Google app provides water sources for power plants

June 4, 2013 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Water scarcity is a real societal concern, which is heightened even more in the power sector where it takes a lot of water to generate the electricity we rely so heavily on. Coal-fired power plants, for example, which produce about 40 percent of our electricity, require 150 billion gallons of fresh water per day, straining and depleting fresh water supplies.

Credit: Iarble/Wikimedia Commons

A project supported by the Department of Energy is underway that could help alleviate these concerns. Implemented by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Arthur Langhus Layne (ALL) Consulting has developed the internet-based geographic information system (GIS), which employs a Google Earth interface to allow users to find alternative water sources of water. The Google app catalogs non-traditional water sources that can be used for electricity production instead of limited fresh water.

With the click of a mouse, the user can get summary of alternative water sources within a 15-mile radius, including abandoned mine pools, oil- and gas-produced water, saline aquifers, or publicly-owned treatment plants, as well as location, volume, and quality of the alternative source.

Only flows above 1,000 gallons per minute, which represents about 20 percent of the cooling tower requirement for a 500 MW power plant, have been included in the database.

For more:
- see this report
- download the Google Earth plugin

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/google-app-provides-water-sources-power-plants/2013-06-04