KEYNOTE SPEAKER – The Nexus of Water and Energy PATRICIA LIMERICK DIRECTOR CENTER OF THE AMERICAN WEST, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER
BizWest Energy Summit: Water and Energy Ready To Tango (But Not To Tangle) Patty Limerick Center of the American West July 18, 2019 Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Trigger Warning! The next slide has way too much text (but that will not characterize the whole presentation). Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
The Cognitively Validated Method of Effective Communication: ABT • In the last century, the custom of specialization has reshaped the world of human knowledge AND brought into being distinctive and separate spheres of expertise, terminology, and professional skill; AND, as a result, humanity has benefitted tremendously from the capacities that arose from this specialization, • BUT specialization has also fragmented and divided knowledge, and held back the enterprise of bringing people together to share their findings and to design solutions to complex problems, • THEREFORE, the time has come to invite people in possession of different territories of knowledge to come together and, maybe with the help of a small but peppy team of translators, interpreters, and message carriers, to share their talents, skills, insights, and wisdom with each other. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Hermes and Iris Two Lightly Dressed Greek Gods to Enlist in Our Cause Surely the Hands-Down Winner Of the Prize for the Oddest Slide Ever Shown at a Water and/or Energy Conference But, really, a little supernatural help with message-carrying between the water experts and the energy experts could come in handy. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Surprisingly Congenial Gatherings of Entities Who May Not Seem Initially Compatible Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
An Urgent Reason to Team Up The situation is dire, but not too late for life- saving intervention. To paraphrase Monty Python: “Expertise is not quite dead yet.” Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
I. Some Principal Points of Intersection Where Expertise in Water and Expertise in Energy Cannot Avoid Converging Water essential to many forms of energy production and electricity generation. 1. Pumped water storage to offset the variability of wind and solar. 2. Hydraulic fracturing’s complex configuration of water and energy (water quantity, 3. risk to groundwater, injection or treatment of flowback). Hydroelectricity as renewable energy. 4. Drought, wildlands fire, and the potential problems of transmission lines. 5. Farms as sites where energy and water converge (Combines! Pumps! Leases! 6. Royalties!). Other equally essential matters that should appear in this list? 7. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
1. Energy Production: Water, Water (Nearly) Everywhere (and still plenty of drops to drink) A pleasant opportunity for audience participation: What would you nominate as the most central and significant intersection of water and energy? Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
2. Pumped Water Storage: Landscape as “Battery” Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
3a. “Fracking Uses A Vast Amount of Water”? Not exactly . . . Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
3b. A Nexus of Strong Feeling, and Over-Stated Certainty on All Sides Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
3b. The Impossible Quest for a Graphic without an Attitude Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
3c. Injection: A Sub-Optimal and Possibly Unnecessary Way to Deal with Wastewater Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
3c. Seismicity in Oklahoma Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
3c. A Spirit-Lifting Local Practitioner in Water Treatment Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
4. Hydroelectric Power as Renewable (but Not Universally Loved) Energy Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
5. A Point for Vigilance: Electrical Power Lines and Ignition Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
6. Agriculture: Already the Middle Ground of Water and Energy? Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Agriculture: Middle Ground of Water and Energy? Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
II. Fruitful Occasions for Comparing Notes (maybe starting off with a round of venting) Matters of vexation and frustration shared by water professionals and energy professionals, and thereby subjects for helpful brainstorming and solution-finding. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
A. Coping with a Transition from One Era to the Next The Era of Improbable Comfort Made Possible by a Taken-for-Granted but Truly Astonishing Infrastructure, now showing signs of winding down. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
A. Everyday Invitations to Inattention and Complacency Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
A. An Essential Step in the Transition: Reducing the Disconnect between Production and Consumption Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
B. Going to Work in a Swirl of Intense Cultural, Political, Social, and Psychological Forces Public discussion of both energy and water has a way of getting pulled into zones of drama and exaggeration, and devising a route back to evidence-based deliberation requires a lot of ingenuity and creativity. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
B. Drama and Darkness in Water Management Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
B. Documentaries Designed to Promote Agitation Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
B. Villains Who, Contrary to Some Popular Perceptions, Actually Do Not Work in Water Management or Energy Production Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
C . The Undertapped Rewards of Acknowledging Uncertainty, and Even Humility Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
D. A National Aversion to Maintenance It has become crucially important to persuade the public of the value—really, the heroism— of maintenance. Rather than a tedious and boring burden that descends after the celebration of completed construction, maintenance is a down-to-earth gift to ourselves and to posterity. A question worth an experimental run: How might things improve if we put more weight on the very down-to-earth idea of “durability,” and proportionately less weight on the much more abstract term ‘sustainability”? Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Dedication Ceremonies Would Have Been A Good Time to Mention “Maintenance” Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Conclusion: The Opportunity of 2019 : ISSUES OF INFRASTRUCTURE WHERE NO ONE CAN MISS THEM Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Convening as Strenuous—but Essential—Public Service Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
India: Troubles that Make Our Circumstances Look Very Enviable Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
Capetown on the Edge of “Day Zero,” 2018 Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
TIME TO MOBILIZE WESTERN INSPIRATION “You know not what you can do until you have tried.” Sir William Drummond Stewart to Alfred Jacob Miller Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
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The Bedrock Question: How to Anticipate Unforeseen Outcomes and Unintended Consequences, with More Resilience than Paralysis? Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
A Vantage Point Above the Maze Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
An Omnipresent, but Doubtful Quotation “Whiskey Is for Drinking and Water Is For Fighting Over”: Mark Twain’s Doubtful Career Achievement as a Water Policy Analyst Water is fated to produce conflicts, contests, and even wars because it is so important to every enterprise and undertaking and to human life. Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
If Mark Twain Could Do a Rewrite (of a Statement He Never Made) . . . “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for brewing coffee to be served at facilitated stakeholder meetings.” Turning Hindsight Into Foresight TM I www.centerwest.org
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