dry cooling or a wet cooling system utilizing non-potable water is considered. The least cost alternative is determined for each of the 1178 freshwater using power plants in the United States. The projected increase in levelized cost of electricity ranges roughly from $0.20 to $20/MWh with a median value of $3.53/MWh. With a wholesale price of electricity running about $35/MWh, many retrofits could be accomplished at levels that would add less than 10% to current power plant generation expenses. Such retrofits would alleviate power plant vulnerabilities to thermal discharge limits in times of drought (particularly in the East) and would save 3.2Mm3/d of freshwater consumption in watersheds with limited water availability (principally in the West). The estimated impact of retrofits on wastewater and brackish water supply is minimal requiring only a fraction of the available resource. Total parasitic energy requirements to achieve zero freshwater withdrawal are estimated at 140million MWh or roughly 4.5% of the total production from the retrofitted plants.

Suggested Citation

  • Tidwell, Vincent C. & Macknick, Jordan & Zemlick, Katie & Sanchez, Jasmine & Woldeyesus, Tibebe, 2014. "Transitioning to zero freshwater withdrawal in the U.S. for thermoelectric generation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 508-516.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:131:y:2014:i:c:p:508-516
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.11.028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261913009215
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.11.028?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peer, Rebecca A.M. & Sanders, Kelly T., 2018. "The water consequences of a transitioning US power sector," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 613-622.
    2. DeNooyer, Tyler A. & Peschel, Joshua M. & Zhang, Zhenxing & Stillwell, Ashlynn S., 2016. "Integrating water resources and power generation: The energy–water nexus in Illinois," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 363-371.
    3. Tidwell, Vincent C. & Gunda, Thushara & Gayoso, Natalie, 2021. "Plant-level characteristics could aid in the assessment of water-related threats to the electric power sector," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(PA).
    4. Hickman, William & Muzhikyan, Aramazd & Farid, Amro M., 2017. "The synergistic role of renewable energy integration into the unit commitment of the energy water nexus," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 220-229.
    5. Yang, Chengying & Li, Mingming & Zhou, Dianyi, 2024. "Energy assessment in rural regions of China with various scenarios: Historical–to–futuristic," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    6. Bukhary, Saria & Ahmad, Sajjad & Batista, Jacimaria, 2018. "Analyzing land and water requirements for solar deployment in the Southwestern United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 3288-3305.
    7. Hashemi, Seyed Mohsen & Tabarzadi, Mahdi & Fallahi, Farhad & Rostam Niakan Kalhori, Masoumeh & Abdollahzadeh, Davood & Qadrdan, Meysam, 2024. "Water and emission constrained generation expansion planning for Iran power system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    8. Gjorgiev, Blaže & Sansavini, Giovanni, 2018. "Electrical power generation under policy constrained water-energy nexus," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 568-579.
    9. Logan, Lauren H. & Stillwell, Ashlynn S., 2018. "Probabilistic assessment of aquatic species risk from thermoelectric power plant effluent: Incorporating biology into the energy-water nexus," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 434-450.
    10. Srinivasan, Shweta & Kholod, Nazar & Chaturvedi, Vaibhav & Ghosh, Probal Pratap & Mathur, Ritu & Clarke, Leon & Evans, Meredydd & Hejazi, Mohamad & Kanudia, Amit & Koti, Poonam Nagar & Liu, Bo & Parik, 2018. "Water for electricity in India: A multi-model study of future challenges and linkages to climate change mitigation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 673-684.
    11. Kahsar, Rudy, 2020. "The potential for brackish water use in thermoelectric power generation in the American southwest," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    12. Zhu, Xiaojie & Guo, Ruipeng & Chen, Bin & Zhang, Jing & Hayat, Tasawar & Alsaedi, Ahmed, 2015. "Embodiment of virtual water of power generation in the electric power system in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 345-354.
    13. Wiser, Ryan & Millstein, Dev & Mai, Trieu & Macknick, Jordan & Carpenter, Alberta & Cohen, Stuart & Cole, Wesley & Frew, Bethany & Heath, Garvin, 2016. "The environmental and public health benefits of achieving high penetrations of solar energy in the United States," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 472-486.
    14. Pengbang Wei & Yufang Peng & Weidong Chen, 2022. "Climate change adaptation mechanisms and strategies of coal-fired power plants," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 27(8), pages 1-22, December.
    15. Zhai, Haibo & Rubin, Edward S. & Grol, Eric J. & O'Connell, Andrew C. & Wu, Zitao & Lewis, Eric G., 2022. "Dry cooling retrofits at existing fossil fuel-fired power plants in a water-stressed region: Tradeoffs in water savings, cost, and capacity shortfalls," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(PA).
    16. Parkinson, Simon C. & Makowski, Marek & Krey, Volker & Sedraoui, Khaled & Almasoud, Abdulrahman H. & Djilali, Ned, 2018. "A multi-criteria model analysis framework for assessing integrated water-energy system transformation pathways," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 477-486.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:131:y:2014:i:c:p:508-516. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.