“Inadequate water management, investments, and governance pose a range of challenges and risks to our business,” Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser and 45 other corporate executives in a letter to governments around the world.
Bloomberg reports, “(The International Energy Agency says,) ‘The vulnerability of the energy sector to water constraints is widely spread geographically, affecting, among others, shale gas development and power generation in parts of China and the United States, the operation of India’s highly water-intensive fleet of power plants, Canadian oil sands production and the maintenance of oil-field pressures in Iraq’…The water needed for energy production is set to grow at twice the pace of energy demand through 2035… Water is becoming more scarce as the globe copes with climate change that’s shrinking aquifers and making some areas dryer while the world population rises to 9 billion by 2050. That’s led to calls from companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. for governments to take ‘decisive action’ on water.”
The news report can be read at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-12/water-scarcity-threatens-energy-plans-from-u-s-to-china.html. Photo of Peter Voser from Upstream.
