Archive for September, 2024

Brazil Mega Dams Promised A Green Future. Then Came Climate Change
September 27th, 2024

Via the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a look at how Brazilian President Lula bet big on mega dams in the 2000s to expand clean energy. Now climate change is hurting Brazil’s green ambitions: Amazon mega dams running well below capacity as river levels low Underperformance not new but worsened by record-setting drought Brazil turns to polluting […]

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How Much Energy Does Desalination Use?
September 19th, 2024

Via Sustainability by Numbers, a look at how much energy does desalinisation use? Is it “absurdly cheap”? Elon Musk has said several times recently that desalinisation is “absurdly cheap”.1  This was surprising to me. When I was younger I was taught the mantra that desalinisation “uses lots of energy and is really expensive”. And to be honest, […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
As the scarcity of water and energy continues to grow, the linkage between these two critical resources will become more defined and even more acute in the months ahead.  This blog is committed to analyzing and referencing articles, reports, and interviews that can help unlock the nascent, complex and expanding linkages between water and energy -- The Watergy Nexus -- and will endeavor to provide a central clearinghouse for insightful articles and comments for all to consider.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy.  Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation.  He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”