Hi Frank -
It's worse than we think. We've had our heads in the sand.
It's not just water for cooling in power generation (nuclear or otherwise), it's water for injection to recover fossil fuels. It's clean water for increased population. Water for agriculure. It's water that just isn't falling in some places, or isn't being captured in others.
It isn't just energy costs, it's the synergy of cost escalation for required inputs on new infrastructure.
It was years ago when we discussed this - how we'd be wise to begin construction immediately, given anticipated demands, and (then) low energy costs, and a strong economy. Lead time was an important consideration, too.
One of the factors discussed at the time was the availability of capital. Recalled, my statement was that infrastructure capex requirements (in the face of synergistic escalation of input costs) would strain global resources.
Then, the effects of warming were poorly understood. Now, we're starting to see those effects - and it's not pretty. Cyprus is experiencing drought sufficient to require water from Greece, carried in tankers.
Yes, they can install additional desalinization plants - but that has a cost - in energy, and in dollars. OK, solar has very low energy cost, but there's still the dollar cost.
In other places, we're getting colossal rainfalls, precipitating floods. Such events can't capture water; neither nature nor man-made infrastructure can retain catastrophic flows. So mostly, it escapes - unused, and unusable.
There are answers, but they cost - and costs are only going to go up. As they do, they'll continue to marginalize larger segments of the economy and the population.
Nature was so cost-effective, so cheap. Now, the New Math of Environmental Cost and declining resources is dictating what we can do.
The good news is that the world will probably be a much healthier place in a century or two, when a new equilibrium is found.
The interim won't be much fun.
Jim |
