DOE OSTI2019
This work was presented at the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment 2019 Conference (LCAXIX) in Tucson, AZ on September 24, 2019. Thermoelectric power is responsible for 41% of all freshwater withdrawals in the United States. Reliability for power plants responding to changes in water resource availability is a concern. A robust and efficient model to determine the water use for the power generation sector for any given year could be used to identify plants that contribute a significant amount of stress on the local water supply. The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has a model that analyzes EIA 860 and 923 water use data for thermoelectric power plants. NETL and Argonne National Lab (ANL) collaborated to integrate this enhanced dataset into the AWARE-US (Available Water Remaining for the contiguous US) model to find regional water stress impacts.