image: Tessera Solar
In a feature published in today’s New York Times, I look at a water war breaking out in the desert Southwest over plans to build dozens of large-scale solar power projects on hundreds of thousands of acres of land:
AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. — In a rural corner of Nevada reeling from the recession, a bit of salvation seemed to arrive last year. A German developer, Solar Millennium, announced plans to build two large solar farms here that would harness the sun to generate electricity, creating hundreds of jobs.
But then things got messy. The company revealed that its preferred method of cooling the power plants would consume 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 percent of this desert valley’s available water.
Now Solar Millennium finds itself in the midst of a new-age version of a Western water war. The public is divided, pitting some people who hope to make money selling water rights to the company against others concerned about the project’s impact on the community and the environment.
“I’m worried about my well and the wells of my neighbors,” George Tucker, a retired chemical engineer, said on a blazing afternoon.
Here is an inconvenient truth about renewable energy: It can sometimes demand a huge amount of water. Many of the proposed solutions to the nation’s energy problems, from certain types of solar farms to biofuel refineries to cleaner coal plants, could consume billions of gallons of water every year.
“When push comes to shove, water could become the real throttle on renewable energy,” said Michael E. Webber, an assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin who studies the relationship between energy and water.
Conflicts over water could shape the future of many energy technologies. The most water-efficient renewable technologies are not necessarily the most economical, but water shortages could give them a competitive edge.
In California, solar developers have already been forced to switch to less water-intensive technologies when local officials have refused to turn on the tap. Other big solar projects are mired in disputes with state regulators over water consumption.
To date, the flashpoint for such conflicts has been the Southwest, where dozens of multibillion-dollar solar power plants are planned for thousands of acres of desert. While most forms of energy production consume water, its availability is especially limited in the sunny areas that are otherwise well suited for solar farms.
You can read the rest of the story here.
Green Wombat 
How far along is desalination technology? It seems that incorporating a desalination plant and a solar plant together would result in synergies. If we can ship oil across the US relatively cheaply, can’t we do the same with water?
Coal, natural gas and nuclear plants take a lot of water to generate steam and for cooling. Solar-thermal is the big water hog in renewables. Solar panels and wind need no water.
Well there’s one business out there in the solar thermal sector whose product uses a fraction of the water that other technologies need. I’m talking about Stirling Energy’s Suncatcher array. Todd has covered them well through the years. Maybe it’s time for another update on what they’re up to these days and how the on-going water shortage in the SW may play out well for SES.
Stirling Energy Systems is now the equipment arm of Tessera Solar, which I included in the New York Times story as one of the solar developers deploying low-water use technologies.