While cutting emissions is necessary to curb global warming, some renewable and clean energy sources use more water than fossil fuel-powered plants,

The choices we make balancing power and water are already becoming an urgent issue in the fight against climate change, says Amanda Fencl of the Stockholm Environment Institute.

As the world gets hotter and drier thanks to our predilection for burning fossil fuels.

finds a report released by the US Department of Energy -- DoE) that looked at how resilient the US's power infrastructure is to climate change.

The main consumer is hydropower, which requires large reservoirs of water to generate electricity.

The biggest users of water in the US are power plants, particularly the fossil fuel and nuclear plants that together generate almost 90 per cent of the nation's energy.

Nearly half the water the US consumes is used to cool these plants and drive their turbines. But some renewable and clean energy sources also need a lot of water, says the DoE report.

Other technologies use it indirectly, to irrigate biofuel crops, for example, or cool and wash solar panels.

Currently renewable and clean energy technologies only make up a small proportion of the US's energy mix-for example, hydroelectric provides 7 per cent of the county's power, and solar less than 1 per cent-but if the US is going to meet its target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, renewables and clean energy will need to feature more heavily in future. Thank you.