Water Shortages To Slow Energy Production Worldwide

Jakarta, Jan 21 (Antara) - If appropriate measures are not taken, it is forecast that water shortages will slow down energy production globally, stated the World Bank in its press release received here on Tuesday. According to the press statement, energy production requires a lot of water, yet, its availability and access is having an unfavorable impact on the energy production globally. Last year alone, water shortages let to the shutdown of thermal power plants in India, impacted the energy production in power plants in the United States, and threatened to reduce hydropower generation in many countries, including Sri Lanka, China, and Brazil. The problem is expected to only aggravate further. According to the International Energy Agency, by the year 2035, the world`s energy consumption will increase by 35 percent, which in turn will increase water consumption by 85 percent. "The world`s energy and water are intrinsically linked. With surging demands for both resources and increasing challenges posed due to climate change, water scarcity is bound to threaten the long-term viability of the energy projects and hamper development," claimed Rachel Kyte, World Bank Group Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change. Part of the challenge faced by the energy sector is the rising demand for water. This demand will increase as the world`s population burgeons to 9 billion, thereby necessitating a 50 percent increase in the agricultural production and a 15 percent increase in the already-strained water withdrawals. With two-thirds of the world`s population or 5 billion people forecast to be urbanized by the year 2030, the cities in the developing countries will be under huge pressure to meet their demands for food, energy, and water services. As of now, some 780 million people do not have access to clean water and 2.5 billion or more than one-third of the world`s population does not have access to basic sanitation facilities. In order to tackle the problem, the World Bank is recently launching a novel initiative at the World Future Energy Summit and International Water Summit in Abu Dhabi, which will assist the developing countries in better planning and managing scaling-up energy capacity to meet rising demands, in tandem with water resource management. Thirsty Energy is a global initiative intended to help governments prepare for an uncertain future by identifying synergies and quantifying tradeoffs between energy development plans and water use. The initiative will also help in piloting cross-sectoral planning to ensure the sustainability of energy and water investments and creating assessment tools and management frameworks to assist governments in better coordinating the decision-making process. With the energy sector as an entry point, the initial phase of work has already commenced in South Africa and dialogues has been initiated in Bangladesh, Morocco, and Brazil, where the challenges have already manifested themselves, and thus, there is a pressing need for an integrated approach. "Water constraints faced by the energy sector can be overcome, but all public and private stakeholders must work in unison to develop innovative tools and utilize water as a guiding factor for evaluating the viability of projects," stated Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency.