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_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint Global demand for energy is expected to rise by 37% from 2013 to 2035, or by an average of 1.4%/year, due in large part to ongoing economic expansion in Asia, particularly in China and India, according to the latest BP Energy Outlook 2035. Demand for oil is projected to increase 0.8%/year to 2035, coming entirely from countries outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Oil consumption within OECD peaked in 2005 and by 2035 is expected to have fallen to levels not seen since 1986. China by 2035 is likely to have overtaken the US as the world’s largest single consumer of oil. The recent worldwide rise in oil supply stemming in large part from strong growth in tight-oil production in the US , meanwhile, is likely to take several years to work through, BP indicates in its outlook. Tight-oil production in 2014 drove overall US oil output higher...

-- a _kt75 | reprint _NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here Approximately 40 to 60 percent of the region’s waste water is discharged into the sea when it could be stored and reused for other purposes, according to ARCADIS’ 2014 Middle East Aquifer Recharge report.“The region should use treated sewage effluent (TSE) as the precious resource it is and stop thinking of it as waste or a useless by-product,” said Titia De Mes, Water for Industry Leader, Middle East at ARCADIS. “TSE can and should be recycled, but this requires a change in thinking from being a choice and a cost to a necessity and investment – the optimal choice for the Middle East is aquifer recharge and recovery.” The report reveals that merely 60 percent of TSE could be stored in the aquifer and used at a later time through various approaches, highlighting three different methods to aquifer recharge – aquifer storage and recovery; aquifer sto...

-- a _kt75 | reprint NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here The sharing of water resources has been an influential feature affecting life, society and development in the Arabian Peninsula , the Mashrek and Mesopotamia for millennia. Historically, communities living in these arid and semi-arid regions always shared the water of rivers, springs and wadis, although this was more out of necessity than idealism. Water resources were traditionally managed at the local level, with tensions emerging between Bedouins, shepherds, pastoralists and growing urban centres. Water management and irrigation schemes – such as the underground aqueducts or falaj networks found in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – sustained different communal needs for dozens of centuries, while the marshes of Mesopotamia, the Tigris floodplain and the Jordan River Valley were cultivated and sustained successive civilizations since earliest of times. Hills...

-- a _kt75 | note NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... This is the two hundredth _kt75 | post since February 2010 and with a daily hit rate between 100 and 200 unique visitors the _kt75 | mirror appears to be a well-accepted source of information in a rather narrow niche: sustainable development with a focus on water management . However, even reliable entities like the _kt75 | mirror seem to be subject to some kind of censor-ship. Just recently the LinkedIN channel of the _kt75 | mirror was temporarily shut-down because of the following baseless accusations: phishing multiple contacting spamming Phishing was never done via _kt75 | mirror, neither multiple contacting. Remains 'spamming'. Now, it might be worth to clarify that the _kt75 | mirror is operated without any kind of (3rd party) advertisement. The only service _kt75 | mirror offers (free of charge) is information supply. This effort is performed with highest dedication and ac...

-- a _kt75 | reprint NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... Water is scarce but it continues to be wasted excessively in many industrial states, warns a new study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), predicting that a global conflict over water resources could bring billions in losses for the German market. EurActiv Germany reports.  Tomatoes from Spain, textiles from India, metals from South Africa, roses from Kenya; every year, Germany imports massive amounts of goods from around the world that would not be available without considerable water resources. But water is becoming an increasingly scarce global resource . In many countries, it has become more and more difficult to supply the population with adequate drinking water and irrigation for crops. Besides export-reliant countries with critical water resources, the effects of the shortage can be devastating for others as well. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . Natural gas is contaminating some aquifers not from hydraulic fracturing but from faulty well preparation, according to a new paper. Poorly built and cemented gas wells, rather than fracking itself, have allowed contaminants to flow into shallow drinking-water sources, according to a report published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. A debate has raged for years over whether the U.S. energy boom is fouling aquifers and water wells—and what can be done about it. Researchers reported Monday that they developed a tool that can identify whether underground gas has migrated toward the surface over time, or whether it moved recently and rapidly up an industry-drilled well or the cement surrounding the well pipe. Fracking involves pushing a slurry of water, sand and chemicals down a well to break up dense rocks and coax more fuel from the ground. Many academics and ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . IRAQ depends on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for drinking water, supplying industry and irrigating massive swathes of farmland. The two rivers account for 98% of the country’s surface water. Until recently the government’s greatest concern has been the fact that the source of neither river is in the country. In the past few decades dams and diversions across Turkey and Syria have steadily reduced the quantity of water reaching Iraq. Now Iraq has a greater concern. Both waterways flow through areas of northern Iraq controlled by the Islamic State (IS), an extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq and today claims an area the size of Jordan straddling Syria and Iraq. On August 8th America began air strikes against the group, after IS carried out a series of attacks that targeted minorities including Christians and Yazidis and threatened the semi-autonomous nort...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . On a bitter cold day in Inner Mongolia, the grasslands here hold an unexpected sight: a shallow lake so warm the surface is shrouded in steam. This lake is a recent addition, formed by water discharged from a new plant that converts coal into methane gas . When operating at full capacity, the Datang International plant will require more than 7 billion gallons of water each year. And this is just a side stream of the vast flows of water demanded by plants turning coal into gas, chemicals and electricity in Inner Mongolia and other regions of China's north and west. These coal complexes rank among the planet's largest industrial emitters of carbon dioxide , which in the decades ahead will escalate climate change and acidification of the oceans. But right now, the coal industry's massive thirst may be both its biggest liability and the biggest constraint ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . Abstract In 2013 faced with a critical shortage of water, the Iranian government called for water conservation and greater water use efficiency nation-wide. Despite imminent shortages , water use in Iran remains inefficient, with domestic use 70 per cent higher than the global average. Iran has a national population of 75 million people, 12 million of whom reside in the capital; demand for water is rapidly increasing, even as major lakes and groundwater resources begin to shrink. Population growth, more frequent droughts and the effects of climate change are creating the ‘perfect storm’ for future water insecurity. We are left with the question, are the proposed changes too little, too late? Paper (abbrev.) Security in the Middle East continues to focus on the political and geostrategic priorities of regional states, but a greater challenge has now presented itself, in the for...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . The German government has committed the country to an 'Energiewende', in which at least 80% of electricity production and 60% of primary energy needs are to be supplied by solar , wind , and other renewable energy sources by 2050. A big open question is how the intermittency of renewable energy sources like wind and sunshine can be reconciled with the need to reliably supply energy whenever and wherever it's needed, whether to heat homes, fuel trucks and trains, or power electrical equipment. 'Power-to- gas ' and 'power-to-liquids' could be the answer, according to engineers and researchers who spoke to a packed hall at the third annual conference of the Power to Gas Association in Berlin on Wednesday (2.7.2014), hosted by the German Energy Agency (DENA) . Michael Sterner, a professor at East Bavarian Technical University in Reg...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 IEA World Energy Outlook special report sees rising role of governments in shaping investment decisions. Meeting the world’s growing need for energy will require more than $48 trillion in investment over the period to 2035, according to a special report on investment released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as part of the World Energy Outlook series. Today’s annual investment in energy supply of $1.6 trillion needs to rise steadily over the coming decades towards $2 trillion. Annual spending on energy efficiency, measured against a 2012 baseline, needs to rise from $130 billion today to more than $550 billion by 2035. “The reliability and sustainability of our future energy system depends on investment,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “But this won’t materialise unless there are credible policy frameworks in place ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 The energy economics of the world is now at a crossroads, giving rise to a fiery debate among experts whether it will bring about a momentous change in the world’s strategic balance. The Ukraine crisis has given an impetus to it by threatening a cut in the supply of Russian oil and gas to Europe; the West is now on the lookout for an alternative source of energy. With the United States making rapid progress in the area of shale oil and gas technology, and several large-scale shale reserves being discovered in Western Europe and Latin America, dependence on hydrocarbon supplies from the Middle East and the Persian Gulf will decrease, which will ultimately lead to a lapse in big power involvement in the region. This has all come as a boon to American companies involved in the exploitation of shale resources, and they are leaving no stone unturned in sweeping away the impediment...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 In 2012, coal-fired and nuclear power plants together provided 56% of the electricity generated in the United States. The role of these technologies in the U.S. generation mix has been changing since 2009, as both low natural gas prices and slower growth of electricity demand have altered their competitiveness relative to other fuels. Many coal-fired plants also must comply with requirements of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and other environmental regulations. Some of the challenges faced by coal-fired and nuclear generators, and the implications for electricity markets if the plants are retired in significant numbers, are analyzed in this discussion. Of the total installed 310 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired generating capacity available at the end of 2012, 50 GW, or 16%, is projected to be retired by 2020 in the AEO2014 Reference case. Despite those projec...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 Today's wind industry, even with the necessary batteries and other grid-scale storage, is energetically sustainable, Stanford scientists say. - However, storing stochastic renewable-based energy is the key challenge that hasn't been solved at all. The worldwide demand for solar and wind power continues to skyrocket. Since 2009, global solar photovoltaic installations have increased about 40 percent a year on average, and the installed capacity of wind turbines has doubled. The dramatic growth of the wind and solar industries has led utilities to begin testing large-scale technologies capable of storing surplus clean electricity and delivering it on demand when sunlight and wind are in short supply. Now a team of Stanford researchers has looked at the "energetic cost" of manufacturing batteries and other storage technologies for the electrical grid. At issue ...