I have been blogging about water issues in the data center for a while, and have a category for tagging posts for “water.”

It was good to see so many speakers bring up water as the next big issue, not because of cost, but due to supply issues.  As Ken Brill presented the view Green is overhyped and money is the issue for driving data center.  The cost of water will not drive some of the methods Google used to reduce its water use as water is artificially price constrained in many areas.  But, when you do a risk analysis of the water supply, you quickly realize the probability of a water shortage shutting your data center down is something you need to address.

Andrew Fanara started off bringing up water issues as the next big issue in data centers.

James Hamilton presented water use numbers for cooling systems.

In the Best Practices Q&A with Ken Brill, James Hamilton, Olivier Sanche, and Bill Tschudi, water came up again.

Then Google’s green guy Bill Weihl and Joe Kava presented water issues Google has looked at for data centers.

Here are a few slides from Joe’s presentation.  Joe specifically brought up the issue James’s numbers were too low, because the amount of water used by power generation is higher than the amount of water used by cooling systems.

Then there was a video on how Google’s data center is getting water from the below canal.

WSJ.com has an article on how water sourcing issues are affecting electric power plants.

The one fact that was wow.  is half of water withdrawals in the US are for electric-power industry.

The electric-power industry accounts for nearly half of all water withdrawals in the U.S., with agricultural irrigation coming in a distant second at about 35%. Even though most of the water used by the power sector eventually is returned to waterways or the ground, 2% to 3% is lost through evaporation, amounting to 1.6 trillion to 1.7 trillion gallons a year that might otherwise enhance fisheries or recharge aquifers, according to a Department of Energy study.

The study concluded that a megawatt hour of electricity produced by a wind turbine can save 200 to 600 gallons of water compared with the amount required by a modern gas-fired power plant to make that same amount.

The article continues on to discuss how energy and water are connected.

Earlier this month, Jeff Bingaman (D., N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, noted during a hearing that the "nexus" of water and energy is becoming an issue "in [power plant] permitting decisions across the country."

Landowners in the far northeast corner of California were riled recently by Sempra Energy's proposal to build a coal-fired power plant just across the state line in Nevada.

One reason residents objected was that the plant would have required vast amounts of water for cooling. "Use of groundwater is always a sensitive issue up here because we don't have much," said Jack Hanson, a member of the Lassen County Board of Supervisors.

Sempra pulled the plug on the project in late 2006, citing, among other things, water use. Since then, another big energy proposal has surfaced, but it hasn't kicked up much opposition: A dozen companies are considering building hundreds of wind turbines along Lassen County ridgelines. So far, 17 meteorological towers have been erected to verify wind speeds.

Power plants can reduce their water use.

In turn, conventional power plants are turning to technology that aggressively cuts water use as they weigh the costs of installing more complicated cooling systems versus leaning on scarce resources.

A power plant recently put into service by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a unit of PG&E Corp., in the Northern California town of Antioch has a cooling system to cut its water intake from 40,000 gallons a minute to 1.6 gallons. In the past, power plants commonly were built with "once-through cooling," in which water was drawn from waterways, used once, and then put back. But the Antioch plant uses a "dry" cooling technique that recirculates water in a closed system, reducing evaporation.

Coal and nuclear plants are being questioned for their water use.

Environmental groups that oppose coal and nuclear power plants are discovering that water can be a powerful tool to challenge power companies.

In 2004, Riverkeeper Inc., an environmental organization in Tarrytown, N.Y., along with six states, sued the Environmental Protection Agency over the use of once-through cooling by as many as 500 older power plants in the U.S. The suit charges that the practice violates the Clean Water Act because it harms aquatic life and fails to utilize the best technology available, a requirement of the federal act.

The case, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, stands to test how water-use issues will determine which power plants continue to operate as well as what kind of plants are built.

Nuclear plants face particular scrutiny, since they require more water than any other form of steam generation. Virginia Power, a unit of Dominion Resources, is facing a legal challenge over its right to draw one million gallons of water a minute per reactor from a man-made lake it uses to cool its North Anna nuclear power plant and into which it discharges heated water. The utility built the lake in 1978 exclusively for the plant's cooling purposes.

A group called the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League Inc. argued that heat is a form of pollution and said the state water board shouldn't have renewed the plant's water permit. Last month, a state court upheld much of the environmental group's case; the utility plans an appeal. Dominion says the man-made lake is a private body of water and therefore shouldn't fall under the federal Clean Water Act.

As you think of a green data center, don’t forget about water.

Water is also emerging as an important point for analysts in the investment community. "We definitely have noticed more companies having water issues," said Swaminathan Venkataraman, an analyst at Standard & Poor's credit-rating agency. "If it continues, it will give renewables another important advantage."

WSJ has a page 3 article on oil companies buying water rights in Colorado.  Keep in mind west of the Mississippi, water rights are much like mineral rights, and are not necessarily part of land purchase.  This is called Prior appropriation water rights.

The legal details vary from state to state; however, the general principle is that water rights are unconnected to land ownership, and can be sold or mortgaged like other property. The first person to use a quantity of water from a water source for a beneficial use has the right to continue to use that quantity of water for that purpose. Subsequent users can use the remaining water for their own beneficial purposes provided that they do not impinge on the rights of previous users.

Beneficial use is commonly defined as agricultural, industrial or household use. Ecological purposes, such as maintaining a natural body of water and the wildlife that depends on it, were not initially deemed as beneficial uses in some Western states but have been accepted in some jurisdictions. The extent to which private parties may own such rights varies among the states.^[1]

Each water right has a yearly quantity and an appropriation date. Each year, the user with the earliest appropriation date (known as the "senior appropriator") may use up to their full allocation (provided the water source can supply it). Then the user with the next earliest appropriation date may use their full allocation and so on. In times of drought, users with junior appropriation dates might not receive their full allocation or even any water at all.

When a water right is sold, it retains its original appropriation date. Only the amount of water historically consumed can be transferred if a water right is sold. For example, if alfalfa is grown, using flood irrigation, the amount of the return flow may not be transferred, only the amount that would be necessary to irrigate the amount of alfalfa historically grown. If a water right is not used for a beneficial purpose for a period of time it may lapse under the doctrine of abandonment. Abandonment of a water right is rare, but occurred in Colorado in a case involving the South Fork of San Isabel Creek in Saguache County, Colorado.

Now the WSJ article.

Oil, Water Are Volatile Mix in West

Energy Firms Buying River Rights Add to Competition for Scarce Resource

By STEPHANIE SIMON

DENVER -- Oil companies have gained control over billions of gallons of water from Western rivers in preparation for future efforts to extract oil from shale deposits under the Rocky Mountains, according to a new report by an environmental group that opposes such projects.

The group, Western Resource Advocates, used public records to conclude that energy companies are collectively entitled to divert more than 6.5 billion gallons of water a day during peak river flows. The companies also hold rights to store, in dozens of reservoirs, 1.7 million acre feet of water, enough to supply metro Denver for six years.

Industry representatives said they have substantial holdings of water rights for future use in producing oil from shale, though they could not confirm the precise numbers in the report.

Before any move into full-scale oil shale production, the energy industry plans a close study of water issues, including the impact its operations would have on ranchers, farmers and communities that all rely on the same limited sources of water, said Richard Ranger, a senior policy adviser for the American Petroleum Institute. "It's among the most important questions to be examined," he said.

Why is water important to oil companies?

But if the price of oil rebounds, the potential payoff is big: the federal government estimates 800 billion barrels of oil, triple the known reserves of Saudi Arabia, lie under the Rocky Mountain West.

For now, the energy companies are not using most of the water they've claimed; they're leasing some of it to other users, most often farmers. But they are stocking up on water rights to be sure they won't be caught short.

Associated Press

Colorado River water supports 30 million people and dozens of uses, including power generation, above, at the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona.

We're picking up properties as they become available or look strategic," said Tracy Boyd, a spokesman for Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Shell does not expect to need large quantities of water for at least 15 years, he said, and by then it may have developed less water-intensive ways to extract oil, perhaps using wind power.

Exxon Mobil Corp., too, said new technologies might reduce future water needs. "We continue to be a careful steward of this precious resource and a considerate neighbor in dry years," said Patrick McGinn, a spokesman.

WSJ has an article about IBM’s investment in water solutions.

IBM Dives Into Water Venture

Touting 'Smarter Planet,' Big Blue Pushes Technology to Manage Resources

By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY

International Business Machines Corp. is embarking on a new business venture in which it will help manage water resources, an attempt by the technology giant to further expand its footprint outside traditional computer services.

The new business, which is part of IBM's Big Green Innovations initiative to find markets in carbon management, alternative energy and water management, will design and install systems of sensors and back-end software to monitor water pipes, reservoirs, rivers and harbors, according to Sharon Nunes, who heads the Big Green venture.

IBM has been touting its ability to help create a "smarter planet" by designing systems to monitor physical world activities such as electricity flows and traffic patterns. "There's a lot of stress on water systems around the world. With a limited supply, you'd better be able to manage it," said Ms. Nunes. She estimates that information technology for water management could become a $20 billion market.

I was surprised when I heard IBM executives talking about water solutions 2 years ago.

Why water?  There is a lot of money that is going to go into water solutions.

Ms. Nunes said stimulus spending in the U.S. and China is likely to help build the market for water management. She estimated that in the U.S. between $15 billion and $20 billion of the new stimulus package is aimed at water projects.