March 22, 2016
New Greenpeace International research released today, on World Water Day, finds that coal power plants around the world consume enough freshwater to sustain one billion people. The World Economic Forum has listed water security as one of the most tangible and fastest-growing social, political and economic challenges faced today. The high water intensity of global energy generation is creating a need for an analysis of water-coal conflict caused by coal power production.
Released on World Water Day, Greenpeace has prepared a groundbreaking analysis of the impacts of the world’s coal power plants on global water resources. The results show that the world’s coal power plants are consuming an amount of water that could meet the basic requirements for 1 billion people.
Globally 44 percent of the proposed coal power plants are in areas categorized as high water stress. Among them, a quarter are situated in red-list areas, which are at risk of running out of water. Among the globally critical areas are western China, such as Inner Mongolia, and Central India such as Maharastra. In these areas a conflict with other water users like farmers and food production is already happening.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/01/why-world-water-crises-are-a-top-global-risk/
#CoalPower #WaterForIndustry #GlobalRisks2015Report #Geoethics