Water Scarcity & Safety (PFAS): The Balance between Decarbonization and Human needs
Statistics on human water crises and needs:
Water scarcity has become an increasingly pressing issue globally, exacerbated by climate change, population growth, and competing demands for this finite resource. As climate technologies advance to address environmental challenges, they often find themselves in direct competition with human communities and industries for access to water. This complex interplay underscores the urgent need for innovative solutions and equitable water management practices to ensure the sustainability of both ecosystems and human livelihoods.
1 in 3 children, according to the UNICEF, or 739 million children, are faced with high or very high water scarcity and climate change threatens to make this worse.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 2.2 billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed drinking water services, and about 4.2 billion people experience severe water scarcity at least one month per year.
Around 40% of the world's population relies on agriculture for their livelihood, making water scarcity a significant threat to global food security.
Climate Technologies and Water Consumption
Climate technologies, including renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, as well as carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems, often require water for their operation and maintenance. Hydrogen plants depend on water, as do semiconductor facilities.
Here is how much water various technologies consume. For some context, the average family of 4 uses between 15,000 to 20,000 gallons of water in a month.
Semiconductor plants: Semiconductor facilities need water. A typical or an average chip fab uses about 8 to 10 million gallons of water per day (which is a significant improvement) thanks to efficiency improvements in the industry. While in the past about 60% of the water needed was recycled by chip manufacturers, over 95% of it is recycled today. On the heels of announcement of a $6.6B Arizona state award to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Facility (TSMC) the water crisis in the state has been spotlighted. While TSMC has promised that this would be its “greenest” facility yet, concerns over already existing water scarcity are heightened.
Hydrogen plants: ~9kg of ultra pure (or 2.34 gallons of water) water results in 1 kg of hydrogen through electrolysis.
Source: National Energy Technology Laboratory
Solar power plants: Solar PV power plants typically consume about 20 gallons per MWh. A parabolic trough plant (i.e. the ones that have large concave mirrors), consumes about 850 gallons of water per MWh. Manufacturing water-efficient solar panels is currently an industry-wide focus. The REC Solar Group which has ambitious solar manufacturing plans in Singapore, for example, decreased its water consumption, during manufacturing, from 761 m³ per MW of solar panels produced in 2021 to 628 m³ per MW in 2022 (a 17.5% reduction).
Coal plant: A typical coal plant consumes between 70 gallons to 300 million gallons a day, according to Sandia National Laboratories. Water is used to extract and wash the coal, cool the steam used to make electricity in the power plant, and to control plant pollution.
Nuclear Power plant: The Nuclear Energy Institute estimates that one reactor consumes between 1,500 liters to 2,700 liters of water per MWh generated. Water is used to cool the nuclear cores. This equates to several billion gallons of water per year that gets contaminated and requires significant purification for re-use.
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So should we panic?
It would be impossible to not acknowledge that this is a complex issue; water shortage globally is exacerbated by the effects of climate change. And to address climate change, water resources need to be allocated to technologies that can aid in mitigating its impacts.
So where does PFAS (per and polyfluorinated alkyl substances) play in this complex conundrum? PFAS compounds are essential to semiconductor manufacturing. Semiconductors are the connective tissue to pretty much everything we operate today (from TVs and cell phones, to electric vehicles). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has limited six of these “forever chemicals” in drinking water (although there are over 15,000). The chart below illustrates the complex interconnectedness of available water supplies and its various uses.
Source: Europa
This week’s EPA announcement states that “All public water systems have three years to complete their initial monitoring for these chemicals. They must inform the public of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water. Where PFAS is found at levels that exceed these standards, systems must implement solutions to reduce PFAS in their drinking water within five years.”
More Chip Manufacturing = More Forever Chemicals
There is a reason that these chemicals are called “forever”; they find their way in to drinking water streams, compounding this already complex problem and require meaningful investment in treatment facilities to tackle these compounds in water sources.
So what is the solution to a more water-efficient ecosystem?
Investment in better, more effective, monitoring of leakages and contaminants: Globally, we need solutions that can monitor and detect water leaks and water contamination. While informing the public is necessary, insisting on methods to better and more frequently monitor for future contamination, is necessary to ensure available drinking water is safe to be used. PFAS is a poorly regulated space in most countries in the world. Water leaks is another big issue to tackle. According to Water Intelligence, globally, about 12 billion gallons is lost in leakage; a leaking toilet when left to leak for an entire 30-day period, will lose about 91,000 gallons of water.
Invest in more efficient rain water harvest and storage: There’s strikingly little mainstream discussion on this topic. There continues to be a lack of nationally mandated policies and agendas to scale rainwater harvesting. That said, water consumption takes center stage for most of the large global corporates; no water means no decarbonization efforts. Apple and Toyota for example have built rainwater harvesting systems on their campuses. With growing investment in data centers, leading corporations have committed to becoming “water positive”. Microsoft has pledged to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030. Similarly companies including Facebook, Google, 3M, Intel, the REC Group and many more have committed to replenishing more than they use by 2030.
Investment in waste water and contaminated water treatment: Converting municipal and industrial waste water in to usable and drinking water is an emerging area of innovation that is attracting investment around the world. Companies such as Indra Water are developing modular and scalable solutions to treat industrial and sewage water and convert to usable & drinking water. The Tampa Water Department in Florida is exploring a suspended ion exchange technology as a way to address PFAS contaminated water and meet EPA guidelines.
As climate technologies vie for access to water, they come into direct competition with human communities and industries that depend on this vital resource for drinking, agriculture, industry, and sanitation. In regions already facing water stress and scarcity, such competition can exacerbate tensions and lead to conflicts over water allocation and management. Furthermore, marginalized communities, indigenous peoples, and small-scale farmers often bear the brunt of water shortages, exacerbating social inequalities and environmental injustices.