Solving The Water-Energy Crisis

by Stephen Lacey, Podcast Producer

Published: June 25, 2010

Boston, Massachusetts The world is running out of water. By 2030, the UN projects that 60 percent of the global population will face water shortages, increasing social unrest and creating additional risk for companies.

As demand for water increases, so too will demand on the energy system. Technologies like desalination require enormous amounts of fossil energies to process water. But burning more fossil resources exacerbates climate change, thus making water shortages more severe. And more severe water shortages mean that we'll need yet more fossil energies to process water. In this podcast, we'll look at how companies are implementing new technologies to lower the energy intensity of desalination, monitor water use, and create new ways of generating energy at wastewater treatment facilities and desalination plants. GG Pique, CEO and president of Energy Recovery Inc., describes how his company's pressure exchanger recycles 85% of the energy used by a reverse osmosis desalination plant. Reka Sumangali, a water analyst with Lux Research, talks about how the desalination market has evolved to become less energy intensive. Dallas Kachan, managing partner of Kachan and Co., discusses the potential of Osmotic Power, an up-and-coming form of baseload generation that can be sited alongside desalination facilities. And Peter Williams, the CTO of IBM's Big Green Innovation program, describes how the global water shortage will impact the way multi-national companies like IBM will do business in the future. His interview comes to us from the Ceres Sustainability Podcast. Inside Renewable Energy is a weekly audio news program featuring stories and interviews on all the latest developments in the renewable energy industries. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/podcast/2010/06/solving-the-water-crisis