Running Out: Oil or Water?

We have a limited supply of oil, says Bryce, but we also have a limited supply of Rolex watches.

Description: And which problem is more easily fixed?

Question:  Which will run out first: oil or water?

Transcript: We will always have a supply of water, the problem is that the demand for water is increasing very rapidly and we are not going to have enough to supply the amounts needed by a large part of the planets population. Also the problem with water is not that we are going to run out of it, that it is unevenly distributed on the planet, so there is always going to be enough water up in northern Canada, Alaska and Siberia where there aren’t many people, at least there aren’t many people now. Where as in North Africa and in Central Asia and in Middle East where population rates are the highest on the planet, water is very scarce and with global warming it is likely that water will become even more scarce. So, you have a collision between rising population rates and possibly diminishing supplies of water, that is the flashpoint as far as water goes. That is what worries me.

Question: Which problem is easier to fix?

Transcript: Oil is fixable if we move dramatically to adapt alternatives energy policies, but as I say oil is something that this country in particular is very addicted to using and we were very reluctant to make dramatic changes. When I say “we” the American people in general, now there are plenty of people who have made changes, they have traded in their gas guzzlers for hybrid or they go to work on bicycles and so on. So, people are beginning to make changes, but many more will have to do so. What worries me about United States is that we have militarized our oil dependency and we are already engaged in these force to protect our supply of oil. So far countries around the world haven’t been quite so ready to militarize their water policy. So, we have to try to keep things that way. There is a connection between the two and its an unfortunate one, which is that the greater supply, potential supply of water on earth is the oceans, lot of water out there, but to convert saltwater into freshwater is very energy intensive and energy is the thing we are running out of. So, to make a technological shift, we have to find some new sources of energy that are not going to damage the environment and we haven’t solve that one yet. So, actually the priority could be to develop environmentally friendly non-greenhouse gas submitting sources of energy. If we could do that then we might be able to solve the water problem as well. So, that in my mind is a priority, lot of people working on this in laboratories around the world, but not on a scale large enough to solve the problem in the next decade or so, in my mind that’s the greatest priority for all of us on the planet today.

Recorded on: 3/14/08

 

Description: It takes water to produce energy, and vice versa.

Transcript:

Yeah, they really are linked in a whole bunch of ways.  We need a great deal of water to produce energy, hydroelectricity of course, and then through that the dams, the major dams that we use of course are one of the big issues we have around water.  We are destroying water to get at new sources of energy like in the Tar Sands in Northern Alberta or coal methane gas mining, which uses a huge amount of water, but it also takes a lot of water to produce energy.  So, if you are turning to nuclear power because you want to save money on board, cut down on fossil fuels [Inaudible] then you are destroying a lot of water to produce the energy through nuclear power.  Biofuels is a perfect example of the combination.  Here we are trying to cut down on fossil fuel production, so we don’t need to use so much in our cars right.  So, we grow industrial biofuels that destroy huge amounts of water and it is almost like the part of government that is giving subsidies for biofuels isn't talking to the part of the government that is putting out the stats on the declining water sources.  [Inaudible] talk to each other man.  You think you can somehow can solve a problem by destroying something else and we are going to have to I think live differently a little bit.  I was at a conference yesterday and heard a 91-year-old activist talking about that we are going to have to live more simply so that others can simply live, which I felt was a lovely term, but this notion of continued growth, which won environmentalist in the US has said has the same DNA as the cancer cell that it has to turn on itself in order to survive, it is not sustainable.  We are going to have to import less and buy less and eat more sustainably, grow our food differently and we are going to have to ask the question, everything we do, everything we grow, everything we produce, everything, what is the impact on water.  How much water was used for that?  Can we afford that?  Who should be paying for that if you are using more than your share?  How do we do that?  So, far it has been a…water has been a free for all.  We have got tons of it.  It comes out of the sky.  What the heck?  We got to stop that thinking and when we do, we will design our cities and our food production and our lives quite differently I think.

 

 

Recorded On: 3/17/08