June 23rd, 2026
Via the New York Times, a look at a pilot program is building solar panels over irrigation canals to generate electricity. As a bonus, the shade prevents water from evaporating. In California, a sprawling 4,000-mile network of canals winds through citrus orchards and fields of tree nuts, delivering irrigation and drinking water to homes and farms […]
Read more »Uzbekistan Wants Nuclear Energy, But Can It Afford the Water Cost?
April 19th, 2026
Courtesy of The Diplomat, a look at how Uzbekistan is betting on nuclear power to secure its energy future – but it is doing so in one of the most water-stressed regions in the world The Uzbek government’s plan to build a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the Jizzakh region, alongside the creation of a centralized […]
Read more »March 9th, 2026
Via UPenn’s Kleinman Center, a report on the water/energy nexus: Power generation in cities like El Paso, TX is unsustainably consuming local water resources. Fixing this will require retrofitting cooling towers at power plants. What images come to mind when you think of environmental pollution? Likely one of them is a power plant cooling tower. […]
Read more »Powering Farms or Draining Aquifers? Solar Irrigation and the Hidden Costs of Clean Energy
February 5th, 2026
Via UPenn’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, a report on solar irrigation and hidden costs of clean energy: In water-scarce farming contexts, solar-based groundwater pumping for irrigation (SGPI) is celebrated for freeing farmers from unreliable diesel and grid power, which enables longer growing seasons and more competitive agricultural production. But this transition does not occur […]
Read more »January 6th, 2026
Via Circle of Blue, a look at how Colorado River water could enable a pumped storage hydropower project intended to make the region’s electric grid more resilient: Standing in a breezy parking lot on Navajo land in the state’s far northwest corner, Tom Taylor looked toward the western horizon and then upwards at the furrowed mass […]
Read more »The AI Water Issue Is Fake
December 14th, 2025
Via Andy Masley, a thoughtful analysis of AI’s impact on water: AI data centers use water. Like any other industry that uses water, they require careful planning. If an electric car factory opens near you, that factory may use just as much water as a data center. The factory also requires careful planning. But the idea […]
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