RenewableEnergyWorld.com
Originally Posted: April 22, 2015
By: Cathy Chickering Pace, SMU Geothermal Lab
Cathy Chickering Pace is a Project Specialist in the SMU Geothermal Laboratory in Dallas, Texas, where she primarily focuses on project management of the Lab’s sponsored research from both government and private industry.
Clean water — it’s a precious resource in hot demand right now, for more than taking a shower or watering our crops. The United Nations projects the world’s population will grow by another billion people, to 8.4 Billion, by 2030. More people means more need for food, water, electricity, and other necessities. Beyond the obvious demands for water, our increasing appetite for electricity also requires water — and plenty of it. Most of the electricity generated in the U.S. uses water in some capacity.
When the Sierra Nevada snowpack is at 65 year low, there will be serious water shortages in California that can affect us all. Droughts can be powerful motivators for innovative water efficiency and conservation measures, and have led to the development of innovative technologies, such as desalination of brackish ground water, produced oil field water, or seawater. Certainly these technologies hold tremendous promise, particularly in places where high salinity waters outweigh the freshwater supply significantly — places like Texas, where brackish water is produced from oil and gas wells.
Texas also happens to be a large agricultural user of fresh water, especially in the southernmost part of the state, in the Rio Grande Valley where cotton, ‘Ruby Red Grapefruits’, ‘Texas 1015 onions’, grain sorghum, melons, sugar cane, and other crops are plentiful — but not without the help of irrigation systems. In fact, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), irrigation accounts for the largest use of fresh water throughout the U.S. Because the Valley is experiencing rapid population growth, the demands for water will only increase. The International Boundary & Water Commission projects the area’s municipal water needs to increase by a whopping 100 percent in the next 50 years and industrial use to increase by 40 percent. The current source for nearly all of the Valley’s water? The Rio Grande River: subject to extreme weather fluctuations, beginning to experience higher salinity conditions, and an international boundary. READ MORE