Energy is consumed at every stage of the cycle of water supply, treatment, use and disposal. The intensity of energy consumption (kW h/m 3 ) depends upon the specific technologies applied at each stage of the water cycle. For some technologies, the intensity may be relatively low, whereas the intensity of other technologies is substantially greater. This report surveys the available literature on energy intensity for water use in the municipal and agricultural sectors and separates the process into several stages. Water supply, water treatment, residential end use, wastewater treatment, and agriculture end use are considered. Representative values of the energy consumed per unit water are given for a broad range of processes. Water extraction and pumping from ground and surface sources is considered. The energy intensity of treatment required for different types of water source is found to vary widely between the extremes of relatively fresh surface waters, which use energy mainly in pumping, and seawater, which requires desalination. Energy usage for different methods of irrigation including pressurized as well as surface irrigation is studied. The energy intensity of residential end use is very high relative to other parts of the water supply cycle. Processes such as heating water, washing clothes and dishes, and cooking are briefly studied within the water end-use stage. Hot water usage is responsible for making end use the most energy intensive stage of the water cycle. Hot water use in different buildings is briefly reviewed. Wastewater treated with various processes is considered, and the energy intensity is found to be highest when advanced wastewater treatment methods are applied. Energy consumption in the agricultural sector, which is principally related to irrigation pumping, is generally of lower energy intensity than for the municipal treatment or end use.

Energy requirements for water production, treatment, end use, reclamation, and disposal

Environmental impact of desalination technologies: A review

Renewable energy-driven innovative energy-efficient desalination technologies

Life-cycle air emission effects of supplying water are explored using a hybrid life-cycle assessment. For the typically sized U.S. utility analyzed, recycled water is preferable to desalination and comparable to importation. Seawater desalination has an energy and air emission footprint that is 1.5−2.4 times larger than that of imported water. However, some desalination modes fare better; brackish groundwater is 53−66% as environmentally intensive as seawater desalination. The annual water needs (326 m3) of a typical Californian that is met with imported water requires 5.8 GJ of energy and creates 360 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions. With seawater desalination, energy use would increase to 14 GJ and 800 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions. Meeting the water demand of California with desalination would consume 52% of the state’s electricity. Supply options were reassessed using alternative electricity mixes, including the average mix of the United States and several renewable sources. Desalination using solar th...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es801802h

Energy and air emission effects of water supply.

Purpose
Freshwater scarcity is a problem in many areas of the world and will become one of the most sensitive environmental issues in coming decades. Existing life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies generally do not provide assessment schemes or characterization factors of the potential environmental impacts of freshwater use or freshwater resource depletion. These assessments therefore do not account for the significant environmental consequences of the loss in quality and availability of freshwater. This paper aims to develop a framework to address this methodological limitation and to support further quantitative modeling of the cause–effect chain relationships of water use. The framework includes recommendations for life cycle inventory (LCI) modeling and provides a description of possible impact pathways for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), including indicators on midpoint and endpoint levels that reflect different areas of protection (AoP).

A framework for assessing off-stream freshwater use in LCA

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Preamble. This series of two papers analyses and compares the environmental loads of different water production technologies in order to establish, in a global, rigorous and objective way, the less aggressive technology for the environment with the present state of the art of the technology. Further, it is also presented an estimation of the potential environmental loads that the considered technologies could provoke in future, taking into account the most suitable evolution of the technology.

Life Cycle Assessment of Water Production Technologies - Part 1: Life Cycle Assessment of Different Commercial Desalination Technologies (MSF, MED, RO) (9 pp)

Preamble. This series of two papers analyses and compares the environmental loads of different water production technologies in order to establish, in a global, rigorous and objective way, the less aggressive technology for the environment with the present state of the art of technology. Further, an estimation of the potential environmental loads that the considered technologies could provoke in future is also presented, taking into account the most suitable evolution of the technology. Part 1 presents the assessment of most commercial desalination technologies which are spread worldwide: Reverse Osmosis, Multi Effect Desalination and Multi Stage Flash.
Part 2 presents the comparative LCA analysis of a big hydraulic infrastructure, as is to be found in the Ebro River Water Transfer project, with respect to desalination. Intention, Goal and Background. In this paper some relevant results of a research work are presented, the main aim of which consists of performing the environmental assessment of different water production technologies in order to establish, in a global, rigorous and objective way, the less aggressive technology for the environment for supplying potable water to the end users. The scope of this paper is mostly oriented to the comparative Life Cycle Assessment of different water production technologies instead of presenting new advancements in the LCA methodology. Based on the results obtained in Part 1 (LCA of most widespread commercial desalination technologies), the particular case of a big hydraulic project, which is the Ebro River Water Transfer (ERWT) considered in the Spanish National Hydrologic Plan, versus the production by desalination of the same amount of water to be diverted, is compared in Part 2. The assessment technique is the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), which includes the entire life cycle of each technology, encompassing: extraction and processing raw materials, manufacturing, transportation and distribution, operation and final waste disposal. and Main Features. The software SimaPro 5.0, developed by Dutch PRe Consultants, has been used as the analysis tool, because it is a well known, internationally accepted and validated tool. Different evaluation methods have been applied in the LCA evaluation: CML 2 baseline 2000, Eco-Points 97 and Eco-Indicator 99. Data used in the inventory analysis of this Part 2 come from: a) desalination: data obtained for existing plants in operation; b) ERWT: Project approved in the Spanish National Hydrologic Plan and its Environmental Impact Evaluation and; c) data bases implemented in the SimaPro software – BUWAL 250, ETH-ESU 96, IDEMAT 2001. Different scenarios have been analyzed in both parts in order to estimate not only the potential of reduction of the provoked environmental loads with the present state of the art of technology, but also the most likely future trend of technological evolution. In Part 1, different energy production models and the integration of desalination with other productive processes are studied, while the effect of the most likely technological evolution in the midterm, and the estimation of the environmental loads to the water transfer during drought periods are considered in Part 2. As proven in Part 1, RO is a less aggressive desalination technology for the environment. Its aggression is one order of magnitude lower than that of the thermal processes, MSF and MED. The main contribution to the global environmental impact of RO comes from the operation, while the other phases, construction and disposal, are almost negligible when compared to it. In the case of the ERWT, the contribution of the operation phase is also the most important one, but the construction phase has an important contribution too. Its corresponding environmental load, with the present state of the art of technology, is slightly lower than that provoked by the RO desalination technology. However, the results obtained in the different scenarios analyzed show that the potential reduction of the environmental load in the case of the ERWT is significantly lower than that in the case of the RO. The effect of drought periods in the assessed environmental loads of the water transfer is not negligible, obtaining as a result an increasing environmental load per m3 of diverted water. The environmental load associated with RO, with the present state of the art of technology, is slightly higher than that provoked by the ERWT. However, considering the actual trend of technological improvement of the RO and the present trend of energy production technology in the address of reducing the fossil fuels\ contribution in the electricity production, the environmental load associated with RO in the short mid-term would be likely to be lower than that corresponding to the ERWT. Although desalination technologies are energy intensive and provoke an important environmental load, as already explained in Part 1, they present a high potential of reducing it. In respect to ERWT, the results indicate, when the infrastructure of ERWT is completed (by 2010–2012), that the LCA of RO will be likely to be against the water transfer. With the present technological evolution of water production technologies and from the results obtained in this paper, it seems, from an environmental viewpoint, that big hydraulic projects should be considered the last option because they are rigid and long-term infrastructures (several decades and even centuries of operation) that provoke important environmental loads with only a small margin for reducing them.

Life Cycle Assessment of Water Production Technologies - Part 2: Reverse Osmosis Desalination versus the Ebro River Water Transfer (9 pp)

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Life Cycle Assessment of Water Production Technologies - Part 1: Life Cycle Assessment of Different Commercial Desalination Technologies (MSF, MED, RO) (9 pp)

Life Cycle Assessment of Water Production Technologies - Part 2: Reverse Osmosis Desalination versus the Ebro River Water Transfer (9 pp)