The World's Doomsday Water Cycle

California is not unique in experiencing a destructive feedback loop in which declining water resources are devoted to energy production, and energy is required to transport water where it is increasingly scarce. Throughout much of the U.S. and the world, we manage water and energy as if they were unrelated. In reality, they are Siamese twins.

Utility executives in Washington State are concerned that low snowpack threatens reservoirs that generate much of the state’s power. Legislators in Texas, who are normally reluctant to acknowledge the existence of climate change or to spend tax dollars, approved billions of dollars in new water projects to deal with a seemingly endless drought. Nevada water officials worry that they will no longer be able to withdraw water from behind Hoover Dam if the water level continues dropping. (Meanwhile, upstream Glen Canyon Dam, which loses up to 10 percent of its water to evaporation and seepage under the best circumstances, remains commissioned to generate electricity.)