Principles for protecting freshwater resources and biodiversity during a low-carbon energy transition

March 11th, 2014

Dr. Carey W. King, The Energy Institute, University of Texas, Austin, USA

Energy production systems require water inputs to produce and transform energy resources. Growing populations need fresh water for drinking and agriculture. These linkages have been much explored in technology, research, and policy. Freshwater biodiversity, however, also depends upon naturally flowing and clean water in which to thrive, and these freshwater ecosystems are impacted by human decisions in response to future water, energy, and climate change constraints.

Through our past experiences and research, we do understand much about these multidimensional interactions, but unfortunately, there is still more to learn regarding the impacts that our energy, water, and climate-related choices will have on the ecosystems around us.

There are many tradeoffs to consider in achieving future energy and environmental objectives while protecting freshwater biodiversity, and here I suggest five overarching principles to guide decision making:

(1) Advance Integrated Water Resource Management

IWRM is a collaborative engagement process with the goal to consider ecosystem health and biodiversity in tandem with other goals for freshwater use such that management of water resources is as fair and equitable as possible to all water users1,2. Technically, no water use or impact is excluded within IWRM; practically, all uses and impacts will not be addressed to full satisfaction by all. While often neglected historically in water planning, energy production systems should be an integral consideration.

(2) Protect and restore environmental flows

Environmental flows are the seasonal and annual streamflow patterns needed to maintain healthy aquatic and riparian ecosystems. They include high flows as well as low flows, as both serve equally important ecological functions. Changes in natural streamflow patterns can severely impact the plants and animals that depend on the life-cycle cues they provide and the habitat they create and maintain. Dam operations, water withdrawals and return flows, and certain land-use practices alter streamflow patterns, and even relatively small industrial flows can be environmentally significant during low streamflow3.

(3) Invest in energy technologies and urban planning to minimize water consumption, withdrawal, and stream alteration

Freshwater biodiversity is enhanced by installing energy technologies that have less direct impact on freshwater resources. Thus, a recommended principle is to increase investment in the research, design, development, and demonstration of freshwater-conserving technologies related to low-carbon energy production. Dry cooling for thermoelectric power plants reduces water consumption and withdrawal, but the local situation determines the circumstances in which they are appropriate.4 In response to oil supply constraints and fuel/greenhouse gas emissions regulations, the transportation sector will come increasingly tied to electricity and subsequent water impacts.

(4) Use storage as a translational concept

“Storage” and “demand management” are concepts considered in both water and energy sectors that can help ‘translate’ motives and solutions between the sectors to enable cooperation. The energy and water sectors should work and learn together how to use new energy and water storage concepts to manage future shifts in climate patterns and to low-carbon energy generation.

(5) Effective governance needs good data collection and management

Databases and data collection are valuable in solving the informational challenges that exist during IWRM and other planning processes. Gathering information is possible through the creation of well-structured and maintained databases and reporting functions for energy and water data5,6. Governments have a solid foundation for integrated policymaking by designing policies based on these data and the latest scientific and engineering understanding.

The principles above provide context to understand potentially disparate strategic objectives. To achieve any one of these strategic objectives, one can choose one or more of many policy choices (regulation, taxes, subsidies, etc.), and each policy can promote one or more technologies and management practices. To understand the tradeoffs among the multiple strategic objectives, consider the following definitions7:

Water security is the consistent and reliable availability of freshwater or the services it provides;

is the consistent and reliable availability of freshwater or the services it provides; Energy security is the consistent and reliable availability of energy resources or the services they provide;

is the consistent and reliable availability of energy resources or the services they provide; Water quality is the chemical composition of water in lakes, rivers, and wetlands;

is the chemical composition of water in lakes, rivers, and wetlands; Carbon management relates to efforts that reduce or avoid anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in aggregate or sequester carbon from the atmosphere; and

relates to efforts that reduce or avoid anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in aggregate or sequester carbon from the atmosphere; and Freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem health is the diversity of aquatic life in freshwater habitats and the natural processes that occur in a normal functional ecosystem.

Table 1 presents a list of energy and water technologies, legal instruments, and management practices that are relevant to the energy-water-carbon-biodiversity nexus. For each listed technology or management practice (left column), a relationship to the objectives is given as follows:

An up arrow (?) indicates that the technology helps to achieve the strategic objective;

A down arrow (?) indicates that the technology hinders achievement of the objective;

A level arrow (?) indicates that the technology has choices and tradeoffs that make its effect upon the objective site-specific or unclear; and

Dashes (–) indicate that the technology has no appreciable impact on the strategic objective.

The (?) symbol indicates policy choices that are effective for increasing or decreasing use of a technology or practice, and the (?) symbol indicates policy choices that are only moderately effective. The effectiveness of a particular policy in promoting a technological solution is independent of whether that solution produces good or bad outcomes for the objectives.

To briefly summarize takeaways from Table 1, several technologies show a “multiple win” scenario in terms of positively addressing more than three of the strategic objectives: low-flow fixtures, energy-efficient appliances and buildings, rainwater collection for non-potable uses, solar hot water heating, geothermal heat pumps, electricity peak shaving as a demand response method, solar PV power, wind power, combined heat and power (CHP), hydropower, and converting municipal waste to energy. Other technologies have various tradeoffs: biofuels development, groundwater pumping, electricity peak shifting for demand management, carbon capture and storage (CCS), greywater reuse for potable purposes, and inter-basin water transfer.

There are a host of choices in deciding how to manage future energy supplies that have lower greenhouse gas emissions and lower overall regional water consumption and withdrawal. Various technologies, management practices, and legal instruments can interact in myriad combinations. The increased complexity of these multi-metric (energy-water-carbon-biodiversity nexus) solutions derives from the different magnitudes and scales of the concerns. Freshwater resource and biodiversity impacts are local and regional. The oil and natural gas supply chain is global, electricity is traded across continents using transmission lines, but primary energy resource extraction is again local and regional. Further, greenhouse gases emitted from anywhere can affect climate everywhere. The recommended principles presented here focus on how to plan for resilient energy and biodiversity solutions that are driven by global needs for energy and greenhouse gas mitigation.

Footnotes:

F1. In terms of water security, the default assumption for Table 1 is that water efficiency or conservation benefits freshwater biodiversity with the assumption that any ‘saved’ water remains in the environment (e.g. as instream flow). In reality, there are more complex feedbacks in that water ‘saved’ is often used for some other pure economic purpose that does not return the ‘saved’ water to the environment.

F2. Just as Stanley Jevons considered more efficient use of coal would exhaust coal resources quicker, not slower, historical data shows that human economies have continuously employed more energy-efficient technologies only to enable higher overall energy consumption8. Here I do not address any differences between overall energy (or water) conservation versus energy (or water) efficiency. Any goals for energy and water conservation should not be confused with efficiency. Policies that employ technology-specific tactics must consider if results are measureable at larger system scales (e.g. Independent System Operator regions, water basins, global).

References:

1. CEQ 2000. Protection of the environment (under the National Environment Policy Act), Report No 40 CFR 1500-1517. Washington, DC: Council on Environmental Quality.

2. KIESECKER, J. M., COPELAND, H., POCEWICZ, A. & MCKENNEY, B. 2009. Development by design: blending landscape-level planning with the mitigation hierarchy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8, 261-266.

3. WELTMAN-FAHS, M. & TAYLOR, J. M. 2013. Hydraulic Fracturing and Brook Trout Habitat in the Marcellus Shale Region: Potential Impacts and Research Needs. Fisheries, 38, 4-15.

4. KING, C. W. (ed.) 2014. Thermal Power Plant Cooling: Context and Engineering, New York, NY: ASME Press.

GAO 2009. Energy-Water Nexus: Improvements to Federal Water Use Data Would Increase Understanding of Trends in Power Plant Water Use (GAO-10-23). Government Accountability Office.

5. GAO 2012. Energy-Water Nexus: Coordinated Federal Approach Needed to Better Manage Energy and Water Tradeoffs. In: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE (ed.).

6. KING, C. W., STILLWELL, A. S., SANDERS, K. T. & WEBBER, M. E. 2013. Coherence Between Water and Energy Policies. Natural Resources Journal, 53, 117-215.

7. POLIMENI, J. M., MAYUMI, K., GIAMPIETRO, M. and ALCOTT, B. (2008). The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements. London, Earthscan.

Dr. Carey W. King performs interdisciplinary research related to how energy systems interact within the economy and environment as well as how our policy and social systems can make decisions and tradeoffs among these often competing factors. The past performance of our energy systems is no guarantee of future returns, yet we must understand the development of past energy systems. Carey’s research goals center on rigorous interpretations of the past to determine the most probable future energy pathways. Carey is Assistant Director at the Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin, and Research Associate with the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy within the Jackson School of Geosciences. He has both a B.S. with high honors and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He has published technical articles in the academic journals Environmental Science and Technology, Environmental Research Letters, Nature Geoscience, Energy Policy, Sustainability, and Ecology and Society. He has also written commentary for Earth magazine discussing energy, water, and economic interactions. Further information can be found at: www.careyking.com.

The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here.