The water sector needs to come to terms with the importance of its relationship with energy policy. What affects them affects us.

1. Energy Policy
is Water Policy
Brian Gongol, M.Ed.
DJ Gongol & Associates, Inc.
IAMU Advanced Water Treatment Workshop | Ankeny, Iowa
March 13, 2024

2. Water is in a perpetual battle for
resources, attention, and respect
• This does not come
naturally to most
• That does not make
it any less important
to engage

3. Sometimes, you just have to grab some
coattails and go for it

4. Energy has a huge "mind share" with
the public right now
Everyone has an opinion on things like electric cars, solar panels, or
wind turbines
We should take advantage

5. Municipal water and public
power have been siblings
forever

6. There's only so much more our sector
can do to economize

7. Street
departments
can convert
streetlights to
LEDs

8. City hall can get
LEED certified

9. Police departments can start driving
hybrid and electric cruisers

10. Water utilities don’t have that kind of
liberty
• If you're pumping at 85% hydraulic efficiency on a NEMA
Premium Efficiency motor that's 90% to 95% efficient1, you
just don't have much upside left to capture

11. Water utilities don’t have that kind of
liberty
Strict energy efficiency is often a bad engineering design objective
To be reliable resources, we need to achieve total system efficiency
For example: More vanes mean higher efficiency in a pump, but
that's no good if you're trying to move solids without clogging

12. Water-industry professionals need to know
what's happening in the energy industry

13. Several things simultaneously
bind the water sector to the
power sector

14. Power demands
lots of water

15. Power demands
lots of water
• The power-production
sector is the largest water
user in the country
• It’s even ahead of irrigation
• Source data:
https://www.usgs.gov/speci
al-topics/water-science-
school/science/total-water-
use-united-states

16. Water demands lots of power
• Second, water and wastewater treatment and pumping are
usually the biggest users of electricity for most municipal
governments, “often accounting for 30 to 40 percent of total
energy consumed”
• That’s
• Source data: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-water-
infrastructure/energy-efficiency-water-utilities

17. Demand for energy could well
skyrocket
Meeting future expectations for water and wastewater purification
will require substantial amounts of electricity
Particularly if we are to be responsible for removing PFAS to the
parts-per-trillion level

18. Energy could be a bonanza
• It is evident that virtually all of our problems -- from
pumping to treatment -- can be solved if energy can be
made clean, abundant, and super-cheap (much cheaper than
it is today).

19. Where we go from here
• We live at the intersection of these different interests
• The future of water policy lies wherever the future of energy
policy ultimately takes us

20. 1. Energy demand for water

21. Energy
production
as water
consumer

22. Biofuels and water

23. Renewable electricity
and water

24. Cloud computing and water

25. Huge water demand from battery
production
• Extraction
• Refining
• Manufacturing

26. 2. Water production,
distribution, collection, and
treatment as energy consumer

27. What each consumes today

28. If you don't
have to go
high or far,
you
generally
won't use
much power

29. If you don't have to transform the water
much, you won't use much power either

30. Life comes at you fast
• If you have to go longer distances for longer times, or if you
have to put the water through bigger transitions (which
almost always involve lifting, heating, or pushing through
resistance), then the power demand escalates quickly

31. Power demand dynamics
You already know this implicitly, even if you probably don't realize it
You can carry a 16-oz. bottle of water a short distance without even thinking
about it
You can carry it a long distance without much complaint, either
But if you had to carry two gallons up 20 flights of stairs, you'd feel pain in a hurry

32. 3. What future water
standards could demand of
energy

33. Cheap is liberating
• As energy costs decrease, all kinds of possibilities open up for
water treatment and distribution

34. Filtration, distillation, reverse osmosis
• All of the high-purity processes are high-energy

35. PFAS and energy

36. Reuse and energy

37. At the extreme end, we have
atmospheric water collectors

38. Energy storage

39. Coal is on the
way out

40. Gas and
wind
are in

41. Storing energy using water
(dams, pumped storage)

42. Pumped storage
(ready for
charging)

43. Pumped storage
(ready for
discharging)

44. The swings in energy use are big
• Temperate
spring weather
• Most of the
country
between 60°
and 80°

45. Summer is a much
different story
Look at how much we have to
distort the same graph for
August temperatures

46. Wind blows 24/7, so we need to store
excess capacity overnight

47. But storage hasn’t been built in forever

48. Storage is like a flywheel for production,
which increases capacity utilization
• Building generating capacity is expensive
• Generation supply needs to meet PEAK demand, not average
demand
• Finding a place to store energy produced at peak supply and
low demand makes power generation a better investment
• It can also curtail the need for natural gas
• This satisfies the accountants

49. Peak/off-peak
energy shifting
(refilling elevated
storage at night)

50. When you look at an
elevated tank, you need
to start seeing a battery

51. On a significant
scale:
“Batteries are the
preferred method
for energy storage
over seconds to
hours, while
pumped hydro is
preferred for
overnight and
longer storage.”

52. Some losses are always there
• 95% efficient motor
• 90% efficient pump
• There will be losses
• But there are losses to transmission, too
• And the losses don’t mean much if the generation was “free”

53. Global concerns and stories

54. Fukushima reactor discharge and the
political blowback
• Japan obeys international rules
• China weaponizes water anyway

55. Water stress as subject of international
conflict

56. Still even a domestic source of friction
(see Republican River Compact)
• Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas
• Sometimes they’re fighting to stop from being flooded
• Sometimes they’re fighting to get their fair share of irrigation

57. Pumped storage takes a lot of water
out of circulation
• On the scale of reservoirs and lakes
• It may not be potable, but it probably won’t be saltwater (at
least not here)
• Can it be taken out of circulation without starting a fight?

58. Underground carbon sequestration
• Compressing and storing CO2 underground is a real plan
• Those storage spaces can be well-sealed, but it would be
naive to assume there won’t be some interaction with
groundwater
• What happens when you add CO2 to water?
• Acidification of raw water becomes a water-sector problem

59. Electric vehicles and road runoff
• Heavier cars
• Quicker acceleration
• Faster tire wear (some say 30% faster)
• Increased runoff potential

60. Manufacturers are
making special tires
just for EVs

61. Local concerns and stories

62. Omaha, Des Moines, other sites
recapturing energy from wastewater

63. You need the right incentives
and the right in-house skills

64. Lincoln can
pump from
the Missouri
River, but it
will take a lot
of energy

65. Nutrients, biofuels, and nitrate pollution

66. Bottom line
• It is enormously in the best interests of the water sector to
see electricity generation increase, costs plummet, and
pollution drive ever closer to zero
• Water professionals need to be seen as vital and equal
stakeholders in energy policy-making

67. Questions?
• Thanks for your time and attention!
• Brian Gongol
DJ Gongol & Associates
• 515-223-4144
• brian@gongol.net
• @djgongol across social media

68. Resources
• Ford electric police truck taken from marketing literature found online:
• https://www.ford.com/police-vehicles/f150-police-truck/
• PFAS standards:
• https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas
• Motor energy efficiency:
• https://www.energy.gov/eere/amo/articles/premium-efficiency-motor-selection-and-application-guide-handbook-industry
• Omaha energy recovery:
• https://www.ketv.com/article/omaha-city-council-plan-wastewater-into-revenue/40943741
• Australian pumped-storage projects:
• https://theconversation.com/researchers-found-37-mine-sites-in-australia-that-could-be-converted-into-renewable-energy-storage-so-what-
are-we-waiting-for-223978
• US live electrical grid:
• https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48
• US electricity generation:
• https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T07.02A#/?f=M
• Bridgestone EV-specific tires:
• https://www.bridgestoneamericas.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023/bridgestone-launches-turanza-ev-tire
• EV tire wear claimed 30% faster than conventional cars:
• https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-unexpected-problem-with-evs-they-tire-quickly