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Looming water shortages, climate change, agriculture, growing populations, and expensive energy are some of the challenges facing our future. Not enough attention is paid to the water requirements of energy production. The above chart shows gallons of water required per Megawatt hour for various energy generating sources. (Note that the chart only includes water used for operation as there is some water involved in the production of solar and wind energy.)
One worry is that as climate change causes water availability disruptions, or flooding for that matter, this could lead to disasters at nuclear power plants. We have already seen a preview of this in the Missouri River flooding this spring at two Nebraska nuclear power plants.