Climate change and over-tapped waterways could leave developing parts of Asia without enough water to cool power plants in the near future, new research indicates.
Climate change and over-tapped waterways could leave developing parts of Asia without enough water to cool power plants in the near future, new research indicates.
The study found that existing and planned power plants that burn coal for energy could be vulnerable. The work was published today in the journal Energy and Environment Science.
“One of the impacts of climate change is that the weather is changing, which leads to more extreme events – more torrential downpours and more droughts,” said Jeffrey Bielicki, a co-author of the study and an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.
“The power plants – coal, nuclear and natural gas power plants – require water for cooling, so when you don’t have the rain, you don’t have the stream flow, you can’t cool the power plant.”
That is already a problem for some power plants in the United States, Bielicki said, where extreme weather patterns, which are increasingly frequent especially in hotter months, have reduced water supplies.
Read more at: Ohio State University
