Top 5 Ways to Cut Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus Pressures

Via Medium, a look at a range of best practices to reduce water-energy-carbon nexus pressures: Abstracting, treating, and conveying water requires significant amounts of energy, most of which is derived from fossil fuels including coal, gas, or natural gas. Energy production from these sources generates carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Urban water utilities typically account […]

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Oil Industry Running Out Of Water

Via CNN, a report on the watergy constraints facing the fracking industry: America’s oil industry faces a number of challenges, including low oil prices, the rise of electric vehicles and proposals to limit fracking. But one of its biggest problems: The industry is running out of water. The US oil boom is being driven mostly by the growth of fracking — […]

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Renewable Energy Solutions to the Water-Energy-Climate Nexus

Via Connect4Climate, an article on the potential for renewable solutions to reduce the watergy crisis: The water sector is energy-hungry, with energy consumption by the sector equivalent to all the energy used by Australia. In 2014, around 4% of global electricity consumption was used to extract, distribute, and treat water and wastewater as well as […]

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Replacing Coal Saves Billions Of Gallons Of Water

Via Oil Gas Daily, a report on how replacing coal with gas or renewables saves billions of gallons of water: The ongoing transition from coal to natural gas and renewables in the U.S. electricity sector is dramatically reducing the industry’s water use, a new Duke University study finds. “While most attention has been focused on […]

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The World Can Make More Water From the Sea, but at What Cost?

Courtesy of The New York Times, a detailed look at desalination: Desalinated seawater is the lifeblood of Saudi Arabia, no more so than at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, an international research center that rose from the dry, empty desert a decade ago. Produced from water from the adjacent Red Sea that is forced through […]

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As Water Shortages Pile Up, Energy Investors Need New Ways to Manage Drought Risk

Via World Resources Institute, a report on the impact of water shortages on power production and utilities’ bottom lines: On July 5, 2015, the first of six thermal power generation units at the Parli Thermal Power Station in Maharashtra, India shut down. Unable to draw enough water from the nearby Majalgaon dam, which had nearly run […]

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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.”