Water and Energy Security: Can We Satisfy the Need for Both?.

Water and energy are as basic as it gets. Access to both is critical to food production, economic activity, public health, poverty reduction, and national security. It is also true that policy goals associated with providing adequate supplies of clean water and adequate supplies of energy are often in conflict. This creates a conundrum: can we satisfy increasing demands for both as populations increase and expectations and demands increase in both developed and developing parts of the world? What is today’s water-energy situation and what are these demands? What are the necessary trade offs?

Why do policy goals for water and energy often conflict? The conflict arises from the fact that water and energy issues are inextricably linked, and this linkage is referred to routinely today as the water-energy nexus. Water is needed to produce fuels and energy and energy is needed to ensure availability and delivery of water services – as demand for one increases so does the demand for the other. This was not a problem in 1900 when the world’s population was 1.8 billion, but with today’s population of 7 billion, estimated to reach as high as 10 billion in 2050, a serious and potentially overwhelming problem exists. What can we do to meet these global needs in a sustainable fashion? How do we ensure water and energy security? This presentation will provide a context for examining these questions and some thoughts on possible answers.