Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined!
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Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other -
Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other@PaulWermer
It would be very interesting if data were available to make a water-use dashboard, like @katemorley 's excellent energy production one. -
Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other@PaulWermer don't know enough about the current state of stirling engines to say it's a good idea but i'm pretty sure they were considered for solar thermal technology at some point, and notably, stirling engines don't use water
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Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other@PaulWermer If only they could figure out a way to use raw sewage in power plants…
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Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other@PaulWermer “England and Wales”, eh?
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Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other@PaulWermer this is an amazing fact I never even imagined. It makes it pretty clear that AI "scaling" is just impossible.
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Wow - Electrity generation used 55% of the water use and over 4 times as much as public use and agriculture combined! I'm stunned at the water demand of thermal power plants (Coal, Gas, Nuclear). I knew it was significant, but not this big. Clearly technologies to shun as we move into the new #ClimateReality where droughts will be more common.
"Analysis by the Ends Report revealed 47bn kilolitres (kl) of water was extracted from the environment in England in 2023. Electricity generation took 26bn kl, public water supply took 9.2bn kl and agriculture took 2bn kl."
Could England and Wales ever run out of water?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/07/could-uk-ever-run-out-of-water?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other@PaulWermer but all of that 47bn kilolitres of water is returned to the same environment it was taken from: the vast majority of it goes back into the rivers it was taken from in liquid form, with a a relatively small portion being released to the atmosphere as water vapour, which will eventually fall again as rain.
It’s not like rivers are running dry because the water is taken out of them and never returned.
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@PaulWermer don't know enough about the current state of stirling engines to say it's a good idea but i'm pretty sure they were considered for solar thermal technology at some point, and notably, stirling engines don't use water
@estelle
Very cool. I had to go back and look up stirling engines.My sense is that solar thermal isn't in the running at the present, based on the 2026 Lazard LCOE report. Solar PV and onshore wind are low cost, with geothermal close behind (utility scale solar).
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