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<br />lJ:J03C <br /> <br />gasification plants, producing four billion cubic feet of gas daily when <br />operating at capacity levels and using up to one half million acre feet of <br />water annually, could be a reasonable prospect for the Northern Great <br />Plains by the year 2000 (NGPRP, 1975).g Such a level of water use, all of <br />it consumptive, would represent about 2\% of the unregulated flow of the <br />Upper Missouri River, or about 4~% of total annual consumptive water use <br />in the region. <br />Conventional coal-burning steam electric generating capacity <br />will be expanded in the region, to serve regional needs, It could expand <br />much more rapidly if it were decided to emphasize minemouth power genera- <br />tion and to create the extra high voltage transmission line system which <br />would be necessary to market Upper Missouri Basin power in load centers in <br />the Midwest. The resulting large-scale minemouth generating plants would <br />have high cooling requirements, and could involve increased water with- <br />drawals to meet these requirements. Water temperature standards of current <br />and future water quality regulations will forbid discharges of heated water <br />and thus require reliance upon closed system cooling. A typical 1,000 <br />megawatt electrical generating plant with evaporative cooling will require <br />15,000 acre feet of water per year, an even greater water use than syn- <br />thetic conversion processes (NGPRP, 1975).10 <br />The future role of nuclear power generation is uncertain at this <br />writing. However, water is used in nuclear generation very much as it is <br />in conventional fossil fuel generation, although the cooling requirements <br />are somewhat higher. The water use implications of expanded nuclear power <br />generation are not unlike those of fossil fuel generation, except that <br />nuclear fuel is much cheaper to transport than coal is, and therefore <br />muclear generating stations will be located reasonably near to load centers. <br /> <br />Energy Transportation--Coal mlnlng is projected in increase <br />greatly in the Upper Missouri Basin in the years ahead. Even given the <br />development of a substantial synthetic fuel industry and an increase in <br />minemouth power generation, the major portion of coal mined will be shipped <br /> <br />18 <br /> <br />-. .... <br /> <br />..:..~ ::,: ".> .,";. ..... . <br />.::":.;-::: . '. .,.,...... :.,. <br />:':-":: .' '::"i';/;~_~~'~.:.:,,(;,',::,.~::;.:.:~:/:~:.:,:~: <br />~ . . . <br /> <br />.;::>::.,.:.::..... :'>:::." .: <br />.. ..... . -.::):':{~:;:. <br />~J;\::):.:~::,?:;;:,"'.:~:)' <br />