ENERGY-WATER PERPLEXUS

摘要

"Separate but equal" is the doctrine America has historically embraced for water and energy, but the times are changing and efforts to break down the institutional, legal, and policy walls and integrate the two "cultures" are growing stronger every day. We all know water and energy linkages, tensions, and tradeoffs exist throughout stages of exploration, production, distribution, restoration, and reinvention. What's surprising, and encouraging, though, is the increasing level of scientific and policy focus on the subject. Just over the last decade, "energy -water nexus" has come out of the blue, reached buzz word status, and begun to receive the kind of attention needed for nitty-gritty detail. Research priorities, policies, and practices will need to target not just the obvious (and not so obvious) linkages and synergies of energy and water conservation and efficiency but also the contentious trade-offs, and potential collisions, between the two when regulatory environmental impacts are at stake.