Water is Power is Water Featured

I’m increasingly aware that water is power. And power is water, which is power again. It’s an endless cycle of two things that are so interrelated that they blur together in my small mind. And it means much to us Geos. 

Lets’ start with water. Water is everything, or at least a huge part of our basic life needs. I suppose air, heat (the right degree) and food also count that way. Water is life and it is weather and it is destruction. The streamlets, rivers, and oceans of the world transform from benign sources of life to sources of peril at a storm’s notice as we are inundated by floods and swept away to, hopefully, survive to another day. The weather is temperature, wind and water, but of these three I think water is the most important.

Water is power. Endlessly seeking its lowest potential energy, water flows downhill and drags things with it.  It flows past riverbanks to carry barges and river traffic. It flows across farm fields and percolates into loam to provide sustenance for plant life. It flows through inlet structures, past turbine blades, and through penstocks to power the grids of the West. It gives those of us who have it, in the right supply, an incredible life advantage – what power would we wield without it? And by accessing and controlling water, we wield power. The power to create power and the power to sustain life. 

Our water power is changing. Notwithstanding this year’s weather events, the endless droughts of California and the Southwest have diminished our western snowpack, driving Colorado River levels to record lows with pool levels behind the great Powell and Mead dams just 25% full. Rationing and rights are again being discussed in AZ, NV, NM, and CA. We are seeing and now thinking and soon adapting. The West will need new water sources – aquifers, dams, pipelines, and desalination plants. The Great Plains will also feel this pain and hear the sirens. The Great Lakes will have too much and will look to ways to keep from washing away. And the East will continue to fight the long march of the Atlantic now battering our bridges and encroaching on wetlands. The combined life and peril of water will require that we drill wells, install pumps, erect dams, install pipelines, and build distribution networks. These are things that us Geos know how to do well. To do this will require more power – to build things, to run the pumps, and to desalinate – and we will have to build that too. Solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro (water) – it will all be on the table. 

Water is power is water. This will be a drumbeat of our Geo-future, and what a future it will be. 

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