Freshwater is a limited natural resource that is essential to the nation’s economic security and prosperity—in no small part because of its role in energy production. The nation’s current droughts highlight questions about how to balance water and energy use.

As part of our ongoing technology assessment series, we released two new videos on water use in the energy sector.

In the first video, watch how water is used in fracking.

In the second video, see ways of reducing the amount of water used to cool thermoelectric power plants—an industry that accounted for 38% of all freshwater withdrawals in the United States in 2010.

To learn more about technologies that can help reduce how much freshwater is used in fracking and thermoelectric power plants, check out our full report. And to learn more about the energy-water nexus, check out our key issues page.