Water management

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Companies increasingly are running into water-related obstacles. Last week, New York State denied a permit for Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear power plant because of its enormous consumption of cooling water.
 Environmental Protection Agency issued new water quality rules that could limit mining company operations. And in California, regulators recently pressured the utility giant FPL Group to use more water-efficient technology in a solar power plant project while denying access to water supplies to other developers.

“Unlike carbon, water use isn’t fungible,” Mr. Alexander said. “You can’t offset a water shortage in one region with credits in another region.”

Nonprofit Group Will Prod Companies to Report Their Water Use.

Most of the direct water use, is accounted for by the broad categories of power generation and agriculture. As for individual sectors, almost all use more water indirectly than directly. For example, in cane sugar refining, relatively little water is used at the mills. More than 95 percent is used indirectly, to grow the cane, generate electricity for the mills and in other parts of the supply chain.

“If you’re doing a lifecycle assessment, you want to make sure you include upstream activities that are water intensive,” Dr. Hendrickson said. “This tool should allow people to understand the implications of water use.”



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