One of the two favorite subjects of this blog is conservation and water, so we get to do two for the price of one today. The drought in the southern United States is very bad these last few years (see the blog entry on Atlanta, Georgia), and it looks like it may be even worse in 2008, if something big in the precipitation department doesn’t come their way. Yes, for the skeptics, droughts do happen naturally, but, come on, it’s pretty much common knowledge that most Americans don’t conserve water, or energy for that matter. We embrace profligate waste, and the only time we begrudgingly consider being more modest with water and energy is if we are absolutely forced to do so. This usually means that the price goes up, and we try a little, but so most of us haven’t been really challenged with respect to our usage to the point where we radically change our lifestyle in order to get by. I believe most Americans simply do not want to contemplate the idea that our natural resources aren’t infinite, or that a very convenient technological fix won’t come along and give us everything we need, and fix all of our environmental damage as a side benefit. We want to believe in a miracle. Well, we shall see, but meanwhile, extinctions are happening, and they are significant, so that miracle has to come very, very soon.

This CNN article connects some of us living in states north of the deep southern United States to the drought problem. It just goes to show, conservation is a worldwide problem, and the idea that we can ignore environmental problems because they currently aren’t in our neighborhood may be the epitome of hubris. So, the story here is that, because water levels are getting so low in many southern states, the sources for cooling water for nuclear power plants are being drained to the point where the power plants are no longer safe to operate and must be shut down. If the drought worsens, millions of southerners may see a shocking rise in their electric bills, and, since the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) gets 30% of its power from nuclear plants in the region, those of us who get our electricity from the TVA may also see a steep rise in our bills. This scenario has already played itself out in the summer of 2006 in Europe, where German, Spanish and French utilities had to shut down power plants due to low water levels.

This doesn’t even touch on the important consequences of how the heated water, billions of gallons per day per power plant, affects the plants, fish and other flora and fauna that are trying to survive in elevated water temperatures after the water is discharged back into the lake or stream from whence it came.

Whew! So enough already, you get the picture…

• Nuclear Power and Drought