Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Water Grab In Kansas Oil Boom

Via CNN’s Money page, a look at the watergy challenge in southern Kansas: In the farm country of southern Kansas, water is a precious commodity. And not just for farming — for fracking. In hydraulic fracturing, water is injected into the ground at a high pressure to help crack shale rock and bring oil to […]

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Reduced Water Flows To Hit European Power Supplies

Via Energy Daily, a report that reduced river flows and warmer water due to climate change will lead to power supply disruptions in Europe.  As the article notes: “…A European Commission-funded study conducted in part by the Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands predicted thermoelectric power generating capacity from 2031-60 will decrease 6-19 […]

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The Watergy Nexus Down Under: Australia’s Agriculture And Energy Sectors Clash Over Water

Courtesy of Circle of Blue, a look at Australia’s growing watergy crisis: The scale and rapid development of Australia’s coal seam gas industry is changing the social fabric of the country’s small towns and farming regions. Drilling has bruised agriculture’s ego by challenging the decades-long idea that rural areas should be quiet places where landowners […]

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Western China’s Watergy Crisis

Via Yale’s Environment 360 blog, a look at how China – In its quest to find new sources of energy – is increasingly looking to its western provinces. But, as the article notes, the nation’s push to develop fossil fuel and alternative sources has so far ignored a basic fact — western China simply lacks the […]

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Private Water Companies Partner With Fracking Lobby

Via AlterNet, an interesting report that two of the nation’s biggest private water utilities may soon profit from treating the wastewater generated after they sell water for fracking purposes: Two of the country’s largest private water utility companies are participants in a massive lobbying effort to expand controversial shale gas drilling — a heavy industrial […]

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Nuclear Power Proposal in Utah Reignites a Century-Old Water War

Via Inside Climate News, a report on the rising tension over the water use of a proposed nuclear power station in Utah: For more than 100 years and maybe back to the days of outlaw Butch Cassidy, water from the Green River has nourished fields of sweet watermelons near the tiny town of Green River, […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
As the scarcity of water and energy continues to grow, the linkage between these two critical resources will become more defined and even more acute in the months ahead.  This blog is committed to analyzing and referencing articles, reports, and interviews that can help unlock the nascent, complex and expanding linkages between water and energy -- The Watergy Nexus -- and will endeavor to provide a central clearinghouse for insightful articles and comments for all to consider.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy.  Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation.  He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”