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-- a _kt75 | reprint _NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here Of all the clean water that our cities consume, roughly half of it flows down our sewers to sewage treatment plants where it is treated and released back to the environment. Conventional sewage treatment plants are designed to clean this water to a degree that can be discharged to rivers or the ocean without major environmental or public health impacts. In many parts of the world, sufficient fresh water supplies are increasingly difficult to source. Water stressed cities now import water, pumped over large distances at a considerable energy cost. Los Angeles, for example, imports 8.9bn litres of water a day to meet the city’s needs. Other cities, such as Ashkelon in Israel, are investing in seawater desalination to produce drinkable water. But this process is also highly energy intensive and its application limited to coastal locations. An al...

-- a _kt75 | reprint NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here Water footprints and virtual water flows have been promoted as important indicators to characterize human-induced water consumption. However, environmental impacts associated with water consumption are largely neglected in these analyses. Incorporating water scarcity into water consumption allows better understanding of what is causing water scarcity and which regions are suffering from it. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ In this study, we incorporate water scarcity and ecosystem impacts into multiregional input-output analysis to assess virtual water flows and associated impacts among 30 provinces in China. China, in particular its water-scarce regions , are facing a serious water crisis driven by rapid economic growth. Our findings show that inter-regional flows of virtual water rev...

-- a _kt75 | double reprint: EN/DE Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . The environmental resources situation is shaped by changes in climatic conditions, coupled with pressures exerted by a rapidly growing global population, its increasing demands and the subsequent impacts on the environment. Current practices across the economy sectors are still not sufficiently ambitious in terms of sustainability ; they fail to ameliorate the stress conditions of vital resources like water. In recent years, the need has been highlighted for governance and management schemes that allocate resources appropriately among users (including the environment) and that promote the efficient use of such resources. The very nature of these needs calls for adequate policy responses. One of these policy responses — applied either separately or in combination with other economic or regulatory instruments — is water pricing . The use of such instruments brings a...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy The European Union should ensure that future climate and energy policies do not undermine the competitiveness of its industry, already weakened by a price gap with the U.S., the bloc’s member states said. Energy ministers from the EU’s 28 nations had their first debate about 2030 carbon-reduction andrenewable energy strategy at their quarterly meeting in Brussels today. It followed yesterday’s gathering of environment ministers, where countries differed over how ambitious Europe’s emissions-cut target should be and how fast new policies should be adopted. The framework for the next decade will next be discussed by EU leaders at their March 20-21 summit. “We need to make sure we combine our objectives for setting ambitious goals with increasing competitveness of the industry and safeguarding energy supply,” Greek E...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy Despite more than 25 years of efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption and boost renewable energy use, fossil fuels will keep dominating the global energy consumption mix, said International Energy Agency (IEA) Chief Economist Fatih Birol. In 1987, a number of countries kicked off a major effort to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels and increase use of renewable energy resources. This global effort came after Norway’s then Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, issued a report on sustainable development at the request of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report. At that time, fossil fuels comprised 82 percent of the mix if energy resources used. Despite 25 years of subsidies and government policies, however, the percentage of fossil fuels in the global energy consumption mix remains...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Famous as the source of the Blue Nile, which flows from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands, this East African country is far less well-known for its promising groundwater potential. But the Ethiopian government is now planning to tap into its largely unexploited groundwater resources, both to sustain a population of over 90 million – many of whom suffer from water shortages - and to alleviate the impacts of climate stresses. The Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE) hopes to increase potable water coverage to 98.5 percent of households nationwide by the end of next year, from 68.5 percent in 2013. And for that it will need new water supplies. Scientists from the British Geological Survey and University College London estimated in a 2012 study on Africa’s underground water reserves that Ethiopia has groundwater storage of 12,700 km³, much less than so...

-- a _kt75 | reprint compilation   Tweet news reprint : International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Yukiya Amano said that nuclear power will make a significant and growing contribution to sustainable development in the coming decades. Amano made the comments at the International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21st Century, which was held between 27 June to 29 June in St. Petersburg. IAEA organized the conference in cooperation with the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and hosted by the Government of the Russian Federation through the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom. About 500 participants, including 38 ministers, representing 89 countries and 7 international organizations attended the conference. Participants in the conference agreed that each country had a responsibility to establish an appropriate and adequate legal framework, and to fulfil its obligations in nuclear ...

-- a note from _kt75 Hydro power is considered one of the promising sustainable (because renewable) ener g y sources able to fa cilitate and guarantee a safe energy turnaround away from fossil energy carriers. Accordingly, hydro power industry is on the rise a nd a multitude of construction projects are either in the planning stage , in progress or already finished. However, as in any other case in ad dition to the te chnical dimension al so hydr o power has a n e nvironmental , an economic and a geo-p olitical d imen sion which are cl osely interlinked [ 1 ]. Due to the ongoing pronounced and rather uni -directional prom otion of al ternative/renewable en ergy car riers (like hydro power ) critical tra de-offs and ass oci ated conflicts (whatever kind of) can create rat her drastic situations and the actually sustainable nature of renewable energy carr iers gets lost. In particular politically unstable, mainly developing regions are concerned [ 2 ] - [ 5 ] . Here, bu...