UN: Water and energy must work together

The world needs to manage its use of water and energy if it wants to have enough of either vital resource, a new United Nations report states. 

Most of the world’s energy production requires water, and demand for the resource is set to spike in the coming decades, most notably in China’s expanding economy. The boom in hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — in the United States, in particular, puts even more pressure on water sources, according to the report. 

With fracking, water and chemicals are pumped into the ground to break up deposits of trapped gas. To generate electricity, many plants burn coal or use nuclear fuel to heat water, creating steam that turns turbines and produces electricity. In essence, a river runs through every light switch. 

“Decisions concerning energy production need to take account of the limits of water resources, the water requirements of other users (agriculture, cities, industry) and the need to maintain healthy ecosystems,” the U.N. said. "This is not currently the norm.”

By 2050, the amount of water humans draw from different sources will jump 55 percent, driven by growing economies demanding more water to grow food and power cities and industry. Meanwhile, electricity demand will likely grow by 70 percent by 2035.

Experts convened by the United Nations placed part of the blame on generous financial subsidies that keep water prices artificially low.

The key to avoiding a water and electricity crunch, U.N. experts say, is to rethink subsidies by governments that make water cheap or free for energy producers. Without an economic incentive to save, conservation won’t happen.

“The price of energy and water services can better reflect the cost of their provision and socio-environmental impacts without undermining the basic needs of the poor and the disadvantaged,” the U.N. said, arguing for subsidies delivered directly to the needy.

Without both industries working together, things could get ugly.

“There is an increasing risk of conflict between power generation, other water users and environmental considerations,” the U.N. said.

Amid the push for conservation, the uncertainties of a warming climate — with more evaporation and less predictable rain — loom in the background.

The report finds that more cooperation between water and energy suppliers needs to occur in countries around the world. The United States, where fracking projects have brought economic boons along with environmental risk, is no exception.

"In the U.S., like almost every other country that I know of, the management of these two resources is done fairly independently of each other, and there's hardly any correlation in how the two policies are formulated," Zafar Adeel, director the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, told Al Jazeera.

Adeel points to South Africa as an example of a changing mindset that takes water’s links to energy into account. The report highlights Austin, Texas, for successfully managing both water and power well.

Adeel notes that the production of energy itself can pollute water resources. When that happens, energy companies should pay to clean it up.

“In terms of using energy generation or energy extraction from either tar sands or fracking, both of these are quite water-intensive and both create significant impacts on water quality,” Adeel said.

“The energy industry would need to invest quite significantly in treating the effluences from these processes," he said. "And that cost then needs to be incorporated into the cost of running the extraction business.”