Page - 26 - in Water, Energy, and Environment - A Primer

providingadequatesuppliesofenergyandcleanwaterareoftenin conflict.Aswemove further into the21st century,whendemand for one increases so does demand for the other. Given their linkage, can we satisfy increasing demands for both as global population and human welfare increase? Are trade-offs necessary between the two? This was not a problem at the beginning of the 20th century, when the world’s resources supported fewer than 2 billion people, but today’s population of more than 7 billion, and heading higher, presents a vastly different situation. 3.4 ADDRESSINGTHECONUNDRUM Whenone looksathowtoaddress theconundrum,onemust start with the understanding that water and energy are in abundant but not necessarily inexpensive supply. The world will not run out ofwater nor of energy, butwemay– andmost likelywill– have to paymore for one or both. Complicating this situation is that government officials are too often resistant to telling people the hard truth if that truth involves higher consumer costs and risks negative political reactions. Generally, people want more clean water and more energy, but are reluctant to pay for it. This tells us that the issue is not technological, but economic andpolitical. An interesting example of how we might deal with the conundrum is associatedwith desalination. In the early days of large-scale desalination, thermal distillation was the norm. The needed thermal energy was provided by the waste heat from the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity generation: for example, via the combustion of oil in Saudi Arabia and of natural gas inQatar. The irony is that theCO2 released into the atmosphere by this combustion increases global warming and results in changed rainfall patterns that often reduce freshwater supplies. Addressing this conflict requires breaking the link between the use of fossil fuels and supplies of cleanwater. Water,Energy, andEnvironment–APrimer26