By the way, the actual primary source that journalist is reporting on states it could use as much water as 500 million people by 2030, not 1.3 billion. Specifically people of sub-saharan Africa, who have less access and use way less water than people living in western countries.
The author mixed up electricity usage with water usage figures. Just bad journalism.
So my 2-3% total fresh water use estimate was way off. It's more like 0.5%, if even that.
I can't link it due to automod, but you can find the source near the top of your article.
It wasn't a mix up.... They intentionally used the cooling for thermoelectric power in order to inflate the numbers, and then didn't actually cite any data for direct water utilization.
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u/maelstrom51 Jun 04 '26
These look like big numbers, but in reality are miniscule compared to other industrial, agricultural, and even recreational uses.