Massive drought coming now

Andrew Freedman, 7/21

Senior Science Writer, “Causes Of Midwest Drought: La Nina And Global Warming Thought To Contribute To Dry Weather” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/21/causes-of-midwest-drought-2012_n_1690717.html, accessed 10/20/12,WYO/JF

Driven by a combination of natural climate variability, manmade global warming, and plain old bad luck, drought conditions are so widespread in the U.S. that it’s possible to take a cross-country flight from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco — a distance of approximately 2,400 miles — without once overflying an unaffected area. With about 81 percent of the lower 48 states experiencing at least abnormally dry conditions, and 63 percent mired in moderate-to-exceptional drought, it’s becoming harder and harder to find an oasis. And the dog days of August are yet to come. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) already ranks this drought as one of the worst on record, comparable to the drought events of the 1950s. The last time there were such widespread drought conditions in the corn-growing region of the country was in 1988, and that drought cost at least $40 billion. Given this summer’s punishing 1-2 punch of dry weather and heat, this drought is also being compared to the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. According to Richard Seager, a professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and a prominent drought researcher, this drought has one key thing in common with the Dust Bowl and the 1988 drought events: its origins can be traced to the tropical Pacific Ocean, where a periodic cooling of sea surface temperatures — a phenomenon known as La Niña — helped reconfigure global weather patterns during the past two years. Seager’s research has shown that La Niña is closely tied to many historical drought events in the U.S., since it shifts weather patterns in a way that favors a northern storm track, bypassing the southern tier of the country and depriving the already arid Southwest of much-needed moisture. Even though La Niña conditions are no longer present in the tropical Pacific — in fact, there is talk of a coming El Niño, with warmer sea surface temperatures — the weather pattern in the tropical Pacific is still behaving in a manner that is more consistent with La Niña. This may be giving the 2011-12 La Niña an extended lifespan in the U.S., Seager and other climate scientists said. “La Niña conditions are perfect for getting drought in the southern parts of the U.S. There is absolutely no doubt that that has been a large part of what’s been going on here,” Seager said. Seager and other experts noted that factors besides La Nina are also playing a part in this drought, however. Unlike the droughts of the 1930s, this one is occurring in a much warmer climate, a byproduct of manmade global warming. Seager said that although it most likely didn’t trigger the drought, it’s possible that global warming is making this drought worse than it would otherwise be. “I think what we’re seeing is largely a naturally occurring event, but it’s occurring against the background of a warming environment,” Seager said. Global warming may be affecting the feedbacks that take place between dry soils and the atmosphere. When soils dry, very little evaporation occurs and very little moisture is released from vegetation to the air. This can accelerate warming, making droughts hotter, and therefore even drier. Mark Svoboda, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb., said this phenomenon is known as drought “feeding on itself.” Such feedbacks have helped the current drought rapidly balloon in size, overtaking some regions so quickly that it’s referred to as a “flash drought.” At the start of the year, just 28 percent of the contiguous U.S. — mainly the southern tier — was in at least moderate drought. Between mid-April and mid-July, the moderate to exceptional drought area went from 37 percent to 63 percent, a clear indication of the toll that the hot, dry spring and summer have taken. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said global warming helps make droughts hotter, and therefore drier, than they would be without a human influence. Manmade global warming, he said via email, “. . . means more energy that has to go somewhere. In dry conditions it amplifies drying and goes into heating, creating heat waves. It is small on a day-to-day basis, but is always in one direction and it creates stronger, more intense, and longer-lasting drought. No doubt about it.” Seager pointed to the lack of snow cover from the 2011-12 winter as another key factor in the drought’s expansion. In Colorado, for example, there was an unusually thin snowpack that melted earlier than average. This primed the state for destructive wildfires and record warm temperatures during June. The thin snow cover and early melt across the High Plains also may have helped dry soils in that region, and may have affected larger-scale weather patterns. According to Svoboda, the below-average snowpack was one of the factors, along with a dry and warm spring, that made the U.S. more vulnerable to drought come early summer. “We had two strikes against us before even getting to the summer or the heat wave that would follow,” he said in an email conversation. “I don’t attribute this drought to global warming, but we do see what increased temperatures can do to exacerbate droughts, and if higher temperatures become a more persistent feature in some regions not used to it, then this isn’t a good combination,” Svoboda said. There is some evidence that this is already happening. A recent study found thatglobal warming made the Texas drought and heatwave 20 times more likely to occurthan under similar large-scale climate conditions 50 years ago. Other research shows that warming driven by human activities made the same heat wave and drought more severe than it otherwise would have been. As for whether global warming made the current drought more likely to occur, such "climate attribution" studies can take several months to complete, and the drought is still underway. If indeed we’re already seeing more intense droughts as a result of global warming, it doesn’t bode well for the future, judging from what climate studies show. For example, climate research consistently shows the Southwest U.S. will become much drier as the climate continues to warm. Seager’s own research has revealed a disturbing history of North American “megadroughts” that have lasted for decades, making the current event look quaint by comparison. And one study published in 2011 found evidence for a global warming-induced increase in aridity over global land areas since the 1970s, and noted that climate models project a huge expansion of drought areas in the coming decades, depending on whether and by how much greenhouse gas emissions are reined in. In other words, if you think this drought is bad . . . just wait.

Current rates of water consumption for electricity production are too great, leading to massive droughts

Sovacool, 09

Benjamin K.Sovacool a, _, KellyE.Sovacool ba Energy GovernanceProgram,CentreonAsiaandGlobalisation,LeeKuanYewSchoolofPublicPolicy,NationalUniversityofSingapore,Singapore b Department ofGeography,VirginiaPolytechnicInstitute&StateUniversity,Blacksburg,VA,USA “Identifying future electricity–water tradeoffs in the United States”, Science Direct, accesed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Current rates of population growth, expected thermoelectric capacity additions by electric utilities, and an increasing pre valence of droughts could induce possible water shortages in some areas of the United States. These shortages could be brought about or exacerbated by increased rates of water consumption and withdraws from new thermoelectric power plants in some regions along with forced power plant shutdowns due to lack of water in others. The US Census Bureau (2004) projects that the national population will balloon from 282 million people in 2000 to 364 million by 2030 and 420 million by 2050. The US Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that total electricity consumption will grow at an annual rate or 1.3% per year, or from 3821 billion kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2006 to 5149 billion kWh by 2030 (DOE, 2008, p. 6). If the projection is accurate it means that nationwide electricity demand will actually double before 2050. The US Department of Interior (2005, p. 1) calculates that due to an increasing frequency and duration of droughts throughout the country, demands for water in many basins will exceed available supply even in normal years, especially for those living on the West Coast (water shortages nationwide can also result from low water quality due to toxic contamination, lack of availability due to saltwater intrusion of aquifers, and low quality and lack of availability due to malfunctioning water pumping, purification, and treatment systems). However, many electric utilities have virtually ignored water concerns and continue to propose new, water-intensive nuclear and fossil fueled plants as the best way to produce electricity (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy ( 2007), and water use and consumption have not been significant factors in decisions related to the permitting and siting of power plants (Clean Air Task Force, 2003). Those within the electricity industry often downplay the importance of water management techniques for minimizing thermoelectric water consumption, and those in water management rarely promote electricity conservation as a water resource tool.

Water crisis is inevitable- scaling up wind power capacity is crucial to achieve massive water savings across the economy

Snyder 8

[Brian, LSU Center for Energy Studies, “Ecological and economic cost-benefit analysis of offshore wind energy”, Renewable Energy, p. asp//wyo-tjc]

In many parts of the U.S. water resources are stressed. The six world climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) generally predict that the U.S. will become drier by 2050. One of the models predicts that precipitation over virtually the entire U.S. will decline by over 30% while the other five models show more modest declines [57]. Forty-eight percent of total water withdraws and nine percent of total water consumption (68 billion liters per day) is used by thermoelectric power plants (powered by coal, natural gas, nuclear, oil and biomass; [9]). Ethanol production also uses large quantities of water, from 3.5 to 6 l of water for every liter of ethanol produced [58]. Wind power directly uses no water. Per kW h, the amount of water used in fossil-fueled plants ranges from about 0.2 to 0.6 gallons depending on the technology employed [59]. Assuming a 40% capacity factor, 1 MW of offshore wind power can offset the use of between 0.7 and 2.1 million gallons of freshwater per year.

Long-term drought conditions would devastate America’s key agricultural regions, destroying our economy and sending food prices soaring

Hansen 12

[James, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University, “NASA’s James Hansen Slams Obama’s Lack Of Climate Leadership And Our ‘Immoral’ Inaction”, 5.10, p. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/10/481636/must-read-hansen-slams-obamas-lack-of-climate-leadership-and-our-immoral-inaction/ //wyo-tjc]

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. If this sounds apocalyptic, it is.Again, this is all from the recent scientific literature.

U.S. Efforts spill over globally

Sovacool, 09

Dr. Benjamin K. Sovacool is an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, “RUNNING ON EMPTY: THE ELECTRICITY-WATER NEXUS AND THE U.S. ELECTRIC UTILITY SECTOR” , accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Third and finally, the challenges related to water scarcity and electricity are not confined to the United States. The Central Intelligence Agency believes that more than three billion people will be living in water-stressed regions around the world by 2015 (with a majority concentrated in North Africa and China). Water tables for major grain producing areas in northern China are dropping at a rate of five feet per year, and per capita water availability in India expected to drop fifty to seventy-five percent over the next decade.45 The American Museum of Natural History reports that about 900 million people spread across twenty-seven developing countries already lack adequate access to water.46 Thus, an exploration of how utilities in the United States may respond to electricity-water crises can offer policymakers insight into how the industry can address what is sure to become a pressing global dilemma.

U.S. High Food prices affect the global market, spillover

Alyssa A. Botelho and Joel Achenbach, 12

“U.S. drought intensifies — Monsoons and India’s blackouts” http://gpde.us/2012/08/u-s-drought-intensifies-monsoons-and-indias-blackouts/, accessed 10/24/12,WYO/JF

“It’s hard to believe that it’s getting worse, but it is, even with some rain in the region,” with more than three-fifths of the lower 48 experiencing moderate drought or worse. That’s an area that comes close to matching the sprawling drought of 1934 at the worst of the Dust Bowl era. Normally, a rancher can turn a profit of about $180 per cow after factoring in the upfront costs of operations and renting land. This year, that’s going to be more like $80 a cow. A map of the drought is increasingly becoming a map of the United States itself. As the world’s largest exporter of corn, soybean and wheat, price spikes in the crop sector will ripple through markets around the globe.

Stretched water systems coming now leads to extinction and accesses every major impact

Walton 12 (Brett, worked on a NASA-affiliated research project on water data and as a member of a State Department project on climate change and water management in Central Asia, “National Security Assessment: Water Scarcity Disrupting U.S. and Three Continents” 4/3/12 http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2012/world/national-security-assessment-water-scarcity-disrupting-u-s-and-three-continents/)

The world â€™s demand for fresh water is growing so fast that, by 2030, agriculture, industry, and expanding cities on three continents will face such scarce supplies that the confrontation could disrupt economic development and cause ruinous political instability, according to the first U.S. cabinet-level report on the global water crisis.¶ The report, â€œ Global Water Security, â€ prepared for the State Department by the National Intelligence Council, found that, unless there are serious changes in conservation and water use practices, global water demand will reach 6,900 billion cubic meters (1,800 trillion gallons) annually by 2030, a figure that is about 2,400 billion cubic meters (634 trillion gallons) higher than today. The authors of the report concluded that level of consumption is â€œ40 percent above current sustainable water supplies, â€ and will â€œ hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate energy, posing a risk to global food markets and hobbling economic growth. â€¶ In other words, this would be the equivalent of adding four Chinas over the next 18 years, since China currently uses around 600 billion cubic meters (158 trillion gallons) of water annually.¶ These and other findings about global water supply were made public on World Water Day, March 22, by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called the study â€ œa landmark document that puts water security in its rightful place as part of national security. â€¶ â€œIt â€™s not only about water,â€ she added. â€œIt is about security, peace, and prosperity. â€¶ But those goals are imperiled, according to the report, by the collision of two powerful global trends. The first is what the report called â€œ key drivers of rising freshwater demand â€ â€” population growth, expanding cities, rising energy demand and production. The second is declining supply caused by deforestation; pollution; leaks and waste; and climate change that is melting glaciers, speeding evaporation, deepening droughts, and increasing the number of extreme weather events.¶ In remarks at the World Water Day event in Washington, D.C., Clinton introduced a new government initiative to improve global water management and conservation, steps that the reportâ€™s authors repeatedly called for in the study. The U.S. Water Partnership, she said, brings together 28 organizations â€” including government agencies, philanthropic foundations, environmental groups, corporations, and universities â€” and their body of water knowledge, which will be spread globally through training sessions, web-based data libraries, and collaborations with any organization looking for solutions.¶ â€œ You can â€™t work on water as a health concern independently from water as an agricultural concern, â€ Clinton said. â€œ And water that is needed for agriculture may also be water that is needed for energy production. So we need to be looking for interventions that work on multiple levels simultaneously and help us focus on systemic responses. â€¶ What The Report Says¶ The Global Water Security report confirms much of the data about the severity of the world water crisis, as well as many of the conclusions about how to solve it that have been developed by research groups, by other lower level U.S. government offices, and by news organizations â€” among them Circle of Blue, whose photographs of the crisis from around the world were featured at the State Department event.¶ But, in conducting the first cabinet-level assessment and in personally announcing the results, Secretary Clinton continued the work she has undertaken since joining the Obama administration to elevate the threats to the water supply to an urgent national and diplomatic priority.¶ The United States itself is certain to be buffeted by the water crisis, according to the report, which cites extensive research on food and energy production, groundwater abuse, and trade economics, as well as studies on international conflict and water management practices. For instance, achieving U.S. foreign policy goals could be more difficult, since nations may be too â€ œ distracted â€ by domestic problems to work with other nations. Additionally, there are risks of instability, increased regional tensions, and perhaps even state failure in nations that are important to U.S. national security interests. Water shortages could inflame pre-existing social and political tensions; they could cause disease outbreaks; and they could threaten food security, energy production, and the stability of local economies.¶ â€œ Water shortages, poor water quality, and floods by themselves are unlikely to result in state failure, â€ the report says. â€œ However, water problems â€” when combined with poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions â€” contribute to social disruptions that can result in state failure. â€¶ Strategically Important Basins¶ In a companion classified report for the State Department, the National Intelligence Council assessed the national security implications from these river basins: Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Mekong, Jordan, Indus, Brahmaputra, and Amu Darya.¶ The report names Southern Africa, northeastern Brazil, eastern Australia, the Mediterranean Basin, and the Western U.S. as places where climate change will decrease the amount of freshwater. North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia face the most difficult water challenges due to demographic and economic development pressures.¶ Such conditions will likely not be the direct cause of violent conflicts during the next 10 years, the authors argue, because, â€œ historically, water tensions have led to more water-sharing agreements than violent conflicts. â€ Still, the authors of the report state that, beyond the next 10 years, they expect water to be used increasingly as leverage between countries that share a river basin, or even used as a weapon. Further, the report notes that water delivery systems â€” dams, desalination plants, pipelines, and canals â€” are a potential target for terrorists.¶ Ever since the disintegration of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago, these concerns about government instability, or even collapse, have formed a significant chunk of the academic research on environmental security. The new National Intelligence Council report â€” and related government programs begun in the last few years â€” shows that leaders in the nation â€™s capital have grown more comfortable with the need to address non-traditional, more oblique security threats.¶ The report gives good news, as well, stating that there are preventative actions that can be taken, with many of the technologies available now.¶ â€œ From now through 2040, improved water management (e.g. pricing, allocations, and â€œ virtual water â€ trade) and investments in water-related sectors (e.g. agriculture, power, and water treatment) will afford the best solutions for water problems, â€ the report says. â€œ Because agriculture uses approximately 70 percent of the global freshwater supply, the greatest potential for relief from water scarcity will be through technology that reduces the amount of water needed for agriculture. â€¶ A Short History of Water in U.S. Government Reports ¶ One of the first U.S. government reports to address water in relation to national security was in 2000, with the National Intelligence Council â€™s â€œ Global Trends 2015 Survey, € which sought to identify the strategic undercurrents that would shape U.S. policy.¶ A more rigorous assessment came five years later, with a 134-page report on water from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Sandia National Laboratories. The â€œ Global Water Futures report â€ argued that water was a blanket force: â€œ Virtually every major U.S. foreign policy objective â€” promoting stability and security, reducing extremist violence, democracy building, post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, poverty reduction, meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, combating HIV/AIDS, promoting bilateral and multilateral relationships â€” will be contingent to some extent on how well the challenge of global water can be addressed. â€

High food prices will collapse civilization

Brown 10

[Lester R. Brown, environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, “How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse”, EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE, Pg 88-89, google scholar downloaded PDF, \\wyo-bb]

Judging by the archeological records of earlier civilizations, more often than not food shortages appear to have precipitated their decline and collapse. Given the advances of modern agriculture, I had long rejected the idea that food could be the weak link in our twenty-first century civilization. Today I think not only that it could be the weak link but that it is the weak link.28 The reality of our situation may soon become clearer for mainstream economists as we begin to see some of the early economic effects of overconsuming the earth’s resources, such as rising world food prices. We got a preview when, as world grain demand raced ahead and as supplies tightened in early 2007, the prices of wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans began to climb, tripling historical levels by the spring of 2008. Only the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression, combined with a record world grain harvest in 2008, managed to check the rise in grain prices, at least for the time being. Since 2008, world market prices have receded somewhat, but as of October 2010, following the disastrous Russian grain harvest, they were still nearly double historical levels and rising.29 On the social front, the most disturbing trend is spreading hunger. For the last century’s closing decades, the number of chronically hungry and malnourished people worldwide was shrinking, dropping to a low of 788 million by 1996. Then it began to rise—slowly at first, and then more rapidly—as the massive diversion of grain to produce fuel for cars doubled the annual growth in grain consumption. In 2008, it passed 900 million. By 2009, there were more than a billion hungry and malnourished people. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization anticipated a decline in the number of hungry people in 2010, but the Russian heat wave and the subsequent climb in grain prices may have ended that hope.30 This expansion in the ranks of the hungry is disturbing not only in humanitarian terms but also because spreading hunger preceded collapse for so many of the earlier civilizations whose archeological sites we now study. If we use spreading hunger as an indicator of the decline that precedes social collapse for our global civilization, then it began more than a decade ago.31 As environmental degradation and economic and social stresses mount, the more fragile governments are having difficulty managing them. And as rapid population growth continues, cropland becomes scarce, wells go dry, forests disappear, soils erode, unemployment rises, and hunger spreads. In this situation, weaker governments are losing their credibility and their capacity to govern. They become failing states—countries whose governments can no longer provide personal security, food security, or basic social services, such as education and health care. For example, Somalia is now only a place on the map, not a nation state in any meaningful sense of the term.32 The term “failing state” has only recently become part of our working vocabulary. Among the many weaker governments breaking down under the mounting stresses are those in Afghanistan, Haiti, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Yemen. As the list of failing states grows longer each year, it raises a disturbing question: How many states must fail before our global civilization begins to unravel?33

Drought will cause massive energy shut down, blackout’s

Michael Webber, 12

“Will Drought Cause the Next Blackout?” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/opinion/will-drought-cause-the-next-blackout.html?_r=0, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

WE’RE now in the midst of the nation’s most widespread drought in 60 years, stretching across 29 states and threatening farmers, their crops and livestock. But there is another risk as water becomes more scarce. Power plants may be forced to shut down, and oil and gas production may be threatened. Our energy system depends on water. About half of the nation’s water withdrawals every day are just for cooling power plants. In addition, the oil and gas industries use tens of millions of gallons a day, injecting water into aging oil fields to improve production, and to free natural gas in shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. Those numbers are not large from a national perspective, but they can be significant locally. All told, we withdraw more water for the energy sector than for agriculture. Unfortunately, this relationship means that water problems become energy problems that are serious enough to warrant high-level attention. During the 2008 drought in the Southeast, power plants were within days or weeks of shutting down because of limited water supplies. In Texas today, some cities are forbidding the use of municipal water for hydraulic fracturing. The multiyear drought in the West has lowered the snowpack and water levels behind dams, reducing their power output. The United States Energy Information Administration recently issued an alert that the drought was likely to exacerbate challenges to California’s electric power market this summer, with higher risks of reliability problems and scarcity-driven price increases. And in the Midwest, power plants are competing for water that farmers want for their devastated corn crops. Unfortunately, trends suggest that this water vulnerability will become more important with time.

Blackouts cause nuclear meltdowns

Huffington Post, 11

“Long Blackouts Pose Risk To U.S. Nuclear Reactors” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/blackout-risk-us-nuclear-reactors_n_841869.html, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Long before the nuclear emergency in Japan, U.S. regulators knew that a power failure lasting for days at an American nuclear plant, whatever the cause, could lead to a radioactive leak. Even so, they have only required the nation's 104 nuclear reactors to develop plans for dealing with much shorter blackouts on the assumption that power would be restored quickly. In one nightmare simulation presented by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009, it would take less than a day for radiation to escape from a reactor at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant after an earthquake, flood or fire knocked out all electrical power and there was no way to keep the reactors cool after backup battery power ran out. That plant, the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station outside Lancaster, has reactors of the same older make and model as those releasing radiation at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which is using other means to try to cool the reactors. And like Fukushima Dai-ichi, the Peach Bottom plant has enough battery power on site to power emergency cooling systems for eight hours. In Japan, that wasn't enough time for power to be restored. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Institute trade association, three of the six reactors at the plant still can't get power to operate the emergency cooling systems. Two were shut down at the time. In the sixth, the fuel was removed completely and put in the spent fuel pool when it was shut down for maintenance at the time of the disaster. A week after the March 11 earthquake, diesel generators started supplying power to two other two reactors, Units 5 and 6, the groups said. The risk of a blackout leading to core damage, while extremely remote, exists at all U.S. nuclear power plants, and some are more susceptible than others, according to an Associated Press investigation. While regulators say they have confidence that measures adopted in the U.S. will prevent or significantly delay a core from melting and threatening a radioactive release, the events in Japan raise questions about whether U.S. power plants are as prepared as they could and should be.

Meltdowns cause extinction

Lendman, 2011

(Stephen, Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization, 03/ 13, “Nuclear Meltdown in Japan,”, The People’s Voice http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/nuclear-meltdown-in-japan, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Reuters said the 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage, up to then the most costly ever natural disaster. This time, from quake and tsunami damage alone, that figure will be dwarfed. Moreover, under a worst case core meltdown, all bets are off as the entire region and beyond will be threatened with permanent contamination, making the most affected areas unsafe to live in. On March 12, Stratfor Global Intelligence issued a "Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant," saying: Fukushima Daiichi "nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown." Stratfor downplayed its seriousness, adding that such an event "does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster," that already may have happened - the ultimate nightmare short of nuclear winter. According to Stratfor, "(A)s long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the (core's) breached but the containment facility built around (it) remains intact, the melted fuel can be....entombed within specialized concrete" as at Chernobyl in 1986. In fact, that disaster killed nearly one million people worldwide from nuclear radiation exposure. In their book titled, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko said: "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe. Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere." Stratfor explained that if Fukushima's floor cracked, "it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through (its) containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before," at least not reported. If now occurring, "containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible," making the quake, aftershocks, and tsunamis seem mild by comparison. Potentially, millions of lives will be jeopardized. Japanese officials said Fukushima's reactor container wasn't breached. Stratfor and others said it was, making the potential calamity far worse than reported. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said the explosion at Fukushima's Saiichi No. 1 facility could only have been caused by a core meltdown. In fact, 3 or more reactors are affected or at risk. Events are fluid and developing, but remain very serious. The possibility of an extreme catastrophe can't be discounted. Moreover, independent nuclear safety analyst John Large told Al Jazeera that by venting radioactive steam from the inner reactor to the outer dome, a reaction may have occurred, causing the explosion. "When I look at the size of the explosion," he said, "it is my opinion that there could be a very large leak (because) fuel continues to generate heat." Already, Fukushima way exceeds Three Mile Island that experienced a partial core meltdown in Unit 2. Finally it was brought under control, but coverup and denial concealed full details until much later. According to anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, Japan's quake fallout may cause nuclear disaster, saying: "This is a very serious situation. If the cooling system fails (apparently it has at two or more plants), the super-heated radioactive fuel rods will melt, and (if so) you could conceivably have an explosion," that, in fact, occurred. As a result, massive radiation releases may follow, impacting the entire region. "It could be, literally, an apocalyptic event. The reactor could blow." If so, Russia, China, Korea and most parts of Western Asia will be affected. Many thousands will die, potentially millions under a worse case scenario, including far outside East Asia.

Increasing wind power is key to solve for water consumption, studies prove

Sovacool, 09

Dr. Benjamin K. Sovacool is a Research Fellow in the Energy Governance Program at the Centre on Asia and Globalization. “Preventing National Electricity-Water Crisis Areas in the United States”, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Researchers at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in Blacksburg, VA, recently estimated that 3,000 to 6,000 gallons of water are required to burn one 60-watt incandescent light bulb for twelve hours a day over the course of one year. By contrast, using a compact fluorescent bulb for the same amount of time saves about 2,000 to 4,000 gallons of water per year.266 In a 2006 report, the DOE acknowledged wind power and solar photovoltaics could play a key role in averting a “business-as-usual scenario” where “consumption of water in the electric sector could grow substantially.”267 Another recent DOE report noted that “greater additions of wind to offset fossil, hydropower, and nuclear assets in a generation portfolio will result in a technology that uses no water, offsetting water-dependent technologies.”268 And Ed Brown, director of Environmental Programs at the University of Northern Iowa, concluded that “billions of gallons of water can be saved every day” through the greater use of renewable energy technologies.269 The DOE has confirmed that every 4,000 MW of wind turbines in the Interior West displace the need to withdraw about 10.51 billion gallons of water and consume 6.31 billion gallons of water every year.270 The American Wind Energy Association conducted one of the most comprehensive assessments of renewable energy and water consumption. Looking purely at water consumption and not withdrawal, its study estimated that wind power uses less than 1/600 as much water per unit of electricity produced as does nuclear, 1/500 as much as coal, and 1/250 as much as natural gas (small amounts of water are used to clean wind and solar systems).271 The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy conducted a similar analysis in the Southeast and found that nuclear plants consume about 620 times the water a comparable amount of electricity produced by a wind farm would require, and that coal plants consume 490 times more water than wind energy.272 In short, the use of wind, solar PV, and energy efficiency conserves substantial amounts of water that would otherwise be withdrawn and consumed for the production of electricity. Consider the case of Colorado, where Xcel Energy was forced to close its 505 MW power plant in Brush, Colorado, because it relied on two billion gallons of water each year from the South Platte River.273 Utilities in the region had to immediately consider abandoning their plants to install 39,000 MW of new thermoelectric generation that would have increased overall water demand by 116 million gallons of water per day (an increase of 20 percent).274 Instead, they found that every 1,800 MW of wind energy capacity saved 6.8 million gallons of water per year.275 The lesson is simple, indicated Matt Baker of Environment Colorado: “The more we use renewables, the more we can conserve water.”27