Abstract
This paper gives an overview of the contribution of water footprint (WF) studies on water for energy relationships. It first explains why water is needed for energy, gives an overview of important water energy studies until 2009, shows the contribution of Hoekstra’s work on WF of energy generation, and indicates how this contribution has supported new research. Finally, it provides knowledge gaps that are relevant for future studies. Energy source categories are: 1. biofuels from sugar, starch and oil crops; 2. cellulosic feedstocks; 3. biofuels from algae; 4. firewood; 5. hydropower and 6. various sources of energy including electricity, heat and transport fuels. Especially category 1, 3, 4, 5 and to a lesser extent 2 have relatively large WFs. This is because the energy source derives from agriculture or forestry, which has a large water use (1,2,4), or has large water use due to evaporation from open water surfaces (3,5). WFs for these categories can be calculated using the WF tool. Category 6 includes fossil fuels and renewables, such as photovoltaics and wind energy and has relatively small WFs. However, information needs to be derived from industry.
Highlights
Water is needed for energy, and energy to provide water [1]
The trade-off could be shown because data on water footprint (WF) of different fuel sources were available, especially WFs of energy sources with large WFs, i.e., firewood, biofuels and hydropower, that could be derived from earlier WF studies and combined with energy consumption data, so that the enormous WFs of some energy mixes with large renewable energy contributions became clear
Agency (IEA) for 2035, we showed that the scenario with the smallest carbon footprint had the largest
Summary
Water is needed for energy, and energy to provide water [1]. Energy needs water to make fuels available, e.g., for steam injections to pump up crude oil from an oil field [2], to make materials available for energy infrastructure, e.g., for steel and concrete [3] (Bosman), to cool power plants [2,4], to move turbines (hydropower) [4,5] or to grow biomass for bioenergy production [6,7]. Separation of consumption and production locations causes water footprints (WFs) at other locations than where consumptions take place so that consumers might have a WF at the other side of the world This creates the global dimension of water [1]. The consumption approach was used to assess the consequences of shifts in energy mixes towards larger supply of renewables, an important goal of present energy policies [1]. Those studies were based on data on water for energy from existing literature in combination with data from. First, when water is needed for energy, gives an overview of studies until 2009, shows the contribution of Hoekstra’s work, and shows how this contribution supported new research and shows existing knowledge gaps relevant for future studies
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