PWL blog

See this site www.waterfootprint.org and estimate how much water you use compared to people in other countries - your “water footprint.”

The cover of the August 2008 issue of Scientific American magazine says “Running Out of Water, a Six-Point Plan to Avert a Global Crisis,” and the cover story is “Facing the Freshwater Crisis” by Peter Rogers www.sciam.com/sciammag

From CD-adapco’s magazine Dynamics, issue 2.01, p. 41: “The largest single product of the global oil and gas industry is neither oil nor gas, but water: produced at a rate of approximately 3 barrels of water to every barrel of oil, in 1999 the oil and gas industry was responsible for extracting 77 billion barrels of water.” This water has to be separated from the oil and gas, cleaned, and reinjected or discharged. www.cd-adapco.com Also see post below “Water from Crude Oil?” on May 28, 2008 about recovery technology by Altela.

The Palo Alto Research Center has a device that purifies water by centripetal force, apparently. Link:

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1008_3-6236355-3.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

The Water Standard Company http://www.csengin.org/ has developed a “seawater desalination vessel.” This is a ship that can anchor off shore and provide drinking water to residents on land in response to water supply emergencies. Reverse osmosis is used.

A New Mexico startup company, Altela, is developing a method to recover pure water from crude oil, as discussed in the Green Tech blog at CNET News.
Link to the article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9954182-54.html.
Link to Altela: http://www.altelainc.com/.

Article about fresh water crisis around world. See especially section about Intel semiconductor fabs in Chandler, Arizona. Article by M. Power in May 2008 issue of Wired Magazine. www.Wired.com

“A water crisis in the Western United States is primarily due to manmade global warming, and it could force difficult choices for the region as farmers, residents and biofuel producers fight for their share of water. Sixty percent of the changes in the West’s water cycle are due to increased atmospheric greenhouse gases, write scientists in a paper published Thursday in Science.” From article by A. Madrigal in January 2008 Wired Magazine online about study done by UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers, including Tim Barnett. Link to article in www.Wired.com

“it takes between 3,000 gallons and 6,000 gallons of water to power a 60-watt incandescent bulb for 12 hours a day over the course of a year. That statistic was published on Thursday by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who have studied how demand for a dwindling natural resource–fresh water–plays into energy.” See article by Martin LaMonica at
http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9921125-54.html

See this article “Experts seek answers on water footprint ” by A. Max, Associated Press, Thursday Mar 27, 2008. Excerpt: “The threat of climate change has drawn attention to carbon footprints, the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity. Now scientists have begun calculating a water footprint, the amount of water needed to produce goods or services. A report published this month by UNESCO-IHE, the Institute for Water Education in Delft, says it takes 70-400 times as much water to create energy from biofuels as it does from fossil fuels.” LINK TO ARTICLE