NC water demand
From Water Wiki
In comparison with other states of similar size, North Carolina uses more water per capita. For example, North Carolina withdrew approximately 11,400 (Mgal/d) with a population of 8,049,313, while Georgia with a population of 8,186,453 used only 6,500 (Mgal/d). The large discrepancy between NC and GA's water usage is due to NC's greater use of water for thermoelectric power.
The data below was pulled from the USGS survey and illustrates NC's water usage in the eight categories examined by the USGS. Thermoelectric and public supply account for 92% of water use statewide.
| User | Amount (Mgal/day) |
| Public Supply | 945 |
| Domestic | 189 |
| Irrigation | 287 |
| Livestock | 121 |
| Aquaculture | 7.88 |
| Industrial | 293 |
| Mining | 36.4 |
| Thermoelectric | 9,470 |
| TOTAL | 11,349 |
Here is North Carolina's historical water use, in mgd, plotted against population growth (divided by 1000 to scale to water use in mgd):
with population projected to grow to over 12 million by 2030, where should we expect water use to be?
Thermoelectric treatment by state water plan
While using water to cool electric generating facilities can have an impact on water temperature and sometimes on water quality, almost all of the water withdrawn is returned within a short distance and is available for other uses downstream. Therefore, with the focus of this report being water supply planning, unless specifically noted, the discussions, tables, and analysis throughout this report do not include thermoelectric generation uses.
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It is hard to square this statement with the real amounts of water consumed for power cooling. In the Catawba basin, for example, Duke Energy's two power plants (the Marshall steam plant and the McGuire nuclear plant) together consume 36 mgd, according to Duke's filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and this number probably does not include the increased evaporation from Lake Norman as a result of the return of heated water to the lake. That amount is greater than the total daily use of most cities in North Carolina. It is true that "almost all of the water withdrawn is returned" in the sense that such huge volumes of water are withdrawn for cooling that the return flows represent a large percentage of the withdrawal--but the absolute amount of water consumed (evaporated) are significant. See further discussion here
