May 9th, 2013
Via OilPrice.com, an interesting look at desalination: Desalination plants consume a significant amount of energy, and the question now is how much energy should we expend on boosting clean drinking water supplies? There are now 17 desalination plants in the proposal process in the US, and each would consume about 15,000 kilowatt-hours of power for […]
Read more »As Oil And Gas Drilling Competes For Water, One New Mexico County Says No
May 5th, 2013
Via National Geographic, an article on the watergy nexus in New Mexico: In drought-plagued New Mexico, water is gold. And this week, Mora County in the northern part of the state took a firm stand to protect its precious liquid: it banned all oil and gas extraction from county lands. It is believed to be […]
Read more »May 3rd, 2013
Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on the impact that fracking may have upon water resources in the western US: In March, workers at a hydraulic fracturing site in western Colorado monitored water pumping pressure and temperature. The technique of oil and gas extraction, which is commonly called “fracking,” uses injected water to […]
Read more »Watergy Nexus To Exacerbate MENA Region’s Water Scarcity
April 21st, 2013
Via The Saudi Gazette, an interesting article on the impact of the watergy nexus in the Middle East region: The MENA is the world’s most water-scarce region. By 2030, lack of water availability will become a severe constraint to health and socio-economic development in all 17 MENA countries, Frost & Sullivan said in its new […]
Read more »April 20th, 2013
Via IPS News, a report on Mexico’s water constraint on fracking for shale gas: Mexico plans to expand shale gas exploration this year, but it could run into a shortage of water, which is essential to hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the method used to capture natural gas from shale rocks. “In Mexico there isn’t enough […]
Read more »The Drought Is Drying Up All Our Ethanol
April 4th, 2013
Via Mother Jones, an article on the impact the drought is having upon the ethanol industry: Bill Pracht has bad memories of last summer. “The drought was so bad here that the corn was just decimated,” he recalls of the farm country around Garnett, Kan., where he oversees East Kansas Agri-Energy, an ethanol plant. “Many […]
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