Do we need to pipeline desal water to cool coal fired power stations, to make power for desal plant!?!?
A typical coal-fired power plant can consume up to 11 million gallons of water to operate each day. During the 2011 drought in Texas, water shortages threatened more than 3,000 megawatts of generating capacity, enough power to supply over a million homes. At the same time, electricity demand spiked as people cranked up air conditioners against the sweltering heat. Production prices shot up to $3,000 per megawatt-hour—more than three times the amount that generators are allowed to charge their customers.
figures from the International Energy Agency, water consumption by the energy industries will double from 66 billion cubic meters now to 135 by 2035, with most of the growth driven by coal-fired power.
And just to drive home the point outside of the energy world, lost of businesses that make various products require water, including major beverage producers: Coca-Cola actually lost an operating license in India in 2004 due to water shortage.
groundswell bass coast climate change renewable energy 
Yes, this is grim reaper stuff. Apart from the fact that our government has not done enough toward solving the root cause of global warming there are just so many things they could have done to improve the water supply situation. Building a desalination plant was not one of them being so costly. Finishing the Thompson project or using A treated water for the cooling towers in the Latrobe Valley instead of it running out to sea at Gunnamatta would have saved an enormous amount of potable water. There were many other options which peobably would have been viable but there was no way the government was going to consider them. .
Let’s face it, if we experience extreme drought conditions again and the Desal Plant can’t meet our requirements for on grade water due to break down or power shortages (very likely), the first thing that will happen will be the utilization of A treated water for the cooling towers of all the power stations in the Latrobe Valley and the unions won’t give a yelp.
“Extreme thirst of coal fired power | groundswellbasscoast” was indeed a wonderful article and also I really was in fact very happy
to find it. Thank you-Isabelle