GEOFF SCHUMACHER: Solar, water don't mix - Opinion

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Oct. 02, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

GEOFF SCHUMACHER: Solar, water don't mix

GEOFF SCHUMACHER
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Renewable Energy

On a recent road trip to the Midwest, I kept noticing something new on the horizon: windmills. In state after state, wind farms were almost as ubiquitous as cornfields.

The message: Renewable energy is no longer something relegated to the future. It is happening now.

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Nevada wants to jump into the renewable energy game in a big way, especially as a gracious host of solar power plants. With its sunny disposition and desolate valleys, Nevada seems well-suited to become a solar industry leader.

But there's a hitch: water.

You see, as a New York Times reporter cleverly put it this week, "an inconvenient truth" about the most economical form of solar energy generation -- the solar thermal plant -- is that it requires a lot of water. The Times explains:

"In such plants, mirrors heat a liquid to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. As in a fossil fuel power plant, that steam must be condensed back to water and cooled for reuse." Under this "wet cooling" method, "hot water flows through a cooling tower where the excess heat evaporates along with some of the water, which must be replenished constantly."

In short, solar thermal plants demand a lot of water -- water that Nevada's dry desert valleys do not have in abundance.

This issue is boiling right now in the Amargosa Valley, about 80 miles north of Las Vegas. A German company called Solar Millennium wants to build two large solar thermal plants there.

The small farming community is divided. On the one hand, the plants would create hundreds of jobs in rural Nevada, which is dying for good jobs. On the other hand, Solar Millennium's plan calls for using 1.3 billion gallons of water per year, representing 20 percent of the valley's available groundwater supply.

At a public hearing in August, Amargosa residents expressed concern that the solar plant's heavy water use could limit water for others. The Pahrump Valley Times quoted Brian Brown, Amargosa Conservancy resource specialist: "This particular technology is not appropriate for one of the driest places in the United States."

This water issue is not unique to Nevada, of course. It's popping up throughout the Southwest, especially just over the state line in the desert areas of Southern California.

There are solutions.

The first is for solar developers to adopt a dry cooling method, which uses fans and heat exchangers. This method uses less water but is more expensive and less efficient.

A second alternative is to build photovoltaic plants, which are like the solar systems found on people's houses. Again, photovoltaic plants are more expensive and less efficient, but they use very little water.

It's vital that we do this correctly from the start. Set a good precedent. Yet, with the exception of those stalwarts in Boulder City, it doesn't seem to be in our nature here to say no to developers. Worried that they might go elsewhere if we get too picky or difficult, Nevada political leaders tend to vote aye first and ask questions later.

This is bad policymaking all the way around, but in the case of solar power plants, we have to consider the big picture and demand that they adopt the most water-efficient technologies available.

I reported recently here that some environmentalists believe they can find common ground with the renewable industry because it doesn't possess the same set of values as the old fossil fuel crowd. Renewable execs, according to this line of thinking, are conservationists at heart, and so they aren't inclined to look only at the bottom line when putting together a project.

One hopes this is the case in Amargosa Valley. Unable to secure water permits, Solar Millennium has already switched to dry cooling at three planned Southern California solar plants. On this issue, at least, what's good for California is even better for Nevada.

Renewable energy could be the next big thing for Nevada, an important and enduring way to diversify our tourism-dependent economy. But we would be foolish to sacrifice one precious resource to produce another.

Consider that the solar project in Amargosa is just one of literally hundreds proposed across the state. If all of these plants intend to guzzle water, it simply isn't going to work -- not for the plants and not for the Nevadans who depend on this water as well. The more water-efficient the plants are, the more of them we could build, and the more we could grow and diversify the Nevada economy.

Which begs a question: If we're going to build scads of solar power facilities in rural areas, shouldn't the available water out there be allocated to the renewable industry instead of being piped to Las Vegas?

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is the Review-Journal's director of community publications. His column appears Friday. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/geoffschumacher.

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. SolarForcesOrg wrote on October 14, 2009 01:10 PM: [ every ~~500~~ 1000 megawatt hours of electricity produced by burning coal uses 500 tons of coal and 24 million gallons of water ] SolarForcesOrg wrote on October 14, 2009 01:07 PM: Solar energy is being proposed as an "alternative" energy to burning coal for producing steam to power turbines that produce electricity. According to a 2005 DOE study, every 500 megawatt hours of electricity produced by burning coal uses 500 tons of coal and 24 million gallons of water. Coal burning uses more water than farming irrigation in the US. Nevada's three coal burning plants can produce 6000 megawatts of electric each hour. 24 million x 6 every hour is a lot more water than a solar panel needs to be washed. CSP, concentrated solar power, that uses troughs or towers to heat water into steam will not use more water than the horrific process that contributes twice as much pollution everyday as all vehicles combined worldwide. The water argument doesn't fly, just like the argument that off-roading should be a factor in a study considering enviromental factors for building a solar plant. Let's put our people back to work! UNLV and Mass. Institute both say every 1000 megawatts of solar installed will create 6 to 9,000 jobs during contruction and 200 to 300 permanent jobs after completion. There are over 96,000 megawatts of right of way applications on file at BLM waiting to be approved. That's continuous work for generations. Right now there are 2,000 megawatts of solar projects announced and expected to start within 14 months. That's 12,000 to 18,000 jobs for 18 - 36 months, just in Nevada. Every Nevadan should get behind the push to fast-track these projects. Rob Rider wrote on October 04, 2009 03:43 PM: Why don't they design a closed system where the water is turned to steam, runs the turbine, cools down and goes liquid and goes through the system again, over and over. It doesn't even have to be water - maybe a liquid with a lower boiling point could be used- again in a closed loop system. Geoff Schumacher wrote on October 02, 2009 11:19 PM: For Urbano Ornelas: I would love to talk with you more about your Utah set-up. Maybe I could write a column about it. Write me at gschumacher@reviewjournal.com. Thanks. LCDR Mandingo, NAM vet wrote on October 02, 2009 06:37 PM: Hmmm... Several years ago, Boy George (mental midget) threatened to close NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO). Urbano Ornelas wrote on October 02, 2009 12:21 PM: 20 years ago I decided to build a cabin in so. Utah. I did! however, there is no power at the site. So I went with voltaic solar panels. My cabin is trilevel, full basement, with a full kitchen, and all its amenities. In the basement, I placed an inverter that charges 8, 6 volt deep cycle batteries, during the day, the batteries are charged by the sun, and gives me all the power I need for the entire cabin, including TV. microwave oven, vaccum cleaner, or run any of my power tools. By nighttime, the batteries are completly full and I can run my lighting and watch TV. until I,m ready for bed. If my batteries happen to go down(which they iventually do) I charge them back up with my generator, it only takes about 2 hours and I'm ready to go again. I have been doing this for almost 20 years, My point is, this system really works!!! So all of you skeptics, please don't knock it till you've tried it!! I would like to see this kind of system employed in this part of the country, I know it will work. Got a solution wrote on October 02, 2009 12:16 PM: Hire undocumented workers to "turn" the wheels so that steam can be produced without water! That is turn will get that turbine going and going and going. See you guys don't think out of the box. Water SAVED. Don Best wrote on October 02, 2009 12:16 PM: The writer is spot on when it comes to developers getting a free hand in this town. Look at Henderson-Empty buildings, torn up land, giant subdivisions 90% empty. Whose fault? All of the city employees from the Mayor and City Council down to the inspector loafers who now have nothing to inspect. All working towards their large pension and benefits, all the while saying "What, me worry?" Alfred E. Newman clones. Oh, that's right, we don't want controlled growth-that's much too much Back East. So now try and sell your underwater house in Henderson. Too late, the party's over. Thanks, useless ex-Mayor Gibson. Sam wrote on October 02, 2009 09:27 AM: But remember, that hasn't been a "renewable" energy project that has stood on its own merits. No, they only "work" if you give our tax dollars to them. Lots of dollars. Call them incentives. Or call them rebates. Or call them grants. It's our money that the government is giving away so that we can have more expensive power. vegasdomar wrote on October 02, 2009 08:18 AM: No problem at all if we put in a pipeline to the ocean and do the desalination like other countries have done. Just need a lot of taxpayer money. Could we call it stimulus money? We can have Harry get the money for Nevada and Pelosi for Calif. We can put the solar panels on Harry's desert land via the solar company he's involved with. Win, Win all the way. Pull out the wallets of all taxpayer greenies like Al Gore and the Hollyweird celebs. Money problem solved. Course they may have to sell their Buses, Limos, and private jets to help pay for it.