Via UPenn’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, a report on solar irrigation and hidden costs of clean energy: In water-scarce farming contexts, solar-based groundwater pumping for irrigation (SGPI) is celebrated for freeing farmers from unreliable diesel and grid power, which enables longer growing seasons and more competitive agricultural production. But this transition does not occur […]
Read more »Via Circle of Blue, a look at how Colorado River water could enable a pumped storage hydropower project intended to make the region’s electric grid more resilient: Standing in a breezy parking lot on Navajo land in the state’s far northwest corner, Tom Taylor looked toward the western horizon and then upwards at the furrowed mass […]
Read more »Via Andy Masley, a thoughtful analysis of AI’s impact on water: AI data centers use water. Like any other industry that uses water, they require careful planning. If an electric car factory opens near you, that factory may use just as much water as a data center. The factory also requires careful planning. But the idea […]
Read more »Courtesy of The New York Times, a look at how demand for power is growing fast, but hydro plants, the oldest source of clean energy, are struggling because of droughts, floods and other extreme weather linked to climate change: On Brazil’s third-largest river basin, deep in the Amazon, a massive hydroelectric power plant stands as […]
Read more »Via Circle of Blue, a look at the two-decade hydropower plunge at two large Coloardo River dams: Lakes Mead and Powell, the largest reservoirs on the Colorado River, do not just store water. Their dams, Hoover and Glen Canyon, also generate electricity. This hydropower drives irrigation pumps and fuels industries. It keeps the lights on […]
Read more »Via The Tyee, a report on how – as Dawson Creek considers transferring drinking water from the Peace River – the province of British Columbia could make energy companies fund the project: The projected cost of a $100-million water pipeline stretching more than 50 kilometres from the Peace River to drought-stressed Dawson Creek is nearly five […]
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