Crises and opportunities at the energy-water interface
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Energy Sector Analysis
Materials science is a gateway to minimizing energy consumption and water consumption, and understanding interfaces is one of the keys that unlocks it. Sensor technology, catalysis, and membrane science are only some of the fields that can contribute to the water-energy challenge.
Crises and opportunities at the energy-water interface By Eva Karatairi Feature Editor: Seth B. Darling
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or many, water and energy are considered amenities people can command with the tips of their fingers. But easy access to water and energy is neither universal, nor has it been easily available for much more than half a century for many people in rural and urban areas around the world. Scientists and engineers, with the help of gravity and electricity, have pushed water up and down mountains and across plains to reach home faucets as well as industries and fields, and have treated it to improve its quality, eventually returning it to the environment without posing a major threat to humans or nature. In turn, water has played a big part in energy production by cooling thermal power plants, putting in motion generators in hydroelectric facilities, stimulating oil and gas recovery, and refining petroleum. Water and energy are intertwined in such a way that if one faces a crisis, then the adequacy and safety of the other is also deeply affected. And both are under stress. We must address the rise in the global demand for energy, while at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions to restrain global warming. Demand for water is also increasing rapidly. Clean water reserves are drying up, and the world is facing water crises that are projected to worsen, posing threats to energy production internationally. Earlier this year, Cape Town, South Africa, made headlines when a three-year drought brought the city close to Day Zero—the day that water stops flowing for its citizens. Israel announced in April 2017 that it will build two new desalination plants, after a five-year drought has caused the worst shortage of natural water the country has seen in a century. Iran is being affected by a decade of low precipitation, with more than 90% of its population and economic production located in areas of high water stress— a situation that bears ominous similarities to what occurred in Syria before the war broke out in 2011. In Flint, Mich., a change in water resource in 2014 resulted in the leaching of lead from old pipes, threatening widespread lead poisoning to its residents. From a global perspective, such incidents are a warning of a disrupted balance in the nexus between water and energy that we must urgently address. However, this also means that exciting opportunities reside in new materials and materials research to ameliorate these challenges. Two US Department of Energy (DOE) reports, “The Water-Energy Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities” (2014) and “Basic Research Needs for Energy and Water” (2018) focus on this water-energy connection and the wide range of energy and water challenges, and identify “the trans
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