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06a.Cov2.NA.indd 2 5/7/10 9:55 AM volume 47 number 6 north american 6.10

WATER VS. UPDATE 7 DIAGNOSTIC CONTACTS Gold-limned lenses sense the pressure in the eye and beam ENERGY the data to doctors. SPECIAL REPORT By Prachi Patel Only radical new ideas will prevent 8 AUSTRALIAN CENSORSHIP the coming clash. p. 22 10 MIND OVER MATTER 12 HEAVY METAL SOLAR CELLS WHERE WATER MEETS WATTS A map of water and energy hot spots OPINION and bright spots. p. 28 21 TECHNICALLY SPEAKING Podcasting was just the start. Now we’re all lifecasting. 1. THIRST Y MACHINES 2. U N E A S Y H ARVEST 3. T I N Y TEST BEDS By Paul McFedries

DEPARTMENTS 4 BACK STORY Exploding lightbulbs! Need we say more?

6 CONTRIBUTORS

14 TOOLS & TOYS For programmers, the THE POWER OF WATER LIFE IN DROUGHT WIZARDS OF THE WATER CYCLE smartphone is a maze of twisty In the American Southwest, the In Australia, using less water can Singapore’s toilet-to-tap little passages, all of them energy problem is water. p. 30 mean spending more watts. p. 42 tech nology has rescued the di‘erent. By Daniel Dern BY SALLY ADEE & S AMUEL K. M OORE BY JEAN KUMAGAI country from shortages. p. 56 BY SANDRA UPSON 16 HANDS ON E-mail a new temperature THE CARBON-CAPTURE BIOFUEL’S WATER PROBLEM setting to your home’s air CONUNDRUM Irrigating biofuel crops on a grand THE SALINE SOLUTION conditioner. By David Schneider Coal power’s carbon savior could scale would be disastrous. p. 50 Desalinating seawater takes double its water woes. p. 38 BY DAVID SCHNEIDER too much energy, but emerging 20 GEEK LIFE BY SAMUEL K. M OORE technologies will help. p. 62 Does physics hold the key to PUMPING PUNJAB DRY BY SALLY ADEE existence? An award-winning documentary lets you decide. CHINA REWIRES ITS RIVERS Cheap energy endangers By Susan Karlin A massive water diversion project India’s ability to feed itself. p. 52 MALTA TAKES CONTROL aims to slake the industrial BY SEEMA SINGH With the world’s first multi utility 80 THE DATA north’s thirst. p. 40 smart grid, Malta hopes to save The trade-o‘ between water and BY ANNE-MARIE CORLEY water, energy, and money. p. 65 energy is tough, but the trade-o‘ WITH YU-TZU CHIU BY HARRY GO LDSTEIN between carbon emissions and water is even tougher.

COVER AND THIS PAGE, TOP: DAN SAELINGER; BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: GREGG SEGAL; BRAD DECECCO; DARREN SOH By Samuel K. Moore

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 1

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IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2010 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent o©cial positions of the IEEE or its organizational units. Canadian Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40013087. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, Box 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Cable address: ITRIPLEE. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INTERNET: [email protected]. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: IEEE Members: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $399. POST MASTER: Please send address changes to IEEE Spectrum, c/o Coding Department, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing o©ces. Canadian GST #125634188. Printed at W224-N3322 Duplainville Rd., Pewaukee, WI 53072-4195, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and Association Media & Publishing. IEEE prohibits discrimination, harassment, and bullying. For more information, visit http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/whatis/policies/p9-26.html.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 3

06.Contents.NA.indd 3 5/13/10 4:54 PM back story

EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF Susan Hassler, [email protected]

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Glenn Zorpette, [email protected]

MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected]

SENIOR EDITORS Harry Goldstein (Online), [email protected]; Jean Kumagai, [email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (News), [email protected]; Tekla S. Perry, [email protected]; Philip E. Ross, [email protected]; David Schneider, [email protected]

SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Cherry (Resources), [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sally Adee, [email protected]; Erico Guizzo, [email protected]; Joshua J. Romero (Online), [email protected]; Sandra Upson, [email protected]

ASSISTANT EDITOR Willie D. Jones, [email protected]

SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine, [email protected]

COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon, [email protected]

EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner, [email protected]

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Sharon Basco

ASSISTANT PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Francesco Ferorelli, [email protected]

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Ramona Gordon, [email protected]; Nancy T. Hantman, [email protected]

IEEE SPECTRUM JOURNALISM INTERN Anne-Marie Corley, [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Blau, Robert N. Charette, and propped open the lens’s shutter. Peter Fairley, David Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Krauss fired, and the sharp Paul McFedries, Prachi Patel, Carl Selinger, Lightbulb Seema Singh, William Sweet, John Voelcker “pop” triggered the timer. Five milli seconds later, the studio filled ART & PRODUCTION Liquidators with light just long enough to show SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Mark Montgomery ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Michael Solita glass and water splaying outward ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Brandon Palacio at lightning speed. The room o how do you fill a lightbulb PHOTO EDITOR Randi Silberman Klett

with water and blast it to went black, and Saelinger walked DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Tuohy Ssmithereens? That was the over to his laptop to examine the EDITORIAL & WEB PRODUCTION MANAGER Roy Carubia question on Dan Saelinger’s mind result. “We had to work out a very SENIOR ELECTRONIC LAYOUT SPECIALIST Bonnie Nani when we asked him to produce this exact way to do this,” Saelinger WEB PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jacqueline L. Parker month’s cover image. later explains. “We’re talking a MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Michael Spector At the photo shoot, Saelinger millisecond’s di­erence to catch it, EDITORIAL ADVI SORY BOARD [center] and his assistants, Greg and every explosion is di­erent.” Susan Hassler, Chair; Marc T. Apter, Francine D. Berman, Jan Brown, Raaello D’Andrea, Hiromichi Fujisawa, Kenneth Krauss [left] and Je­ Elkins, In a separate room, two stylists Y. Goldberg, Susan Hackwood, Bin He, Erik Heijne, Charles H. propped up black foam boards to were drilling tiny holes into House, Christopher J. James, Ronald G. Jensen, Ruby B. Lee, build a set for the lightbulb, which lightbulb after lightbulb. Using a Tak Ming Mak, David A. Mindell, C. Mohan, Fritz Morgan, Andrew M. Odlyzko, Barry L. Shoop, Curtis A. Siller Jr., Larry L. Smarr, was perched on a thin Plexiglas pipette, they squirted water into Harry L. Tredennick III, Sergio Verdú, William Weihl, Bas¸ak Yüksel

pedestal. Saelinger mounted a the glass before plugging the hole EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE high-caliber pellet gun on a stand with a mix of wax and glue. By the IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 and pointed the barrel through a end of the afternoon, glass shards Attn: Editorial Dept. Tel: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 Bureau: Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 328 7570 hole in the foam wall. and pellets covered the studio floor, Responsibility for the substance of articles rests upon the Goggles went on. “All right, slick from all the water that had authors, not IEEE or its members. Articles published do not represent o¬cial positions of IEEE. Letters to the editor may be we’re loaded,” said Krauss, who been flying around. excerpted for publication. was manning the gun. Elkins Weeks later, Saelinger was ADVERTISING CORRESPONDENCE squatted down to flip on the sound still discovering slivers of the IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 trigger, a timer they’d set up to 150 lightbulbs they’d shattered in Attn: Advertising Dept. +1 212 419 7760 activate the lights. He silently gave odd corners of his studio. But no The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising. a thumbs-up to Saelinger, who regrets here. “Every time we’d REPRINT PERMISSION turned to his camera, the lens of shoot and fire one through, we’d LIBRARIES: Articles may be photocopied for private use of patrons. A per-copy fee must be paid to the Copyright J which also poked through the foam, smile or laugh—it never got old.” Clearance Center, 29 Congress St., Salem, MA 01970. For other copying or republication, contact Business Manager, IEEE Spectrum.

CITING ARTICLES IN IEEE SPECTRUM COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS: IEEE Spectrum is a registered

IEEE Spectrum publishes two editions. In the international edition, the abbreviation INT appears at the trademark owned by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics MAN KLETT foot of each page. The North American edition is identified with the letters NA. Both have the same Engineers Inc. Careers, EEs’ Tools & Toys, EV Watch, Progress, editorial content, but because of dierences in advertising, page numbers may dier. In citations, you Reflections, Spectral Lines, and Technically Speaking are should include the issue designation. For example, Technically Speaking is in IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 47, trademarks of IEEE.

no. 6 (INT), June 2010, p. 17, or in IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 47, no. 6 (NA), June 2010, p. 21. SILBE R RANDI

4 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Backstory.NA.indd 4 5/12/10 3:59 PM 336 Volts of Green Engineering MEASURE IT – FIX IT

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©2009 National Instruments. All rights reserved. CompactRIO, LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 2009 0835

0835 Green Engineering Ford.indd 1 12/15/09 3:29:03 PM 06a.p5.v2.NA.indd 5 5/7/10 11:07 AM IEEE MEDIA STAFF DIRECTOR; PUBLISHER, IEEE SPECTRUM James A. Vick, [email protected] ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, SALES & ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Marion Delaney, [email protected] C RECRUITMENT SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER SEPHI PAUL M FEDRIES Michael Buryk, [email protected] BERGERSON, has been writing BUSINESS MANAGER Robert T. Ross the photographer for Spectrum’s IEEE MEDIA/SPECTRUM GROUP MARKETING MANAGER Blanche McGurr, [email protected] “Pumping Punjab Technically INTERACTIVE MARKETING MANAGER Ruchika Anand, [email protected] Dry” [p. 52], one of Speaking column LIST SALES & RECRUITMENT SERVICES PRODUCT/MARKETING MANAGER Ilia Rodriguez, [email protected] several stories in our special since 2002. In “The Rise of Peep REPRINT SALES +1 212 221 9595, EXT. 319 report, “Water vs. Energy,” Culture” [p. 21], he categorizes, with MARKETING & PROMOTION SPECIALIST Faith H. Jeanty, [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES +1 212 419 7760 was formerly an advertising some incredulity, the exhibitionists SALES ADVISOR John Restchack +1 212 419 7578 photographer in Tel Aviv. In 2002 who don’t seem to appreciate the ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Felicia Spagnoli he moved to India, where he added meaning of “too much information.” SENIOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Nicole Evans ADVERTISING PRODUCTION +1 732 562 6334 photojournalism and personal McFedries, a multiplatform kind of IEEE STAFF EXECUTIVE, PUBLICATIONS Anthony Durniak projects to his repertoire. He guy, recently wrote user’s guides IEEE BOARD OF DIRECTORS shoots with digital and traditional for both Microsoft Windows 7 and PRESIDENT & CEO Pedro A. Ray +1 732 562 3928 FAX: +1 732 465 6444 [email protected] film cameras, using natural light Mac OS X Snow Leopard. His Web PRESIDENT-ELECT Moshe Kam whenever possible. Bergerson has site, Word Spy, tracks emerging TREASURER Peter W. Staecker written and taken photos for two words and phrases. SECRETARY David G. Green PAST PRESIDENT John R. Vig books, Street Food of India (2009) and Horn Please—Truck and SEEMA SINGH, a VICE PRESIDENTS Tariq S. Durrani, Educational Activities; Jon G. Rokne, Trucking in India (2010). His third Spectrum contribut- Publication Services & Products; Barry L. Shoop, Member & Geographic Activities; W. Charlton Adams, President, Standards book, Traditional Weddings in ing editor, has been Association; Roger D. Pollard, Technical Activities; Evelyn H. Hirt, President, IEEE-USA Modern India, is due out in 2011. writing about science and DIVISION DIRECTORS Hiroshi Iwai (I); Robert E. Hebner Jr. (II); BRAD DECECCO, technology for nearly 14 years Nim K. Cheung (III); Roger W. Sudbury (IV); Michael R. Williams (V); Mark I. Montrose (VI); who shot the photos from Bangalore, India. Five years Enrique A. Tejera M. (VII); Stephen L. Diamond (VIII); Alfred O. Hero III (IX); Richard A. Volz (X) for “Life in Drought” ago, she researched water and CC O CE [p. 42], followed the its associated inequities and REGION DIRECTORS E Charles P. Rubenstein (1); William P. Walsh Jr. (2); Clarence story from an inežciencies under a MacArthur L. Stogner (3); Don C. Bramlett (4); Sandra L. Robinson (5); Leonard J. Bond (6); Om P. Malik (7); Jozef W. Modelski (8); Australian farm to a coal mine and grant, and she recently revisited Tania L. Quiel (9); Yong Jin Park (10)

then to urban Brisbane. He found the issues for “Pumping Punjab DIRECTORS EMERITUS himself in the midst of a flock of Dry” [p. 52]. Not much has Eric Herz, Theodore W. Hissey ERMAN KLETT; BRAD D BRAD ERMAN KLETT;

sheep just days after several had changed, she found, and her IEEE STAFF IL B given birth, got as close as he could subjects were only too eager to talk. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & COO James Prendergast ANDI S +1 732 502 5400, [email protected] to the active parts of the mine, and “Most farmers I interviewed felt HUMAN RESOURCES Betsy Davis, SPHR learned to drive on the left side of I could instantly take their message +1 732 465 6434, [email protected] R IHLYJ; PUBLICATIONS Anthony Durniak the road. DeCecco started taking to the government,” she says. +1 732 562 3998, [email protected] EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES pictures in high school just “to Douglas Gorham NDREW Z B +1 732 562 5483, [email protected] impress a girl,” but photography ANDREW ZBIHLYJ STANDARDS ACTIVITIES Judith Gorman quickly consumed him, and he created the maps for +1 732 562 3820, [email protected] A ISHRA; MEMBER & GEOGRAPHIC ACTIVITIES Cecelia Jankowski hasn’t wanted to do much else since. “Water vs. Energy” +1 732 562 5504, [email protected]

CORPORATE STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS Matthew Loeb, CAE EMAN T M [p. 22]. Although his +1 732 562 5320, [email protected] PETER FAIRLEY, work usually focuses CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Alexander J. Pasik, Ph.D. +1 732 562 6017, [email protected]

an IEEE Spectrum on people and “definite objects,” he BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Thomas R. Siegert AMMOND; H contributing editor, enjoyed the challenge of applying +1 732 562 6843, [email protected] TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES Mary Ward-Callan writes in “Heavy his style—combining stark black +1 732 562 3850, [email protected] Metal Power” [p. 12] and white with flowing color— MANAGING DIRECTOR, IEEE-USA Chris Brantley +1 202 530 8349, [email protected] about how solar technology may to the landscape designs. He struck IEEE PUBLICATION SERVICES & PRODUCTS BOARD soon be cheap enough to compete a balance between photography Jon G. Rokne, Chair; Tayfun Akgul, John Baillieul, Silvio E. Barbin,

Deborah M. Cooper, Celia L. Desmond, Tariq S. Durrani, K AREN H EPHI BERGERSON;

with fossil fuels and that First and abstract art, starting with Mohamed E. El-Hawary, Gerald L. Engel, David A. Grier, : S

Solar, a pioneer in cadmium satellite photos of the regions, Jens Hannemann, Lajos Hanzo, Hirohisa Kawamoto, EF T Russell J. Lefevre, Michael R. Lightner, Steve M. Mills, telluride photovoltaic modules, then building large-scale, high- Pradeep Misra, Saifur Rahman, Edward A. Rezek, Curtis A. Siller Jr., W. Ross Stone, Ravi M. Todi, Robert J. Trew, is now facing a challenge from resolution digital maps, and finally Karl R. Varian, Timothy T. Wong, Jacek Zurada

General Electric for a place in the “reinterpreting” the maps by hand IEEE OPERATIONS CENTER

445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08854-1331 U.S.A. L TOP FROM KWISE

sun. Fairley splits his time between with ink and line drawings “to C Tel: +1 732 981 0060 Fax: +1 732 981 1721

British Columbia and Paris. make all the elements gel.” CLO

6 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

6p.Contributors.NA.indd 6 5/13/10 2:22 PM more online at spectrum.ieee.org

hope could come in the form of a either by refining the patient’s BULL’S-EYE: gold-ringed contact lens. drug regimen or recommending The concentric Diagnostic rings of a The lens, made by Swiss surgery earlier. diagnostic medical-device company “This device has the potential contact lens Contacts Sensimed, picks up slight changes to revolutionize glaucoma begin with a circular antenna, A contact lens in fluid pressure inside the eye care,” says Kaweh Mansouri, and beams the data to a palm-size an ophthalmologist who has which receives that tracks ocular RF energy from recorder. It’s been approved for used the system on 15 patients an external pressure may help use in Europe and is being tried at the University Hospitals of transmitter. This treat glaucoma on about 100 glaucoma patients Geneva. He adds that it could energy powers a in six research centers in Austria, do as much for glaucoma microprocessor. Another ring Germany, and Switzerland. patients as home-based 24-hour stretches as the here is no cure for Sensimed CEO Jean-Marc blood-sugar monitoring has eyeball flexes, glaucoma, which aects Wismer says the lens should done for diabetes patients. measuring around 65 million people make it easy to monitor eye Tracking internal eyeball changes in T intraocular worldwide and is the second-most pressure over an entire day. pressure is critical to predicting pressure. common cause of blindness in He adds that previous studies the outcome of glaucoma. High PHOTO: SENSIMED developed countries. Even with on glaucoma patients have pressure from excessive fluid vigilant monitoring, drugs, and shown that in about 80 percent buildup inside the eye is thought surgery, some patients go on to of cases, such monitoring allows to be the main reason glaucoma lose their sight. For these patients, doctors to improve treatment, causes vision loss. Blindness

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 7

06U.News.NA.indd 7 5/13/10 8:48 AM The amount of wind capacity installed in the United States last year, 10 010 MEGAWATTS a record addition that raises the total above 35 000 MW, enough to light some 10 million homes, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

seems to result when a in a pocket or worn around buildup of fluid in the eye the neck. The antenna raises the pressure enough to transmits radio frequency damage the optic nerve. Eye energy to an ultrathin gold doctors measure intraocular ring—itself an antenna— pressure periodically that’s on the lens. The RF with an instrument called energy powers a tiny chip a tonometer. But these embedded in the lens. Also occasional in-o¡ce tests can on the lens is a thin platinum easily miss the full picture. ring that stretches, changing “There are some people its resistance, as the eyeball that have glaucoma but don’t inflates slightly from its have high pressure, or maybe internal pressure. The they have high pressure but microprocessor measures not when they come in, and this change and sends the data back to the recorder. The setup might sound cumbersome to wear and sleep with for 24 hours, but so far the roughly hundred patients who have tried the system wore it eagerly. These are people on the Internet are often closely “who are getting blind entwined with those of the public. despite treatment; they’re Censorship While no one would defend extremely motivated to child pornography, many would stop losing vision,” Wismer Down Under argue that they have a right to buy says. And the alternative Australia’s proposed Internet restrictions a cheaper airline ticket oered monitoring scheme is rather would be more sweeping than any yet on an overseas server and to read unpleasant—spending the seen in a democratic country material that’s freely available night in a sleep lab and online, even if it lacks a copyright being awakened every few in their own country. And HYPNOTIC POWER: Behold hours for measurement. he Australian government plans to introduce banning content is a slippery slope. these reflections in a golden eye. The lens is already being a law establishing online censorship so broad that “To police the Internet and PHOTO: SENSIMED distributed in Europe, and T some experts compare it to that of Saudi Arabia. maintain freedom of speech Sensimed hopes to get Communications minister Stephen Conroy says the is very, very hard,” says Rob we do that instantaneous regulatory approval in the new regulations are needed to protect the nation from Faris, research director of measure,” says Charles United States by late 2011. For child pornography and inadvertent exposure to other Harvard’s Berkman Center Leahy, an optometrist at now, the lens is being used undesirable material. The government also argues the need for Internet & Society. What the Massachusetts Eye & to monitor only diagnosed to bring the Internet in line with other communications is happening in Australia, he Ear Infirmary. And “you patients, but Wismer says media, such as DVDs and TV. Opponents—including says, “highlights the dilemma.” don’t know if their pressure it could someday be part of tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, as well The proposed law, which was spikes at night.” The new routine diagnostic testing as local organizations like the Australian Federation of announced in December, will contact lens monitoring of people who have a family AIDS Organisations and Electronic Frontiers Australia— take the form of a legislative system provides more history of the disease or have responded that the scope of the content to be filtered amendment to Australia’s meaningful data, he says. show abnormal pressure is too broad and that the law will prove ineective. Broadcasting Services Act. It Patients have a circular readings. Drug developers For the technology industry, more is at stake than will require all Internet service antenna taped around the could also use the system to just free speech: Restrictions on the flow of information providers to block material eye and connected to a evaluate the eectiveness threaten the commercial interests of Internet companies. hosted on overseas servers battery-powered portable of new medicines. But this isn’t simply a story of corporate greed. In a twist on that has been rated “Refused recorder that can be carried —Prachi Patel the traditional history of capitalism, commercial interests Classification” by the country’s

8 N A • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.News.NA.indd 8 5/13/10 8:48 AM The amount of wind capacity installed in the United States last year, 10 010 MEGAWATTS a record addition that raises the total above 35 000 MW, enough to light some 10 million homes, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

SURF SERFS: Aussies surf the display banned material Web freely, while they still can. within them; and anonymizing PHOTO: ROB GRIFFITH/AP PHOTO software, such as JonDo or Tor. It may seem strange that Australia should join such Classification Board. The board Internet-censoring nations as rates material, such as movies China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. and computer games, based on Yet censorship has already gotten oensive language, nudity, sex, a start in democratic countries: and violence. Many ISPs in Canada, Denmark, Although the board would not Finland, Norway, Sweden, rate the entire Internet, a blacklist and the United Kingdom of Web sites would be developed voluntarily filter Web sites. based on public complaints to Mostly, these ISPs block access the Australian Communications to child pornography sites. news and Media Authority (ACMA). The Australian law would briefs Regulators at ACMA will refer go further, constituting “the Teaching a the site to the Classification Board. most extreme filtering by any Virus to Photo- Critics say that applying the democratic country,” says synthesize existing classification scheme Harvard’s Faris, a contributor Researchers at MIT to the Internet could lead to to the OpenNet Initiative. have found a way to get a virus to mimic the blocking of hundreds of “Australia will be closer to some of the actions thousands of sites, including Saudi Arabia, where most of the of photosynthesis. many whose content is purely filters are directed at socially When added to educational. Mark McLelland, an sensitive material,” he says. a container of associate professor of sociology Recent polls show that about pigment and a catalyst, the virus on the Internet are often closely at the University of Wollongong, 90 percent of Australians are arranges itself and entwined with those of the public. in New South Wales, notes that concerned about the proposed the other molecules Censorship While no one would defend millions of players of online law. In February, a group calling in a structure that child pornography, many would games, such as Second Life or itself Anonymous launched can share in the energy that the Down Under argue that they have a right to buy World of Warcraft, communicate a denial-of-service attack on pigment absorbs Australia’s proposed Internet restrictions a cheaper airline ticket oered in real time, via text or even voice. government Web sites. More from sunlight. The would be more sweeping than any yet on an overseas server and to read “Does the whole game become recently, free-speech activists scientists plan to seen in a democratic country material that’s freely available blacklisted if someone were to have organized rallies, picnics, create chemical online, even if it lacks a copyright make a complaint to the ACMA and petition drives and set up systems that can use that energy to in their own country. And about the ‘unsuitable’ content a dedicated YouTube channel. split water directly he Australian government plans to introduce banning content is a slippery slope. generated in these communicative Colin Jacobs of Electronic into hydrogen and a law establishing online censorship so broad that “To police the Internet and spaces?” he asks. Also, the Frontiers Australia says it is oxygen, which can some experts compare it to that of Saudi Arabia. maintain freedom of speech blacklist would be secret, so a site unclear whether the government be burned later on to T make electricity. Communications minister Stephen Conroy says the is very, very hard,” says Rob that is unfairly blocked may have will have enough votes to PHOTO: DOMINICK new regulations are needed to protect the nation from Faris, research director of no way to appeal that decision. pass the law this summer. REUTER child pornography and inadvertent exposure to other Harvard’s Berkman Center However, Senator Scott “The proposed law sets a very undesirable material. The government also argues the need for Internet & Society. What Ludlam, a member of the dangerous global precedent,” to bring the Internet in line with other communications is happening in Australia, he Australian Greens, says the says Gwen Hinze, international media, such as DVDs and TV. Opponents—including says, “highlights the dilemma.” larger issue is that the filtering director of the Electronic tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, as well The proposed law, which was system will fail. “It simply will Frontier Foundation, one of as local organizations like the Australian Federation of announced in December, will not work,” he says. “It will the most venerable defenders AIDS Organisations and Electronic Frontiers Australia— take the form of a legislative be trivial to circumvent.” of Internet freedom. “Many have responded that the scope of the content to be filtered amendment to Australia’s There are a number of repressive governments are is too broad and that the law will prove ineective. Broadcasting Services Act. It technical ways to get around watching what Australia is For the technology industry, more is at stake than will require all Internet service filtering, including using a proposing, and they are likely just free speech: Restrictions on the flow of information providers to block material virtual private network, which to point to it to justify what they threaten the commercial interests of Internet companies. hosted on overseas servers provides a secure channel are doing to exert control over But this isn’t simply a story of corporate greed. In a twist on that has been rated “Refused between a computer and a Web their countries’ own Internet.” the traditional history of capitalism, commercial interests Classification” by the country’s site; proxy Web sites, which —Elise Ackerman

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 9

06U.News.NA.indd 9 5/13/10 8:48 AM The number of iPads sold as of 2 May, of which 300 000 were the just-released 1 MILLION 3G unit, according to Apple. With a 16-gigabyte flash drive, the 3G iPad costs US $629, compared to $499 for the Wi-Fi–only model.

tech in sight University of Pittsburgh PHOTO: ANDREW SCHWARTZ/ Mammalian UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Mind Over Matter As brain-machine interfaces become more advanced, so do the devices they can control

esearchers have long been working to put the brain in direct R communication with machines. Recent demonstrations have seen animals and humans controlling ever more complex devices—advanced robotic arms and even prosthetic limbs that can provide tactile sensations. Here’s how a monkey, a rat, and a man were able to move matter with their minds. University of Florida PHOTO: JUSTIN SANCHEZ/ UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA MONKEY DO At the University of Pittsburgh’s MotorLab, Andrew Schwartz and his colleagues have taught a monkey to control a robotic manipulator with 7 degrees of freedom. The monkey received two brain implants, one in the hand area and another in the arm Universities in Pisa area of its motor cortex. When the and Rome, Italy researchers place a knob at arbitrary PHOTO: UNIVERSITÀ CAMPUS BIO-MEDICO DI ROMA positions in front of the animal, it can maneuver the robotic arm to grasp the knob. Then the monkey can precisely adapt their parameters as the brain Roma, in Italy, have demonstrated turn the knob by controlling the arm’s itself does when learning a new task. how an amputee can control a robotic mechanical wrist. It’s probably the Using them, graduate student Babak hand after having electrodes surgically most complex machine a monkey has Mahmoudi showed how a rat could learn implanted on two di erent nerves ever mastered with its thoughts alone. to control a robotic gripper that bears no of his arm. The electrodes captured resemblance to its own limbs. Essentially, signals originating in the man’s brain, ROBORAT the rat used brain activity to perform allowing him to wiggle the mechanical Justin Sanchez and his colleagues at the an action unrelated to any movement it fi ngers and hold objects. What’s more, University of Florida’s Neuroprosthetics could make on its own, as if the decoder the nerve-machine interface was Research Group, in Gainesville, are were an extension of the rat’s brain. bidirectional: The robotic hand had developing a new class of software touch sensors that could send electrical decoders to translate brain activity I, ANDROID signals back to the nerves, and the into control signals for prosthetic A group of scientists at the Scuola man’s brain translated them into a devices. Although other brain-machine Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa and the touch felt on a hand lost years before. interfaces are static, these decoders Università Campus Bio-Medico di —Erico Guizzo

10 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.News.NA.indd 10 5/13/10 8:48 AM 06a.p11.NA.indd 11 5/12/10 3:21 PM PANEL LEADER: The First Solar factory in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. PHOTO: FIRST SOLAR

hope to play in it at all. GE says it will challenge First Solar in the utility market next year with a design that boasts 16.5 percent e¡ciency in small cells—a record for CdTe technology. Part of GE’s trick is to rely more heavily on cadmium than previous designs news have been able to manage. briefs In a conventional CdTe cell, the layers are deposited on a glass The Logic sheet, which is flipped over to face Behind the Memristor the sun. First comes a transparent The team at HP metal-oxide layer that will form Labs that two years the cell’s top electrode. Next up ago unveiled the are the layers—cadmium sulfide, first memristor— Heavy Metal Power followed by cadmium telluride— the fourth basic General Electric hopes to rock the solar world element of electrical that form the p- and n-type circuitry—has with cadmium-based solar cells semiconductors, whose junction now shown that forms the cell’s active, energy- this device can ike the mask that conceals worth, making it the solar market converting region. A coating of handle either data storage or logical a superhero’s dark secret, leader [see “First Solar: Quest silver forms the bottom electrode. computation, L the glass and plastic sheets for the $1 Watt,” IEEE Spectrum, In the GE design, the top depending on encapsulating the world’s fastest- August 2008]. First Solar drove electrode consists not of a layer of the amount and growing solar panel design the price of CdTe down and its tin oxide, as in conventional cells, duration of the conceal an unlikely environmental e¡ciency up, to a stable 11 percent. but of a relatively thick layer current sent through it. The memristor hero: cadmium. Now this toxic Although that still fell short of made of a cadmium-tin oxide can’t do all jobs as heavy metal, together with the 18 to 21 percent e¡ciency of called cadmium stannate, plus well as the transistor, tellurium, aims to make solar conventional silicon, the cost a thinner layer of zinc-tin oxide. the researchers note, power cheap enough to compete per watt was about 50 cents to The electrode is therefore more but it’s clearly better at certain logical with fossil fuels, perhaps within $1 cheaper—good enough to score conductive and more transparent. operations, notably a decade. The latest sign of the big when growing subsidies Observers say GE and other material implication, technology’s rising fortunes is the from European governments would-be CdTe entrants will the function that decision by General Electric to drove module demand beyond need to improve their cells’ states, “If p, then q.” enter the business next year. what silicon manufacturers performance. First Solar has IMAGE: R. STANLEY WILLIAMS The design is part of a broader could supply in 2008. driven its module cost per technology known as thin-film CdTe now accounts for watt down 30 percent over photovoltaics. Its main advantage three-quarters of the 4.8-GW the past two years, and it’s is that the layers in the device— capacity that utility-scale solar planning to cut costs a further which actually convert sunlight installations are planning and 26 to 39 percent by 2014. to electricity—can be made far for which they have specified Suppliers of conventional more cheaply than by using a technology, according to silicon cells, meanwhile, are the monocrystalline silicon of Emerging Energy Research, closing the gap. Ken Zweibel, conventional cells. However, thin- a consultancy in Cambridge, who directs George Washington film semiconductors are harder Mass. And this summer First University’s Solar Institute, to make in quantity, and they Solar plans to start building estimates that the cost advantage convert electricity less e¡ciently. the world’s largest solar power of finished systems using First Then came First Solar, based plant: a 2-GW array in Ordos, a Solar’s CdTe modules has in Tempe, Ariz., which began center for energy development in slipped to about $0.25 per watt. mass-producing cadmium China’s Inner Mongolia territory. In the world of green energy, telluride modules in 2004 and last Clearly, this is the time for the even superheroes must compete. year produced over 1 gigawatt’s big boys to enter the game, if they —Peter Fairley

12 N A • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.News.NA.indd 12 5/13/10 8:48 AM lead innovation

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7-Spectrum06a.p13.NA.indd 2010.indd 13 1 3/10/105/7/10 7:42:20 9:56 AM AM tools & toys

for movies, restaurants, and BlackBerry won’t run on an and Android, because sales at your favorite stores. iPhone. If you want to reach they’re both Java-based.” Smartphones can identify even 70 percent of the mar- So which platform comes the songs you hear playing ket, you have to program for first? With nearly half the and read bar codes and other more than one environment. market, it would seem an tags. But all those capabilities So how much work is easy choice—BlackBerry, can make application writing that second version? which excels in business- development a nightmare. The short answer is, a lot. “If related applications, such as To be sure, all smart- you intend to develop your time and expense trackers, phones have Web browsers. application in the native business-card readers, apps Yet a Web app optimized environment of a specific for creating and distributing for one phone may not run device, ‘moving’ it to another forms, and De Herrera’s well on others—even on platform is synonymous favorite, an HP 12c calculator other models of the same with rewriting it,” says emulator. “CPAs love this,” platform. Processing power, Brandon Trebitowski, who he says, because it can storage, and functionality heads software development make interest calculations dier wildly from device to at ELC Mobile, the mobile not easily done in Excel. device. You can minimize development arm of ELC Choosing among the other PRÊT-À-PORTER: the dierences by processing Technologies. “Most mobile platforms isn’t as easy. The Moving an app from one data back on a server— devices support dierent iPhone has the next-largest smartphone platform to another is no easy feat. one of the reasons cloud programming languages market, but according to Chris PHOTO: PROONGO computing is all the rage. and have entirely dierent Chodnicki, chief But Dan Turchin, CEO of software development kits.” technology o¤cer of WRITING that the BlackBerry is by far mobile applications developer “To do multiple versions, Internet marketing the leading platform there Aeroprise, in Mountain there was nothing we and technology firm SMALL with 42 percent, followed View, Calif., warns, “Mobile could borrow,” reports Ray R2integrated, in Too many platforms by Apple with 25 percent, browsers aren’t particularly Bernaz, founder and CEO Baltimore, “it is the can spoil the while Symbian has less responsive, and when every of Socialibrium, whose hardest to program smartphone app than 5 percent, according to click needs to go back to the products—developed first in terms of following research firm comScore. server, you can wait minutes for the iPhone—help users Apple’s guidelines esktop programmers Despite the market’s to process a transaction.” manage their social networks. and protocols.” He have it easy. Most heterogeneity, the nexus Moreover, browser- “We had to redo the entire says that the new Dcan still program for of smartphones, wireless based apps can’t tap into a user interface and back end Windows Mobile 7 90 percent of the market— broadband, and network- smartphone’s best features. for the BlackBerry. There “would be the easiest Windows—and ignore the based cloud computing Mobile application vendor was no code we could reuse, to program due to its Mac OS and all the flavors constitutes a perfect storm of ProOnGo, in Chicago, for as the iPhone and BlackBerry full integration with of Linux. For smartphones, opportunity for application example, has a BlackBerry use dierent programming Microsoft’s Visual though, things are dierent. developers, luring their expense- tracking app that languages”—Objective C/C++ Studio integrated Globally, almost half the attention toward the new lets you photograph a receipt and Java, respectively. development 175 million smartphones platforms. “There’s a lot of with the phone’s camera; the Of course, new implemen- environment.” purchased in 2009 ran cool things that notebooks software then reads the text tations can benefit from Chodnicki cautions the Symbian operating or netbooks don’t do so well and folds it into your expense previous ones. ProOnGo’s that staying current can system, and one-fifth were or can’t do,” says mobile- report. CEO Phillip Leslie Leslie says, “Our Windows also be a challenge. “The BlackBerries. Most of the device-watcher Chris De says, “Our deep integration Mobile version took us platforms change rapidly,” rest, about 14 percent, run Herrera. Phones are always with smartphone cameras 12 months to write. When he says, “and knowing more Windows Mobile, according on and always connected, wouldn’t have been possible you port it, at least the feature than two mobile platform to a February 2010 report pushing e-mail and SMS with just Web app code, nor set is nailed down. It took languages at an expert level from the IT research analysis messages every minute. would some of the image- only five months to port to is a herculean exercise.” firm Gartner. Developers who Smartphones with GPS give processing algorithms BlackBerry, three to iPhone, Cross-platform develop- want to target the large and turn-by-turn directions, we use to manipulate and two to Android. The one ment is hardly new, of rapidly growing U.S. market, geocode the pictures they the resulting images.” place where we got some good course, and one classic however, need to consider take, and search around you Still, a native app for the portability is BlackBerry industry solution—cross-

14 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.Resources.NA.indd 14 5/12/10 5:18 PM BlackBerry won’t run on an and Android, because platform tools—has come Rhomobile, you write using Hillegass says. For example, iPhone. If you want to reach they’re both Java-based.” to smartphones. Among HTML, CSS, JavaScript, most platforms don’t have even 70 percent of the mar- So which platform comes these tools are Appcelerator and Ruby, which is a very multitouch events like the ket, you have to program for first? With nearly half the Titanium, Phonegap, developer- friendly language.” iPhone’s pinch-and-spread- more than one environment. market, it would seem an QuickConnect, Rhomobile Graupera, who is coauthor of fingers way of enlarging a So how much work is easy choice—BlackBerry, (pronounced “roamable” the not-yet-released book Pro map or an image. “To do a writing that second version? which excels in business- not “row-mobile”), and Smartphone Cross-Platform cross-platform tool kit, the The short answer is, a lot. “If related applications, such as WidgitPad. Most use a mix of Development (Apress), says, first thing you’d do is say, you intend to develop your time and expense trackers, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, “You can simply ‘push the ‘You can’t have multitouch.’ ” application in the native business-card readers, apps plus some native “wrapper” button’ for builds that will Game development, environment of a specific for creating and distributing code for accessing hardware run on each environment.” where a developer wants device, ‘moving’ it to another forms, and De Herrera’s features like GPS, a camera, Some tweaking will be to be able to control every platform is synonymous favorite, an HP 12c calculator or an accelerometer. needed, but the code will pixel precisely, loses a lot with rewriting it,” says emulator. “CPAs love this,” Rhomobile’s software, run. “It might be a few when programming to the Brandon Trebitowski, who he says, because it can which can be used to create weeks for each additional lowest common denominator. heads software development make interest calculations native apps for iPhone, platform, to seriously Fortunately, business apps at ELC Mobile, the mobile not easily done in Excel. Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, tweak and test,” he says. do not. “Most enterprise development arm of ELC Choosing among the other Symbian, and Android, The testing is particularly applications don’t need fine Technologies. “Most mobile platforms isn’t as easy. The works so well that Aeroprise, important. “When you use a graphic manipulation or devices support dierent iPhone has the next-largest which already has its own cross-platform tool kit, you’re interaction with the operating programming languages market, but according to Chris development platform, creating a new abstraction system,” says Michael and have entirely dierent Chodnicki, chief software development kits.” technology o¤cer of “To do multiple versions, Internet marketing A Programmer’s Six-Pack there was nothing we and technology firm OS ANDROID BLACKBERRY OS iPHONE OS PALM WEBOS SYMBIAN OS WINDOWS MOBILE could borrow,” reports Ray R2integrated, in Runs on Open Handset BlackBerry iPhone, iPad, Palm Pre, Pixi ARM Windows Mobile Bernaz, founder and CEO Baltimore, “it is the Alliance iPod Touch processors smartphones of Socialibrium, whose hardest to program products—developed first in terms of following Related to Linux Unix (BSD and Mac OS X Linux Psion EPOC Windows CE NeXTstep) for the iPhone—help users Apple’s guidelines manage their social networks. and protocols.” He Development Java Java Objective HTML, CSS, C++, Java, Visual C++ languages C/C++ JavaScript; C/C++ others “We had to redo the entire says that the new (via PDK) user interface and back end Windows Mobile 7 for the BlackBerry. There “would be the easiest IDEs, libraries, Android SDK BlackBerry JDE iPhone SDK PDK; WebOS Windows Phone frameworks and NDK; ADT plug-in DK; SDK (works with was no code we could reuse, to program due to its plug-in for Project Ares Visual Studio) as the iPhone and BlackBerry full integration with Eclipse (Web based) use dierent programming Microsoft’s Visual languages”—Objective C/C++ Studio integrated KEY: IDE = integrated development environment; SDK = software development kit; ADT = Android Development Tools; JDE = Java Development Environment; PDK = Palm Development Kit; NDK = native-code development kit and Java, respectively. development Of course, new implemen- environment.” tations can benefit from Chodnicki cautions chose it to quickly create on top of old ones,” notes King, a research director at previous ones. ProOnGo’s that staying current can smartphone versions of one Aaron Hillegass, president of Gartner. “The cross- platform Leslie says, “Our Windows also be a challenge. “The of its desktop programs. Big Nerd Ranch, in Atlanta, tools are quite good.” Mobile version took us platforms change rapidly,” “We had to support not just and coauthor of iPhone Still, there may be deeper 12 months to write. When he says, “and knowing more BlackBerry but also iPhone, Programming: The Big Nerd benefits to creating native you port it, at least the feature than two mobile platform Symbian, Android, and Ranch Guide. “And the ‘leaky apps with native tools. “An set is nailed down. It took languages at an expert level Windows Mobile,” says abstraction’ problem is that abstraction layer is taking only five months to port to is a herculean exercise.” Aeroprise CEO Turchin, who with any implementation of the industry into a dead BlackBerry, three to iPhone, Cross-platform develop- sits on the Rhomobile board. an abstraction, the details end,” says Hillegass. “To and two to Android. The one ment is hardly new, of Vidal Graupera, an tend to trickle through.” keep innovating, we need a place where we got some good course, and one classic independent software That means coding to the richer environment, not a portability is BlackBerry industry solution—cross- developer, says, “In lowest common denominator, simpler one.” —Daniel Dern

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • I EEE SPECTRUM • NA 15

06U.Resources.NA.indd 15 5/12/10 5:18 PM hands on

COOL IT: With some inexpensive electronics, you can switch things on and o† in your house from afar—including the air-conditioning. PHOTO: DAVID SCHNEIDER

the Automated Bartender” radio transmitter. Another $9 (Geek Life, December 2009). gets you an X10 TM751 unit, Arduinos come in many which the Firecracker can flavors. I bought an Arduino command by radio to switch Duemilanove ($30). The nifty a plug-in appliance on or o. thing about this board is By wiring the thermostat’s the way various accessory mercury switch in series with boards, or shields, can a small 5-volt relay, I could plug right in. Connecting enable or disable the air my Arduino to the Internet conditioner from another was as easy as attaching an room, using the TM751 to Ethernet shield ($46) and power a wall wart attached connecting it to my home to the relay’s coil. Interfacing router with an RJ-45 cable. the Arduino with the X10 But how to control the air- Firecracker proved easy, conditioning? My thermo- because others had posted stat, an ancient design, is online code they’d used for basically a mercury switch this very purpose. Now my that turns the AC or heat on Arduino had the means to and o when the bi metallic shut o my air-conditioning spiral it’s attached to system until I commanded winds or unwinds with the it through the Internet to A SMARTER, CHEAPER change in temperature. So let normal temperature THERMOSTAT all I needed to do was to regulation resume. Controlling home thermostats wire a second, Arduino- So far, so good. But what if need not cost a bundle controlled switch in series I didn’t want the temperature with the mercury switch. in the house to climb quite Then the Arduino could so high? My little Arduino all me a wimp. another great engineering either allow the thermostat assistant could prevent that, Since moving from achievement: the Internet. to function normally (with but it needed some way to CNew York to North You might use Ecobee’s the second switch closed) or know how hot the house was. Carolina, I’ve grown Web-enabled thermostat, prevent the air conditioner For that, I bought a Dallas completely dependent on but that costs more than from being turned on Semiconductor 18B20 digital one of engineering’s greatest US $300. And what if you (second switch open). temperature sensor ($4), achievements—the air want to control the lights as My home thermostat is along with the relay I needed conditioner. For three seasons, well? Such systems exist, but located nowhere near my for the second thermostat the climate of the Southeast is they’re even more expensive. router, so to avoid having switch ($2), a wall-wart lovely, but summers here are If you don’t need a lot to string a cable between AC adapter to power the stultifying unless you pump of bells and whistles, you them, I decided to control Arduino ($6), and a 5-V wall the heat back outdoors. can control your central air the thermostat by radio, wart to operate the relay ($6). Unfortunately, cooling the conditioner and lights without using X10 home- automation That brought the total bill of house takes a long time, so great expense. The system I hardware. You may goods to $108—pretty cheap come summer, the AC is left cobbled together uses a single- know X10 as a system that as Internet-connected home- on pretty much all the time. board computer of growing communicates using signals automation systems go. Better would be to switch popularity: the Arduino. sent over power lines. But Assembling the hardware the AC on, remotely, an hour Devoted IEEE Spectrum it turns out that some X10 was easy: The Ethernet or two before heading home. DIYers have seen this name devices can use the airwaves, shield just plugs into the There’s an easy way to do several times in the past and the price is right: Just Arduino, three wires connect that nowadays, thanks to year, most notably in “Barbot, $5 buys an X10 Firecracker the Firecracker, and two

16 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.Resources.NA.indd 16 5/12/10 5:18 PM ADVERTORIAL

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06a.p17.NA.indd 17 5/14/10 10:04 AM EXISTING THERMOSTAT

To HVAC To HVAC air- hands on heating relay conditioning relay Mercury switch more wires and a 4700- ohm resistor attach the Internet temperature sensor. The 24-volt AC only real work involved Relay was writing some code so that I could command the

Arduino through the Internet. Cable modem Router Fortunately, Arduino’s 5-V wall developers have done most of wart the heavy lifting and written an Ethernet-shield library. Temperature Arduino In principle, I could have sensor X10 Radio X10 radio Ethernet shield made my little Arduino Firecracker link module board into a Web server,

but I worried about using Existing hardware 9-V wall wart that approach. If the house Added hardware lost power while I was on vacation, for example, my router might restart with although when a new IP address from my my 11-year-old Internet service provider, daughter saw rendering me unable to fi nd the Internet- my Arduino on the Internet. to-Arduino-to- So I instead devised a Firecracker-to- system based on e-mail. TM751-to-relay To control my thermostat, control channel, I send an e-mail message she asked, “Who to an account I’ve set up was that guy who just for this purpose. My MISSION CONTROL: A standard thermostat [left] needs a relay added [right] drew pictures ISP gives me several free to be controlled through the Internet [see diagram]. PHOTOS: DAVID SCHNEIDER (2) of those crazy accounts, so that’s easy contraptions?” enough. Other mail servers some uncomfortably high mode, and whether any That would be Rube would have been more value that won’t make remotely operated lamps are Goldberg, dear. di¤ cult to use because they the AC run very much). switched to on. Now I can If my contraption typically require Secure Another commands it even control these things in continues to work well all Shell, which the Arduino to return temperature my house using an e-mail– summer, I’ll be tempted to Ethernet library does not regulation to its normal capable phone to send and rig it to regulate the heat yet support. The Arduino mode, controlled by the receive short messages. in winter. But I won’t do board checks my account thermostat’s faceplate setting. Although I’ve not taken that until I’ve gained more every 10 minutes. If it fi nds Other instructions allow pains to tune the feedback confi dence that no software a message, it looks for lines the Arduino to turn on or loop that controls the or hardware gremlins are that begin with a special o lamps that are plugged house when the Arduino lurking. After all, I don’t want sequence of characters, into additional TM751 units is in economy mode, the to end up with a burst pipe if which serve as my secret (at $9 each, I’m tempted air temperature seems some rare failure condition password, followed by a one- to purchase a bunch). just as stable as when locks up the Arduino board or two-character instruction. And lastly, I included the regular thermostat is and leaves the heating One instruction an instruction for the doing the regulation. And completely disabled. Hmmm, commands the Arduino Arduino to send me e-mail the temperature remains maybe I could build another to put the temperature notifi cation of the status stable even if I disconnect circuit to attach to the… regulation into “economy of the house—the current the Ethernet cable. So the I can already hear Rube mode” (which sets the temperature, whether it’s little system I’ve assembled Goldberg chortling with glee. target temperature to in normal or economy appears reasonably robust, —David Schneider

18 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.Resources.NA.indd 18 5/12/10 5:18 PM Can new uses for phaser data measurements prevent blackouts?

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09-CRS-0223c-Power-7x10-Final-2010.indd 1 11/23/09 2:21:47 PM

06a.p19.NA.indd 19 5/12/10 3:12 PM geek life

Astrophysicist Stanford Woosley Director, Center for Supernova Research, University of California, Santa Cruz “The universe evolves. Stars evolve. People evolve. Everything that is alive evolves. We may be the path toward some ultimate intelligence, some ultimate life in the universe that would be virtually indistinguishable from what we call God.”

Physicist Steve Biller Tutorial Fellow in experimental particle physics, Mansfield College, University of Oxford, England “Particles, in fact, don’t exist. Consider, for example, a particle we all know and love, the electron. They’re Filmmaker Roger Nygard interviewed religious leaders, philosophers, Theoretical physicist all the same. You know if cultural icons, and physicists for his documentary The Nature of Sylvester James Gates Jr. you produced an electron Existence. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ROGER NYGARD Supersymmetry expert, on the other side of the University of Maryland, universe, and you brought it College Park, Md. here and compared it with Why Do We Exist? “In science, whenever we see an electron, they’re the The answer is coming to a theater near you a diversity of viewpoints, same. Not in the same way at the end of the day they that you pick up two red ilmmaker Roger now scheduled to premiere all become unified because billiard balls and say, ‘These Nygard—best known for in theaters in New York there’s one reality. If religion are pretty similar.’ We say Fthe cult film Trekkies— (18 June) and Los Angeles is talking about something they’re identical. This is tackled the most existential (2 July), followed by other that is external to us, then because the electron as a of questions in his 2009 theaters across the country. all of them will likely separate, distinct entity… documentary, The Nature Nygard asked 170 thinkers follow a similar path.” doesn’t really exist, they are of Existence, as we noted in on five continents 85 of the merely bumps in something our February 2009 issue, a toughest questions he could Physicist called ‘field,’ which is month before the movie’s come up with. It was the Leonard Susskind a property of space and debut at the Cinequest Film physicists who waxed the Codiscoverer of string time. And if it’s true for Festival in San Jose, Calif. most philosophical, he says— theory, Stanford University the fundamental particles Since then, the movie has except for one. “Stephen “Sometimes people pray hard in nature, it’s true for gone on to win three awards, Hawking wouldn’t grant for a miracle, and a miracle everything that they make including Best Documentary an interview,” says Nygard. happens—a miracle meaning up, including us. And so at Feature at DocuFest Atlanta, “He said, ‘I’m tired of the something very, very unlikely. some level, we don’t exist.” and it has been invited God question.’ ” Here are But the most unlikely to screen at more than a a few musings of those thing of all would be if no For more information: http:// dozen other festivals. It’s who weren’t. —Susan Karlin unlikely things happened.” www.thenatureofexistence.com.

20 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06U.Resources.NA.indd 20 5/12/10 5:18 PM technically speaking BY PAUL McFEDRIES

The Rise of Peep Culture We derive more and more of our entertainment from watching ourselves and others go about our lives. We’re going to enter a point where we become quite addicted to being watched. —writer Hal Niedzviecki, in the Ottawa Citizen, 31 January 2009

few years ago, I was researching the term camgirl, A used to refer to a girl or young woman who broadcasts live pictures of herself over the Web. I certainly strive to be a disinterested chronicler of new now blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, sensor device that broadcasts one’s brain words, but sometimes I just have to Flickring, and YouTubing at least some waves. No, I’m not sure why anyone shake my head. Why would someone details of our lives. In his book The would want to do that.) Mindcasters are turn her life into a digital peep show? Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love also called informers because they post I was tempted to dismiss this as a bizarre Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors, information, as opposed to meformers, hobby for a few teenage exhibitionists Hal Niedzviecki calls this peep culture. who post updates that deal mostly with caught up in a new technology. But Peep culture is a play on pop culture, their own activities and feelings. (Just to then I read that there were thousands of a phrase that entered the language keep us all confused, some folks also call camgirls out there. And yes, there were around 1959 (although the longer form this lifecasting.) plenty of camboys, too. Clearly there popular culture is surprisingly older, Other examples of -casting include were larger forces at work. with a first citation from 1854, according egocasting, reading, watching, and According to Susan Hopkins, the to the Oxford English Dictionary). listening only to media that reflect one’s author of the book Girl Heroes: The New One form is the lifestream, an online own tastes or opinions; Godcasting, Force in Popular Culture, for some kids record of a person’s daily activities, either posting an audio feed with a religious the constant surveillance of webcams via direct video feed or via aggregating message; slivercasting, delivering video arms their identities—because they’re the lifestreamer’s online content, such programming aimed at an extremely like, you know, sorta kinda on TV, and as blog posts, social-network updates, small audience; screencasting, showing only celebrities and important people and online photos. If this lifestreaming a video feed that consists of a sequence appear on TV. It’s the same impulse is video only, and in particular if the of actions on a computer screen; and, of that provides a never-ending cast of person is using some form of portable course, the familiar term podcasting. unembarrassed reality show participants. camera to broadcast his activities over We may be well on our way to It’s why TV crews never seem to have the Internet 24 hours a day (à la the becoming addicted to being watched, trouble finding a grief-stricken person camgirls), then it’s called lifecasting, but who’s doing the watching? If we’re to interview after a disaster. The and the stream itself is a lifecast. all broadcasters now, it’s entirely camgirls themselves talk about “artistic The highbrow version of possible that we’re beaming our expression” and “empowerment,” and lifestreaming uses no video and is called streams, tweets, photos, and status surely that’s true for some. But for most of mindcasting, the practice of posting updates to hundreds of “friends” and them the omnipresent eye of the webcam messages that reflect one’s current thousands of “followers” who are too serves only to validate their existence: thoughts, ideas, passions, observations, busy broadcasting their own lives to I cam, therefore I am. reading, and other intellectual interests. tune in. Peep culture may be the new RICHA R Over the past few years, broadcasting (This is not to be confused with an earlier pop culture, but is this really a two-way

D MIA the intimate details of one’s life has form of mindcasting that used the term mass phenomenon? Maybe most of us become mainstream. Many of us are in the more literal sense of attaching a have an audience of one: ourselves. J

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 21

06.Techspeak.NA.indd 21 5/12/10 9:28 AM IEEE SPECTRUM SPECIAL REPORT WATER VS. ENERGY

“THIS COULD BE A GREAT RENEWABLE ENERGY HUB. WE JUST NEED WATER” —MARK GRAN, UNITED STATES

22 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Intro.NA.indd 22 5/13/10 4:34 PM “THERE IS NO LIMI T TO HOW MANY TIMES WATER CAN BE REUSED” —ASIT BISWAS, SINGAPORE

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Intro.NA.indd 23 5/13/10 4:34 PM “WE KNOW IT WILL IMPACT THE NEXT GENERATION OF FARMERS… BUT WE NEED TO FEED AND FEND FOR OUR FAMILIES, TODAY” —BHAJAN SINGHSIDDHU, INDIA

“IF I CAN ACHIEVE 100 PERCENT RECYCLING, I WOULDN’T EVEN NEED RAIN” —HARRY SEAH, SINGAPORE

24 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Intro.NA.indd 24 5/13/10 4:34 PM “AFTER COAL, WATER IS NOW OUR LARGEST EXPENSE” —MICHAEL SINCLAIR, AUSTRALIA

“THEY’RE PLANNING ON AN AVERAGE WATER FLOW IN THE COLORADO THAT EXISTS MAYBE ONCE IN A T HOUSAND YEARS” —TIM BARNETT, UNITED STATES “UNLESS YOU’RE IN THE POSITION OF THE UTILITIES, YOU CAN’T EVEN FATHOM THE PREVIOUS PAGES: LEFT: GREGG SEGAL; RIGHT: DARREN SOH. THIS CHANGE THAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN” PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: —PAUL MICALLEF, MALTA SEPHI BERGERSON; BRAD DECECCO; JOSHUA ROMERO; GREGG SEGAL; DARREN SOH

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • I EEE SPECTRUM • NA 25

06.Intro.NA.indd 25 5/13/10 4:34 PM INTRODUCTION

OCEANS THE COMING 97% CLASH BETWEEN WATER AND ENERGY Our thirst for water competes with our hunger for energy. Only radical new ideas will get us out of this mess BY IEEE SPECTRUM S TAFF ALL WATER Total: 1.39 billion cubic kilometers

CONSIDER A GIANT SPONGE, W ITH limbs and tentacles that reach to the hori- zon. It dips into distant rivers, it delves for deep waters, it digs ditches to catch the rain—all to slake its insatiable thirst. Clearly, this is no ordinary sea creature quietly snuffling the currents. We have met this sponge, and it is us. We humans are the thirstiest of creatures, and we’ve developed a nearly insatiable taste for this simple but delectable arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. But we need WHERE THE more. So much more. FRESH- We’re not talking about just drinking WATER IS There’s water everywhere, but WATER or bathing. Without water, we’d have most of it is either too salty or 3% practically no ener . Without ener — locked up in ice. and therefore cars, planes, laptops, Source: Encyclopedia of Climate and smartphones, and lighting—we wouldn’t Weather, Oxford University Press, 1996 be doing much. In almost every type of power plant, water is a major hidden cost. Water cools the blistering steam of thermal plants and allows hydroelectric turbines to churn. It brings biofuel crops from the tle phone. Now, add up all the half-liters that a single Google search takes about reach those data centers, let alone the ground and geothermal ener from the of water used to generate the roughly half a milliliter of water. Just a few drops, world’s farms and factories? By using depths of the Earth. Our power sources 17 billion megawatt-hours that the world really. But the 300 million searches we do ener , of course. would be impotent without water. will burn through this year. Trust us, it’s a a day take 150 000 liters. That’s a thou- We burn through entire power plants’ Don’t believe us? Plug your iPhone lot of water. In the United States alone, on sand bathtubs of water to power the data worth of output to move water from into the wall, and about half a liter of just one average day, more than 500 billion centers that handle the world’s idle curi- one river—the Colorado—to bring des- water must flow through kilometers of liters of freshwater travel through the osity. We challenge you to find an activity erts into bloom. On India’s rice pad - pipes, pumps, and the heat exchangers country’s power plants—more than twice more trivial than a search engine query. dies, gigawatts of subsidized electricity of a power plant. That’s a lot of money what flows through the Nile. With that much water needed for have fueled an agricultural bonanza but and machinery just so you can get a Look at it another way. Robert Osborne, even the most trifling tasks, the natural have also induced farmers to pump the 6–watt-hour charge for your flashy lit- an enterprising water blogger, calculates question becomes: How does that water groundwater almost down to zero. In

26 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Intro.NA.indd 26 5/13/10 4:34 PM SPECIAL REPORT n WATER VS . ENERGY

SURFACE RIVERS WATER 2% Billions of 0.3% kilowatt- SWAMPS hours WORLD ELECTRICITY DEMAND OTHER 11% 30 000 Source: Energy Information Agency 0.9%

20 000 FRESH GROUND- LIQUID 10 000 WATER 30.1% SURFACE

WATER 0 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030

39 PERCENT The fraction of freshwater withdrawn from rivers, ALL WATER LAKES lakes, and aquifers in the United States that goes to cooling thermoelectric Total: 1.39 billion cubic kilometers power plants. Technology is driving power plants to withdraw less water, 87% but they evaporate away more of what they withdraw.

WORLD FUTURE

POPULATION Millions of FRESHWATER Source: “OECD Environmental FRESHWATER Billions megaliters Outlook to 2030,” OECD withdrawn NEEDS Publishing, 2008 Source: “Charting Our Water Future,” 8000 2030 Water Resources Group, 2009 8 Agriculture 6000 Industry

6 Municipal and domestic Global population 4000 Population 4 living under severe FRESH- water stress 2000 WATER Expected shortfall 3% 2 0 2010 2030

ICE CAPS AND 0 -2000 2030 GLACIERS 2005 2030 68.7%

that a single Google search takes about reach those data centers, let alone the China, oversized infrastructure schemes between the two. And Singaporeans have half a milliliter of water. Just a few drops, world’s farms and factories? By using are diverting rivers to the parched indus- learned to accept the fact that their urine— really. But the 300 million searches we do ener , of course. trial cities of the north. On Australian treated and cleaned up, of course—is now a day take 150 000 liters. That’s a thou- We burn through entire power plants’ farms, the shift to drip irrigation is sav- part of what emerges from the tap. sand bathtubs of water to power the data worth of output to move water from ing water but boosting electricity usage. Are these the kinds of solutions we centers that handle the world’s idle curi- one river—the Colorado—to bring des- The era of easy energy and plentiful need to keep the human machine and osity. We challenge you to find an activity erts into bloom. On India’s rice pad - water is ending; a new way of husbanding all its thirsty tentacles sated? We think more trivial than a search engine query. dies, gigawatts of subsidized electricity these resources must begin. Two islands they’re a start. How we plan—or fail—to With that much water needed for have fueled an agricultural bonanza but stand out as compelling test cases. In Malta, resolve the competition between water even the most trifling tasks, the natural have also induced farmers to pump the a smart grid will monitor both water and and ener needs will become one of the question becomes: How does that water groundwater almost down to zero. In electricity to elucidate the connections defining issues of this century. J

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • I EEE SPECTRUM • NA 27

06.Intro.NA.indd 27 5/13/10 4:34 PM SPECIAL REPORT n WATER VS . ENERGY

WHERE WATER MEETS WATTS Just having water and energy doesn’t protect a place from water and energy conflicts

BY IEEE SPECTRUM STAFF Boulder City, Nev. FRANCE ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW ZBIHLYJ UNITED STATES

LEGEND Renewable freshwater Total primary energy (millions of liters (metric tons of oil per capita per person) per capita equivalent per person)

Population access Population access to clean water to electricity

P ROGNOS I S Minas Gerais, Critical Grim Shaky Fair Good BRAZIL

UNITED STATES BRAZIL In Nevada, the sinking levels at PROGNOSIS A pig-iron producer claims that PROGNOSIS Lake Mead may cause the Hoover charcoal from its eucalyptus Dam’s turbines to drastically cut Grim plantation emits less carbon Critical production—or shut down com- than would coal, but the fast- pletely—as early as 2013. growing trees are sucking local waterways dry. 9.3 7.75 28.5 1.23 100% 100% 90% 98%

FRANCE MALTA LIBYA INDIA France gets most of its elec- PROGNOSIS Electricity from imported oil PROGNOSIS The Great Man Made River PROGNOSIS Free electricity has induced tricity from nuclear power Shaky powers Malta’s three desali- Fair Project, begun in 1984, uses Shaky farmers to pump excessive plants, many of which are nation plants. The world’s fi rst Libya’s oil to pump non- amounts of groundwater, cooled with river water. During joint smart grid tracks water renewable groundwater from threatening grain production heat waves, warmer or depleted rivers can and electricity use, with the goal of mini- under the Sahara and deliver it to the cities in Punjab, a breadbasket state. force them to shut down. mizing theft and curbing consumption. on the country’s northern coast. 2.9 4.15 0.1 2.12 0.1 2.9 100% 100% 100% 100% 72% 100%

28 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.HotSpotsMap.NA.indd 28 5/13/10 11:21 AM CHINA The largest water scheme in PROGNOSIS: history will eventually pump Grim 44.8 million megaliters per year from the south to the industries and cities of the north. 2.1 1.48 77% 99%

CHINA FRANCE

MALTA

Punjab, INDIA LIBYA

Manila, PHILIPPINES

SINGAPORE

Minas Gerais, BRAZIL

Brisbane, AUSTRALIA PHILIPPINES Drought has devastated crops PROGNOSIS across the archipelago and has reduced the capacity of hydro- Shaky electric dams by lowering reser- voir levels, causing rolling blackouts. Multimedia For an expanded interactive map, go online to http:// spectrum.ieee. 5.4 0.45 org/watermap. Sources: International Energy Association; World Resources Institute; The World’s Water, 2008–2009 85% 86% (Island Press, 2009); UNESCO

LIBYA INDIA SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA PROGNOSIS PROGNOSIS The Great Man Made River Free electricity has induced PROGNOSIS An advanced wastewater PROGNOSIS South East Queensland’s Project, begun in 1984, uses Shaky farmers to pump excessive treatment scheme cleans up new AU $9 billion water grid, Fair Libya’s oil to pump non- amounts of groundwater, Critical sewage and blends it with rain- Good which includes a desalination renewable groundwater from threatening grain production water to extend the potable plant, three treatment plants, and hundreds under the Sahara and deliver it to the cities in Punjab, a breadbasket state. supply on this island, which has minimal of kilometers of pipes, is a hedge against on the country’s northern coast. water and energy resources of its own. drought, but it is burning many more watts. 1.1 0.53 0.1 5.83 23.3 5.87 100% 86% 65% 100% 100% 100% 100%

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 29

06.HotSpotsMap.NA.indd 29 5/13/10 11:21 AM THIRSTY MACHINES UNITED STATES n CHINA

30 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.UnitedStates.NA.indd 30 5/12/10 5:45 PM SPECIAL REPORT n WATER VS . ENERGY

THE POWER OF WATER In the American Southwest, the energy problem is water

BY SALLY ADEE & SAMUEL K. MOORE PHOTOS BY GREGG SEGAL

MARK GRAN WORKS FOR CALENERGY, A COMPANY THAT HOPES TO EXTRACT THE GEOTHERMAL BOUNTY UNDER THE SALTON SEA. BUT THE COMPANY MAY SEE TROUBLE AS THE WATER RECEDES.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 31

06.UnitedStates.NA.indd 31 5/12/10 5:45 PM 1. THIRSTY MACHINES n UNITED STATES n CARBON CAPTURE n CHINA

AT THE EDGE OF THE S A LTON SE A, Mark Gran surveys the clanking, hiss - ing labyrinth of pipes that curl up from the desert in the distance. In front of him, steam belches up from a geothermal plant’s cooling towers, forming perfect puffy clouds that hang against a flaw- less blue sky. “We got a lot of pots and pans,” he shouts over the noise. Gran is a vice president at CalEnergy Generation, a company that’s developing geo- thermal power in the Imperial Valley, in Southern California. The 16 geothermal plants that dot the Imperial Valley—10 of which are owned by CalEner„—are among the first signs of what California hopes will become a renewable-ener„ boom. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Ener„’s National Renewable Ener„ Laboratory estimate that fully exploiting a fault line beneath the Salton Sea would supply an astonishing 2300 megawatts of power, rivaling the output of a big nuclear power plant. “This could be a great area for a renewable ener„ hub,” says Gran. “We just need water.” Beyond the plant, pipes reach out into the desert to bring water to the plants at the edge of the Salton Sea. For sev - eral reasons, the plants can’t just take water out of the sea. Instead, they must get their water piped in from miles away. Without that water, this plant wouldn’t make a watt. But CalEner„ isn’t the first to tap into a water supply that doesn’t naturally exist in these arid flats. A mere 20 minutes’ drive from here, the dusty brown earth gives way to a vivid jolt water coursing through the Imperial The intricate relationship between that climate change will cause the river’s of green: agricultural fields that cover Valley’s sloping fields, transforming water supply and electricity generation flow to shrink considerably in the com- thousands upon thousands of hectares this dry place into an unlikely agricul - plays out dramatically in the American ing years. Tim Barnett and David Pierce, of desert. Flanked by bare, sand- colored tural powerhouse. Southwest. The problem its residents researchers at Scripps Institution of mountains, bearded date palms jut from The Colorado, however, is also a vast now face is a simple one of supply and Oceanography, in La Jolla, Calif., say that geometric green fields. hydroelectric machine that supplies the demand. The Colorado is governed by those competing claims will reach a crit- The water that fills the pipes Southwest with much of its energy— agreements collectively known as the ical point by 2021. “Water deliveries will and feeds the fields comes from the directly, in the form of hydropower, or Law of the River, which divides up the have to be cut even beyond the most dra- Colorado River, which has been indirectly, by cooling massive thermo- rights to the water among seven states. conian measures,” says Barnett. stretched, splintered, and redirected electric power plants. “The more ener„ The main provisions, set into law in How that water will be shared to bring water 2300 kilo meters from people need, the more water you need for 1922, have never been updated to reflect will require some delicate rethinking. the Rocky Mountains, where it begins power plants,” says Mike Hightower, an the region’s rapid growth, and they now “People have a visceral reaction,” says as melting snowpack. The river ends in engineer at Sandia National Laboratories allocate more rights than there is water Patricia Mulroy, general manager of Mexico, but a network of canals as long who analyzes the competition between in the river. To complicate matters fur - the Southern Nevada Water Authority. as the river itself sends the Colorado’s water and ener„ needs. ther, several prominent scientists predict “You can take their gold, you can take

32 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.UnitedStates.NA.indd 32 5/12/10 5:45 PM SPECIAL REPORT n WATER VS . ENERGY

COLORADO R I V E R WATER DRIP-IRRIGATES A L KALIN’S ONION FIELDS AND FLOWS TO GEOTHERMAL PLANTS. BUT LESS OF IT ENDS UP IN THE S A LT O N S EA, WHERE SALTIER WATER K ILLS FISH AND REC EDES FROM DUSTY SHORELINES.

The intricate relationship between that climate change will cause the river’s their silver, their coal, gas, oil, and AFTER IRRIGATING THE N ATION’S BUTTER water supply and electricity generation flow to shrink considerably in the com- move it thousands of miles. Don’t touch lettuce and alfalfa in the Imperial plays out dramatically in the American ing years. Tim Barnett and David Pierce, their water.” Valley, the dregs of the Colorado River Southwest. The problem its residents researchers at Scripps Institution of But the 30 million people who depend finally dribble into the Salton Sea. This now face is a simple one of supply and Oceanography, in La Jolla, Calif., say that on the Colorado River will have no choice quirky lake collects the last drops of the demand. The Colorado is governed by those competing claims will reach a crit- but to relinquish some of their sup - 3.8 million mega liters of water the valley agreements collectively known as the ical point by 2021. “Water deliveries will ply because, simply put, there just isn’t gets each year. Law of the River, which divides up the have to be cut even beyond the most dra- enough water for this growing popula- The valley’s water supply is nearly rights to the water among seven states. conian measures,” says Barnett. tion and its ener„ needs. The reasons three-quarters of California’s total share The main provisions, set into law in How that water will be shared can be found all along the Colorado’s and enough for the daily needs of the 1922, have never been updated to reflect will require some delicate rethinking. incredible reach, from the cracked des- nearby city of San Diego about five times the region’s rapid growth, and they now “People have a visceral reaction,” says erts gasping for the river’s final drops over. Such abundance has never sat well allocate more rights than there is water Patricia Mulroy, general manager of to the enormous reservoirs that show- with the residents of that city, which is in in the river. To complicate matters fur - the Southern Nevada Water Authority. case its shriveling might [see map, “The constant drought. “They saw water flow- ther, several prominent scientists predict “You can take their gold, you can take Colorado Machine”]. ing into the Salton Sea,” says Al Kalin, an

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • I EEE SPECTRUM • NA 33

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The Colorado River originates in the Rocky Mountains.

Imperial Valley car- NEVADA rot and onion farmer. UTAH “They could really use Las Vegas it, and they thought depends on Lake Mead COLORADO we were wasting it.” for more than In 2003, under pres- 90 percent of its water Upper Colorado sure from the federal gov- C A FLO I R NA I LAKE River Basin needs. POWELL ernment, farmers scrambled to free up some water. The LAKE solution appeared simple: New MEAD conservation methods would NEW The Navajo MEXICO enable the farmers to use less A geothermal Generating water, setting it aside for San Diego. hotbed lies The Station beneath the Hoover powers The farmers did so, largely eliminating Salton Sea. Dam is pumps in the runo§ from their fi elds. losing Arizona. Imperial power. But less water for the valley meant less Valley water to replenish the Salton Sea, which ARIZONA was already choking on fertilizer runo§ Lower Colorado SALTON River Basin and heavy metals that leached in from SEA factories in Mexico. Fish died o§ in spec- Pacific tacular numbers. Kalin says that exotic Ocean Area algae became so abundant that just toss- of detail U NI T ED ing a rock into the vile stew could ignite a STATES brilliant splash of neon blue as the crea- tures glowed furiously in self-defense. MEXICO “My grandchildren love the light show,” he says. But Kalin had to stockpile scented candles to combat the stench. If that was bad, the lack of runoff The waters of the Colorado River are divided up has been even worse. Without the rivu- equally between the upper basin and the lower basin, lets from the farms to sustain it, the lake THE but shortages are expected. Some of the water goes will sink 1.8 meters a year in the des- COLORADO to energy production—at the Navajo Generating ert heat. As it recedes, it exposes a fi ne MACHINE Station coal plant, Hoover Dam, geothermal plants silt containing sodium sulfate and sele- near the Salton Sea, and many other sites. nium. The windstorms that frequently rip through the desert can stir up the selenium, which in humans can bring on workers at the plants and damage their Flashing plants need relatively little neurological problems, cirrhosis, and in equipment. “The dust sure wouldn’t be cooling water: Last year, all CalEner„ rare cases, death. Breathing in sodium good for the turbines,” says CalEner„ ’s plants combined used about 4100 ML. sulfate can cause asthma attacks and Gran. The plants themselves, however, However, fl ashing works only if the plant other respiratory problems. are partially to blame for draining the sits directly over the hottest part of the The Salton Sea’s slow death also poses valley of its limited water supply, and geothermal field, which in this case is a major problem for the geothermal- therein lies the conundrum. right on the shores of the Salton Sea. And ener„ industry and for the entire state of The Imperial Valley’s geothermal there’s much more ener„ to be had fur- California. The state has set an ambitious plants use deep wells to tap into super- ther out in the valley. goal of generating 33 percent of its electric- heated rocks thousands of meters below To fully harness the region’s geother- ity from renewable sources by 2020, and the ground. In one approach, called mal potential, prospectors will need a the Imperial Valley would play a big role flashing, the hot, pressurized brine di§ erent type of plant, known as binary in making that happen. That’s because the that’s trapped in those rocks surges to cycle. Because these can produce ener„ major challenge in reaching that target is the surface. There, the pressure change at lower temperatures, they can be built fi nding an ample supply of clean, reliable, causes some of it to turn to steam, which almost anywhere in the valley. Ormat round-the-clock power, and so far, only then drives turbines to generate elec- Technologies operates three such plants. geothermal ener„ fi lls the bill. tricity. Together, CalEnergy’s flashing But there’s a catch: Its 50-MW binary- If the lake continues to recede, the plants produce 342 MW, or enough to cycle facility in Brawley, an Imperial

impending dust storms will endanger power about 250 000 homes. Valley town about 25 km from the Salton MAP: ANDREW ZBIHLYJ

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The Colorado River originates in the Rocky Mountains.

COLORADO I MPERIAL VALLEY FARMERS HAVE WORK E D FEVERISHLY TO CONSERVE WATER F O R D I V E R S IO N TO C ITIES. H E R E , A L KALIN STANDS ON ONE OF THE LINED C A NA L S THAT C HANNEL WATER TO HIS NEW FIELDS FROM THE MEXICO COLORADO RIVER.

U NI T ED STATES

The waters of the Colorado River are divided up equally between the upper basin and the lower basin, but shortages are expected. Some of the water goes to energy production—at the Navajo Generating Station coal plant, Hoover Dam, geothermal plants near the Salton Sea, and many other sites.

Flashing plants need relatively little cooling water: Last year, all CalEner„ plants combined used about 4100 ML. However, flashing works only if the plant sits directly over the hottest part of the geothermal field, which in this case is right on the shores of the Salton Sea. And there’s much more ener„ to be had fur- ther out in the valley. To fully harness the region’s geother- mal potential, prospectors will need a di§erent type of plant, known as binary cycle. Because these can produce ener„ at lower temperatures, they can be built almost anywhere in the valley. Ormat Technologies operates three such plants. But there’s a catch: Its 50 -MW binary- cycle facility in Brawley, an Imperial NDREW ZBIHLYJ

Valley town about 25 km from the Salton MAP: A

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Sea, uses over 7400 ML of water per New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and year. That’s about 57 Olympic-size swim- the lower basin is made up of Arizona, ming pools’ worth per week and almost California, and Nevada. To ensure twice as much for one binary plant as that each basin gets its share, the U.S. CalEner„ uses for all 10 of its flashing Department of the Interior’s Bureau of plants. To generate steam, the hot brine Reclamation uses Lake Mead and Lake vaporizes a chemical with a low boiling Powell as water banks. The trouble is, point, and the resulting vapor drives there probably isn’t 9.25 million for the the turbines. Colorado River water then lower basin, says Terrance Fulp, deputy cools the chemical to condense it back regional director of the bureau’s Lower into a liquid, completing the cycle. Colorado region. For now, the numbers No one knows where the water will work only because some states, such as come from to support the valley’s grow- Utah and Wyoming, don’t claim all their ing geothermal presence. Ninety-seven water. But the populations in those states percent of the water that reaches the are growing, and each will soon want to Imperial Valley is promised by law to claim its full rights, says Scripps’s Barnett. farmers. That leaves a mere 96 000 ML Without some new and extraordinary for all the valley’s 160 000 residents and measures, that demand will be impossi- their businesses, and of this the geother- ble to meet. The Hoover Dam, finished in mal industry has been given a third. “The 1936, halted the rushing river and created little we use could be jeopardized if people AS A DEPUTY REGIONA L DI R E C T OR a placid water vault—Lake Mead. The lake AT THE BUREAU OF RECLA M AT ION, need the water for farming or municipal T ERRA NCE F ULP [above] CATA L OG S is 372 meters deep when full, but that level uses,” says Gran. “In a drought, how do THE STEA DY DROP OF LA KE MEA D. hasn’t been seen in 10 years. A drought T HE HOOVER DA M’S INTA K E you determine what takes precedence?” TOWERS [left] , WHICH WERE that began in 1999 has caused the reser- To try to reconcile competing ONCE NEA RLY SUBMERGED BY voir to drop more than 3 meters a year. THE COLORA DO RIVER, NOW JUT de mands, the Imperial Irrigation Dis- NA KEDLY OUT OF THE RECEDING Today Lake Mead looks naked. The WATER. T HE LA KE’S INFA MOU S trict, which holds the valley’s Colorado 38-METER “BATHTUB RING” IS retreating water line has exposed a River water in trust, recently set tiered VISIBLE EVIDENCE THAT T H E broad white stripe of calcite, a glaring RESERVOIR IS NOW LESS THA N fees for the water in the hope that the 50 PERCENT FULL. “bathtub ring” that lends an air of vulner- higher price will let new prospectors ability to the shrinking lake. “We used to extract the valley’s geothermal energy go cli§ diving all the time in Lake Mead,” without destroying the valley itself. New scheme will be enough to appease all T HE I MPERIA L VA LLEY’S PREDIC A MENT says a nurse in Henderson, Nev. “Now users who withdraw less than 1233 ML the users and salvage the warped envi- begins far up the Colorado River at Lake we wouldn’t dare.” per year pay up to US $493 per mega- ronment of the Salton Sea. Gran wor - Mead and Lake Powell, the two great res- At press time, the elevation of Lake liter. Those who use more must shell out ries that the Imperial Valley lacks the ervoirs that make all this water wran- Mead hovered perilously around three times as much. Whatever profit political clout of a big city and that its gling possible. 335 meters. If the lake drops 8 more the district makes will go toward water- water will continue to be taken, mean- The Law of the River allots 9.25 mil- meters, the Bureau of Reclamation will conservation projects. ing more trouble for farmers and power lion ML of river water per year to each sharply curtail water deliveries in a des- Even the geothermal operators producers alike. “The wolves are howl- of two artificially designated basins. perate bid to prevent the water level from aren’t convinced that the new pricing ing at the gate,” he says. The upper basin consists of Colorado, sinking further. When the reservoir is at normal elevations, Hoover Dam’s 17 turbines The Energy Information Agency predicts that the ADVANCED C OOLING REUSING WATER NONTRADITIONAL have a combined generating capacity of United States will add more than 70 gigawatts Air cooling radiates a Power plants can recir- WATER 2080 MW. By February, the lake’s decline With the appropriate of thermoelectric capacity by 2030. The National power plant’s heat to the culate cooling water had cut the dam’s capacity by a fifth. But MORE Energy Technology Laboratory figures that this will air instead of evaporating three or four times conditioning, water lower output is only the first symptom WATER increase the energy sector’s water consumption from water. However, it’s less before it becomes too pushed out of FOR 2010’s 9500 megaliters per day to between 10 600 eŸcient than wet cooling, concentrated with the ground by the of an ailing hydroelectric system. When and 11 700 ML per day. However, the new generation especially in summer heat. pipe-fouling min- injection of carbon the lake level sinks and the pressure gets WATTS will be based on cooling technologies that consume Air2Air, developed by SPX erals. Engineers at dioxide could be used too low, air bubbles form on the turbine (evaporate) more water but withdraw less, so the Cooling Technologies, of Philadelphia’s Drexel to cool the power blades, and the generators start to shud- industry’s total daily freshwater needs could fall by as much as 46 500 ML, Overland Park, Kan., is an University want to plant that produced der violently. “The magic number is a savings just shy of the Colorado River’s historical average daily flow rate. add-on to a traditional double that by blasting the carbon dioxide in 320 meters,” says Hoover facilities man- Some of the technologies come out of a U.S. Department of Energy cooling tower that con- the water with a high- the first place. program aimed at developing three categories of commercial-ready denses 12 to 30 percent of voltage pulse that ager Peter DiDonato. “That’s when the technologies [at right] for existing plants that could cut their water use the water that is usually generates a mineral- turbines start to shake. You can feel it. by 70 percent for half the cost of existing air-cooling technology. lost to evaporation. shatter ing shock wave. The whole building will shake.”

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New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and The vibration can damage the tur - the lower basin is made up of Arizona, bines to the extent that the engineers THE FUTURE OF California, and Nevada. To ensure may stop production altogether. Shutting HYDROPOWER, that each basin gets its share, the U.S. down the generators would be a huge AT A GLANCE Department of the Interior’s Bureau of blow to the three states that depend on The energy in river water supplies about Reclamation uses Lake Mead and Lake the dam’s power, and it’s not an option 20 percent of the world’s electricity. In Powell as water banks. The trouble is, that DiDonato likes to consider. “We just 2005, that amounted to 2900 terawatt- there probably isn’t 9.25 million for the don’t know, because we’ve never been hours. More than 60 countries get over half lower basin, says Terrance Fulp, deputy there,” he says. their electricity from hydropower. And dam building continues apace, most notably regional director of the bureau’s Lower The dam’s stakeholders are now in Brazil, China, and India. But climate Colorado region. For now, the numbers investing millions of dollars in new tur- fluctuations make predicting future work only because some states, such as bines that can function even at lake ele- hydropower output tricky. In some places, Utah and Wyoming, don’t claim all their vations that jeopardize the existing ones. shrinking rivers have reduced or even water. But the populations in those states Engineers plan to install the first such tur- shut down power generation when dam are growing, and each will soon want to bine in 2012. But new turbines alone won’t reservoirs dropped below critical levels. claim its full rights, says Scripps’s Barnett. solve the underlying problem. Lake Mead As a result, drought-stricken countries like Kenya, the Philippines, and Venezuela have Without some new and extraordinary simply has less water than it did before, su¤ered periodic blackouts and electricity measures, that demand will be impossi- and that’s a big concern for everybody rationing in recent years. ble to meet. The Hoover Dam, finished in who relies on the river. Using results from 12 climate models, 1936, halted the rushing river and created researchers at the Norwegian University AS A DEPUTY REGIONA L DI R E C T OR a placid water vault—Lake Mead. The lake FARTHER UPSTRE A M, THE ENERGY of Science and Technology examined how AT THE BUREAU OF RECLAMAT ION, is 372 meters deep when full, but that level problems are no less complicated. Before the world’s rivers will likely change over T ERRA NCE F ULP [above] CATA L OG S the next 40 years and what that will mean THE STEA DY DROP OF LA KE MEA D. hasn’t been seen in 10 years. A drought it reaches Lake Mead, the Colorado for hydropower production. They found T HE HOOVER DA M’S INTA K E TOWERS [left] , WHICH WERE that began in 1999 has caused the reser- winds southwest across the top of that while midlatitude areas will generally ONCE NEA RLY SUBMERGED BY voir to drop more than 3 meters a year. Arizona from the river’s other major res- experience reductions in river flow and THE COLORA DO RIVER, NOW JUT NA KEDLY OUT OF THE RECEDING Today Lake Mead looks naked. The ervoir, Lake Powell, situated on the bor- thus hydropower output, some areas, such WATER. T HE LA KE’S INFA MOU S as northern Europe, eastern Africa, and 38-METER “BATHTUB RING” IS retreating water line has exposed a der of Utah and Arizona. This lake was VISIBLE EVIDENCE THAT T H E broad white stripe of calcite, a glaring formed by damming the river at Glen Southeast Asia, will probably see a boost. RESERVOIR IS NOW LESS THA N As expected, the most at-risk areas 50 PERCENT FULL. “bathtub ring” that lends an air of vulner- Canyon and drowning the picturesque are those where a high dependence ability to the shrinking lake. “We used to valley. The backed-up river filled in doz- on hydropower will run headlong into go cli§ diving all the time in Lake Mead,” ens of small gorges along its length, so decreasing river runo¤. In southern T HE I MPERIA L VA LLEY’S PREDIC A MENT says a nurse in Henderson, Nev. “Now from space the lake looks like a squashed Africa, for instance, drier conditions could begins far up the Colorado River at Lake we wouldn’t dare.” centipede. But up close, it’s beautiful— mean a decline of 70 gigawatt-hours in Mead and Lake Powell, the two great res- At press time, the elevation of Lake a sprawl of red-tinged buttes with ver- hydropower capacity. Venezuela, parts of ervoirs that make all this water wran- Mead hovered perilously around dant alcoves hidden among the cli§s. Brazil, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan are also likely to be hit hard. —Anne-Marie Corley gling possible. 335 meters. If the lake drops 8 more On the Arizona side of the lake, near The Law of the River allots 9.25 mil- meters, the Bureau of Reclamation will the town of Page, there is more evidence of For more, see http://spectrum.ieee.org/ lion ML of river water per year to each sharply curtail water deliveries in a des- what drought on the Colorado is doing to hydropower. of two artificially designated basins. perate bid to prevent the water level from The upper basin consists of Colorado, sinking further. When the reservoir is at normal elevations, Hoover Dam’s 17 turbines NONTRADITIONAL have a combined generating capacity of WATER 2080 MW. By February, the lake’s decline With the appropriate had cut the dam’s capacity by a fifth. But conditioning, water pushed out of lower output is only the first symptom of an ailing hydroelectric system. When PROJECTED the ground by the CHANGES IN injection of carbon the lake level sinks and the pressure gets HYDROPOWER dioxide could be used GENERATION too low, air bubbles form on the turbine (2050) to cool the power blades, and the generators start to shud- 0 to 12 999 kilowatts plant that produced der violently. “The magic number is 13 000 to 62 000 kW the carbon dioxide in 0 to -2999 kW the first place. 320 meters,” says Hoover facilities man- ager Peter DiDonato. “That’s when the -3000 to -8000 kW turbines start to shake. You can feel it. Countries that rely on hydro- power for 50% or more of The whole building will shake.” their total power generation Source: Byman Hamududu, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

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1000 ioeer 1000 ioeer 1000 ioeer Pre e Pre e Pre e 0 nor 0 e 30 nor 0 e 0 nor 0 e

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energy production. A pumping station some $4 billion and leave a shortfall of falls on the Colorado will be much worse. induced climate change has reduced pulls water from a brand new tunnel 161 gigawatt-hours, enough to black out In a 2008 report, Scripps researchers the amount of snow that feeds the river. below the lake’s surface to cool the Navajo Los Angeles for two days. Electricity Barnett and Pierce predicted that without That alone may be enough to bankrupt Generating Station. The 2.25-gigawatt bills would rise as much as 34 percent intervention, Lake Mead has a 50 percent the system within two decades, Barnett coal-fired plant located on the Navajo in the summer, and because of the links chance of running dry by 2021. Because says. The second factor has stirred up Nation reservation powers cities from between electricity and water—such as the Bureau of Reclamation’s Fulp will do more controversy. According to several Tucson to Los Angeles. It was built to Navajo’s role in slaking Tucson’s thirst— everything in his power to prevent that, tree-ring studies from the University provide electricity for the Central Arizona higher water bills would likely follow. Pierce says, the real issue is what mea- of Arizona, the river’s flow during the Project (CAP), a sprawling water distribu- The Argonne simulations used past sures he will have to resort to. 20th century was higher than it had tion scheme that uses hundreds of pumps, droughts as a model, but if some climate Barnett and Pierce’s analysis hinged been during the previous 150 years. So canals, and dams to stretch the Colorado’s models are to be believed, future short- on two main factors. First, human - the people who divided up the Colorado water over much of Arizona. The CAP water travels 540 km from the California border, mostly uphill, with some of it That’s still a lot of water. being diverted along the way to Phoenix THE CARBON-CAPTURE CONUNDRUM For coal power plants, the and Tucson, two of the country’s fastest Coal power’s carbon savior could double its water woes state-of-the-art carbon- growing cities. Navajo guzzles Colorado capture technology is CO cooled River water to cool the steam for its tur- Despite all the talk of moving 2 known as amine-based wet before storage bines, condensing the water for reuse in to greener energy sources, scrubbing [see “Catching the plant’s boilers. It’s the pressure di§er- coal will be with us for the Carbon”]. It’s basically the foreseeable future. It’s just too technology that puts the ence between the cooled condensate and cheap and plentiful. But if we’re Cleaned exhaust fizz in your Fanta. First, the the hot steam that drives the turbine. really serious about cutting Amine cooled plant’s flue gas is scrubbed of Since the start of the Colorado’s carbon dioxide emissions, coal before use sulfurous nasties; what’s left decade long drought, Navajo’s opera- plants everywhere will need is a mixture of nitrogen, water to substantially reduce the vapor, and CO . An amine tors have worried about the security of 2 billions of metric tons of CO solution then reacts with the their water supply. “We started to see 2 they annually emit into the CO , yielding a gas stream of Colorado River runo§ drop to levels that 2 atmosphere. The big hope is mostly nitrogen, which goes no one had seen before,” says Jim Pratt, that in the next few years the out the smokestack, and a the manager of generation engineering Amine plants will begin capturing and absorbs CO2-rich amine solution. The CO from for Salt River Project, a south western storing a large portion of that Cooled 2 solution is heated to strip flue gas flue gas water and power utility that owns a CO2 deep underground, in the from the CO2 from the amines. oceans, or in mineral form. furnace The CO is then cooled and major stake in Navajo. Pratt and others 2 But the technology needed compressed for storage, and calculated that if the drought continued, Stripper unit to capture carbon has a huge the power plant’s inlet at Lake Powell downside: It could nearly would be sucking air by 2005, halting double the amount of water a Catching Carbon Today’s technology uses chemicals The Water Cost of Carbon Capture production. Thanks to a few closer-to- plant uses for every kilowatt Absorber unit normal years of snow and rain, disas - of electricity it delivers— called amines to capture carbon Adding carbon capture to a coal plant substantially dioxide. Water is used to cool the increases its water use per watt. Because carbon capture ter didn’t arrive so quickly. Lucky thing, easily erasing any gains from techniques aimed at amines and help compress the takes a substantial amount of energy, if a plant is to too, because it took until last December captured CO . continue to deliver the same amount of electricity and conserving water. 2 to bore through the local sandstone and “This technology was capture carbon at the same time, it must add generation install a new inlet on the lake, 45 meters not developed in a water- day, according to research at up for by adding more water- capacity. So a 550-megawatt plant with carbon capture below the original. constrained environment,” NETL, which is operated by cooled coal-fired power. In other might need to actually produce 675 MW of power. The new water tunnel has bought says Jared Ciferno, technology the U.S. Department of Energy. words, for a 550-megawatt WITHDRAWAL1 CONSUMPTION2 the plant a margin of safety. But if Lake manager for the existing For plants in water-stressed plant to both capture its carbon TECHNOLOGY (L/MWh)3 (L/MWh) Powell shrinks even more, the plant’s plants program of the National areas, that’s a deal breaker. and still deliver 550 MW of Steam turbine 2300 1900 Energy Technology Laboratory “It is not likely that there is electricity, it would need to add future will again be in peril. WITH CARBON CAPTURE 4500 3400 (NETL). “The bottom line is enough water supply available more than 125 MW of additional Supercritical water turbine 2100 1500 that [carbon] capture takes to any of our plants to allow generating capability to cover WITH CARBON CAPTURE 4000 3000 THE REDUCED HYDROPO WER FROM D AMS energy, and that translates to for double the water use,” says the energy used in capture. If IGCC 4 1500 1100 like Hoover and the possible loss additional water use.” John Coggins, manager of you don’t make up for the WITH CARBON CAPTURE 2300 1900 of plants like Navajo mean electric - Just how much water is resource planning at Salt River lost generation, or make it up 1. Withdrawal: Water that is removed from the ground or diverted ity shortages in the West. Engineers pretty shocking. By 2030, the Project, a water and energy in some way that requires no from a surface-water source for use, some or all of which may be addition of carbon-capture utility in Arizona. water and emits no carbon— returned to that source 2. Consumption: The amount of water a at Argonne National Laboratory sim- plant uses that evaporates away or cannot otherwise be returned to its technology would boost The 80 percent figure with a wind farm, say—the source. 3. Liters per megawatt-hour (rounded to the nearest 100 liters) ulated the effects of drought on the water consumption in the U.S. assumes that the electricity additional water consumption 4. Integrated gasification combined cycle Western grid and found that losing that Source: “Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric electricity sector by 80 percent, generation lost to powering the is more like 40 to 50 percent, Generation Requirements—2009 Update,” U.S. Department of Energy,

water would increase electricity costs or about 7500 megaliters per carbon-capture system is made according to NETL’s Ciferno. COOPER EMILY ILLUSTRATION: National Energy Technology Laboratory

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falls on the Colorado will be much worse. induced climate change has reduced River’s water did so during the wettest notably Fulp. But some water manag- In a 2008 report, Scripps researchers the amount of snow that feeds the river. part of a very wet cycle and mistak - ers are listening. “People argue with Barnett and Pierce predicted that without That alone may be enough to bankrupt enly assumed that naturally occurring [Barnett and Pierce’s] assumptions intervention, Lake Mead has a 50 percent the system within two decades, Barnett water supplies would remain the same. and probabilities,” says Mulroy, who chance of running dry by 2021. Because says. The second factor has stirred up “They’re planning on an average water manages the water supply for Las the Bureau of Reclamation’s Fulp will do more controversy. According to several flow in the Colorado that exists maybe Vegas, which depends on Lake Mead everything in his power to prevent that, tree-ring studies from the University once in a thousand years,” says Barnett. for over 90 percent of its water. “And Pierce says, the real issue is what mea- of Arizona, the river’s flow during the “They’re assuming money in the bank I say, who cares what the probabilities sures he will have to resort to. 20th century was higher than it had that they do not have.” are? Can you say it’s impossible? And Barnett and Pierce’s analysis hinged been during the previous 150 years. So Not everyone agrees with the if it’s not impossible, you’d better have on two main factors. First, human - the people who divided up the Colorado Scripps scientists’ predictions— a contingency plan.” J

That’s still a lot of water. the amines cycle back to pick former technology is used THE TROUBLE THE CARBON-CAPTURE CONUNDRUM For coal power plants, the up more CO2. in only a slim minority of Coal power’s carbon savior could double its water woes state-of-the-art carbon- Why does this process generators, and the latter WITH NATURAL GAS capture technology is demand so much water? is not yet in operation [see Thanks to a combination of extraction technologies,

CO2 cooled known as amine-based wet It’s all about the cooling. “Restoring Coal’s Sheen,” IEEE before storage there’s a lot more natural gas within reach now than scrubbing [see “Catching The power plant’s cooling Spectrum, January 2008].) anybody had thought possible. The new techniques, Carbon”]. It’s basically the tower carries heat away To really reduce CO 2 colloquially called fracking, led estimates of U.S. technology that puts the by evaporating water. emissions, says Ciferno, gas reserves to jump a whopping 45 percent last Cleaned exhaust fizz in your Fanta. First, the Cooling the amines for less thirsty forms of year, giving the country enough fuel to meet its gas plant’s flue gas is scrubbed of CO absorption—which carbon capture will have Amine cooled 2 needs for about 90 years. Newly accessible shale gas before use sulfurous nasties; what’s left generates heat in itself— to be developed. His lab is reserves may be equally enticing in other parts of the is a mixture of nitrogen, water leads to an additional load now focused on reducing world, notably China and Eastern Europe. vapor, and CO . An amine on the cooling tower, causing the amount of energy 2 But no matter where these new technologies are solution then reacts with the more water to be lost. And involved, betting that this used, there’s a catch, and it’s not a small catch. It’s water. CO , yielding a gas stream of compressing the CO to the will take care of carbon 2 2 To begin with, the recovery of shale gas requires mostly nitrogen, which goes supercritical conditions capture’s water woes, too. large quantities of water, which is injected to break up out the smokestack, and a needed for storage requires With a budget of about Amine deep rock formations. The quantity of water involved CO -rich amine solution. The cooling, too. (A less-water- US $50 million per year absorbs 2 may not be a big issue in water-rich places, but the CO from Cooled 2 solution is heated to strip intensive process would and 40 projects, NETL has flue gas flue gas e¤ect of shale gas extraction on water quality is. the CO from the amines. be used for integrated perhaps the biggest R&D from 2 The water that’s injected contains a complicated furnace The CO is then cooled and gasification combined cycle program in this area. The 2 recipe of chemicals, and by the time it’s been compressed for storage, and and oxyfuel plants, but the goal is commercial-scale Stripper unit recovered after injection it has picked up still more technology by 2020 that can chemicals, including a lot of salt and sometimes capture 90 percent of a coal radio active materials. Those chemicals, and the Catching Carbon plant’s CO while increasing 2 gas itself, can contaminate local water sources. Today’s technology uses chemicals The Water Cost of Carbon Capture Absorber unit the cost of generating Considering that some of these supply water to called amines to capture carbon Adding carbon capture to a coal plant substantially electricity at that plant by places like New York City, much of the gas may be dioxide. Water is used to cool the increases its water use per watt. Because carbon capture less than 35 percent. recoverable in theory but not in practice. amines and help compress the takes a substantial amount of energy, if a plant is to Industrial firms already Find out more at http://spectrum.ieee.org/ captured CO . continue to deliver the same amount of electricity and 2 have several pilot projects natural-gas. capture carbon at the same time, it must add generation capturing small streams of capacity. So a 550-megawatt plant with carbon capture up for by adding more water- CO2 at plants in Europe and use it to capture carbon from to capture carbon while cooled coal-fired power. In other might need to actually produce 675 MW of power. the United States. However, 235 MW of the New Haven leaching only 9 percent of a words, for a 550-megawatt WITHDRAWAL1 CONSUMPTION2 none have yet been scaled up plant’s 1300-MW capacity, plant’s power, compared to plant to both capture its carbon TECHNOLOGY (L/MWh)3 (L/MWh) to the size that would make starting in 2015. amine technology’s typical and still deliver 550 MW of Steam turbine 2300 1900 a noticeable di¤erence in a Germany’s Siemens 20 percent. That “would electricity, it would need to add WITH CARBON CAPTURE 4500 3400 plant’s water consumption. Energy has also developed ultimately imply half the more than 125 MW of additional Supercritical water turbine 2100 1500 France’s Alstom Power, for an alternative technology, cooling load,” says DoVale. generating capability to cover WITH CARBON CAPTURE 4000 3000 one, uses chilled ammonia which relies on amino-acid Of course, unless plant the energy used in capture. If IGCC 4 1500 1100 instead of amines, which salts instead of amines. operators are compelled to you don’t make up for the WITH CARBON CAPTURE 2300 1900 the technology company Amino-acid salts pick up capture carbon, these energy lost generation, or make it up 1. Withdrawal: Water that is removed from the ground or diverted says should be more energy more carbon than amines and water costs won’t be in some way that requires no from a surface-water source for use, some or all of which may be and water eŸcient. Alstom do, so you need to pump and borne at all. “Why would you returned to that source 2. Consumption: The amount of water a water and emits no carbon— plant uses that evaporates away or cannot otherwise be returned to its tested the process last year cool less material, says Tony put on a piece of equipment with a wind farm, say—the source. 3. Liters per megawatt-hour (rounded to the nearest 100 liters) with a 20-MW pilot plant at DoVale, president of Siemens that puts 10 percent of a additional water consumption 4. Integrated gasification combined cycle American Electric Power’s Environmental Systems and plant’s output away if you Source: “Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric is more like 40 to 50 percent, Generation Requirements—2009 Update,” U.S. Department of Energy, New Haven, W.Va., generating Services. So far the process didn’t have to?” says DoVale.

according to NETL’s Ciferno. COOPER EMILY ILLUSTRATION: National Energy Technology Laboratory station. AEP now plans to has been demonstrated —Samuel K. Moore

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SHRINKING SOURCE The source of the central route, the Danjiangkou Reservoir, has reportedly shrunk due to decreased fl ow from the Han River. To enable it to send more THE water north, Danjiangkou is being expanded to a storage capacity of 29 million LONG HAUL megaliters. This would China’s massive water- mean raising the water level from 157 to 170 meters and diversion project aims relocating 330 000 people to tackle severe water who live or work in the shortages, but it has fl oodplain. But increasing the reservoir’s size won’t big problems of its own YELLOW RIVER make more water fl ow into BY ANNE-MARIE CORLEY WITH YU-TZU CHIU it from the Han. ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW ZBIHLYJ

YANGTZE RIVER END: In 1952, Mao Zedong visited the great rushing Yellow START: River rivers of China’s south and suggested that the Yangtze River, thirsty north “borrow” some. Thus was born the upper reaches South-to-North Water Diversion Project. The western route is vulnerable to Nearly 60 years later, construction is under earthquakes like way on the biggest water redirection scheme in the 7.9 magnitude Sichuan quake in 2008. history. When complete, the US $62 billion project will transport 44.8 million megaliters of water per year from the lush river valleys of the south to the parched industrial north—enough to fl ood Beijing to a height of almost 3 meters. The three-pronged project, which consists of an eastern route, a YANGTZERIVER western route, and a central route, includes the construction of more than 1800 kilometers of pipelines and reinforced canals, at least 23 pumping stations, up to 7 dams, and 2 massive tunnels under the Yellow River. Some parts won’t be fi nished until midcentury. The northern need for water is great. According to a 2005 report from the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, northern China is home to about 44 percent of the population but has only 14 percent of the water. In the northern industrial city of Tianjin, the destination of the project’s eastern route, the DIRTY WATER amount of freshwater available per capita is well AND DESALINATION below 1 ML annually, the level most water experts Tianjin has reportedly refused consider essential to meet basic needs. to accept water from the What’s more, Chinese industry is concentrated eastern route, claiming that in the north, as is the energy production that drives WESTERN ROUTE it will be too polluted. The it. China’s thermoelectric power plants will need The plans, still in the works, LENGTH city has instead invested 82 million ML of water per year by 2030. are drawing fi re from engineers Unknown; government LESS POWER, in seawater desalination, Such a big project will have big consequences. and environmentalists both feasibility study continues MORE PROBLEMS which now supplies it with Draining one river to fi ll another, as the western inside and outside the Chinese THROUGHPUT To refi ll the dwindling Yellow 200 megaliters of freshwater route does, will upset the balance of power— government. One of the many 17 million ML/year River from the headwaters per day; this amount should literally—in the string of hydroelectric dams concerns is that siphoning water of the Yangtze, the western CONSTRUCTION PERIOD rise to 500 ML within fi ve years. along the Yangtze River. And some destinations, from the Yangtze will likely route will require tunneling 2010 to 2050 Desalination could be cheaper such as Tianjin, don’t even want the water, cause hydropower shortages— through mountains, crossing ENERGY CONSUMED than eastern route water; because of its high cost and poor quality. around 70 stations supply earthquake fault zones, Unknown according to oŸ cials, it costs OŸ cials can’t even claim that the project will 770 million megawatt-hours of and traversing the 3- to about 5000 yuan (US $732) per meet the north’s needs. “In the short term, it electricity annually along the LATEST NEWS 5-kilometer-high Qinghai- megaliter to desalinate water might ease the water shortage in the north,” says Yangtze. One estimate puts the The western route is Tibet Plateau. The project in Tianjin, while estimates for Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute annual energy loss after water slated to break ground will also need new pumping the piped water are about of Public and Environmental A£ airs. But in the diversion at 111 million MWh this year, but no firm date stations and massive dams. 18 000 yuan per megaliter. long term, Jun says, conservation and eŸ ciency per year. has been set. measures must help solve China’s water crisis.

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06.ChinaMap.NA.indd 40 5/13/10 9:23 AM END: END: Beijing CENTRAL ROUTE Tianjin LENGTH POPULATION: POPULATION: 22 million 12 million 1415 kilometers SHRINKING SOURCE HAI The source of the central THROUGHPUT RIVER route, the Danjiangkou 12–14 million ML/year Reservoir, has reportedly CONSTRUCTION shrunk due to decreased PERIOD Began 2003; flow from the Han River. missed targeted 2008 To enable it to send more and 2010 completion; water north, Danjiangkou is rescheduled for 2014 YELLOW being expanded to a storage RIVER ENERGY CONSUMED capacity of 29 million 0 megawatt-hours megaliters. This would Water is pumped (gravity powered) mean raising the water level between the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, from 157 to 170 meters and LATEST NEWS crosses under the relocating 330 000 people As of February, 4500 Yellow, then flows by who live or work in the residents had been gravity into Tianjin. floodplain. But increasing relocated to make way the reservoir’s size won’t for reservoir expansion. YELLOW make more water flow into The relocation is set to RIVER it from the Han. be completed by 2012. Ninety percent of the eastern route travels through existing water- ways, which are polluted by industrial waste.

START: Danjiangkou Reservoir, Hubei Province HUAI RIVER START: Yangtze River, Jiangsu Province

Three Gorges Shanghai Dam YANGTZE RIVER

YANGTZERIVER The Three Gorges Dam may need to help feed Hangzhou the central route to bolster the dwindling Danjiangkou source.

EASTERN ROUTE LENGTH 1156 kilometers DIRTY WATER THROUGHPUT AND DESALINATION 14.8 million ML/year Tianjin has reportedly refused CONSTRUCTION PERIOD to accept water from the Began 2002; missed eastern route, claiming that targeted 2007 completion; LENGTH it will be too polluted. The rescheduled for 2013 Unknown; government city has instead invested ENERGY CONSUMED feasibility study continues in seawater desalination, which now supplies it with 8.9 million MWh/year THROUGHPUT 200 megaliters of freshwater from 30 pumping stations 17 million ML/year per day; this amount should between the Yangtze CONSTRUCTION PERIOD rise to 500 ML within five years. River and the Yellow River; 2010 to 2050 Desalination could be cheaper 0 MWh/year from the ENERGY CONSUMED than eastern route water; Yellow River to Tianjin Unknown according to oŸcials, it costs (gravity powered). LATEST NEWS about 5000 yuan (US $732) per LATEST NEWS The western route is megaliter to desalinate water In March, the first slated to break ground in Tianjin, while estimates for 585-meter-long tunnel for this year, but no firm date the piped water are about crossing under the Yellow has been set. 18 000 yuan per megaliter. River was completed.

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“I LOVE THIS PLACE, AND I LOVE FARMING. BUT I LIKE WHAT WE USED TO DO, NOT WHAT WE’RE DOING NOW.” — GERARDINE HILL, SHOWN WITH HER HUSBAND, TREVOR, ON THEIR RICE FARM IN GRIFFITH, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA.

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LIFE IN DROUGHT In Australia, the driest inhabited continent, saving water increasingly means spending watts BY JEAN KUMAGAI “I LOVE THIS PLACE, AND I LOVE FARMING. PHOTOS BY BRAD D E CECCO BUT I LIKE WHAT WE USED TO DO, NOT WHAT WE’RE DOING NOW.” — GERARDINE HILL, SHOWN WITH HER HUSBAND, TREVOR, ON THEIR RICE FARM IN GRIFFITH, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA.

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A WORKER FROM M U R R U M B I D G E E IRRIGAT IO N INSTA LLS NEW PUMPS A N D PRESSURIZED PIPELINES THAT W ILL REPLAC E OLD GRAVITY- FED CHA N N E L S [ middle right] . THE MOVE W I L L SAVE WAT E R BUT USE MORE ELECTRICITY.

TREVOR HILL ST ANDS KNEE-DEEP farmers, he’s hired contractors to smooth 15 kilometers from Griffith, the agricul- Being a farmer has never been easy. in water at the edge of his rice field. He out even the slightest variations in his tural heart of central New South Wales. And Australia has never been the easiest reaches down with a weathered hand, fields’ topography, and he uses satellite The couple has raised three children here. place to do it. It’s a largely dusty continent plucks a green stalk, and carefully cuts imagery to diagnose the health of the soil, Their yellow-brick ranch house is cheerful where droughts can span decades, only a slit along the stem. He coaxes out the measures designed both to reduce water and inviting, and a rose garden adorns the to give way in a day to torrential storms delicate strand of pale green rice kernels consumption and boost production. foot of the sloping yard. There are animals that can go on until the dams overflow. and then holds it up to the sunlight. It’s After the harvest, he’ll sell the rice everywhere—chickens, ducks, two sheep- Even so, there’s no precedent for what’s still more than two months to harvest stubble to cattle farmers. On the water dogs, and a chatty long-billed Australian been happening here. The last eight or time, but to his eye the crop looks good. that remains in the ground he’ll sow a cockatoo named Charlie. But the Hills are nine years have been the driest since The rice fields on Hill’s farm in New crop of oats or barley. Throughout the seriously thinking about moving on. European settlement began two centu- South Wales, Australia, form an emer- summer, his lambs will munch on weeds “I love this place, and I love farming,” ries ago. And it’s unlikely to get better ald expanse that stretches to the horizon— and grass along the banks of the rice pad- Gerardine says. “But I like what we anytime soon. Computer models predict until you turn around. Across the dirt docks; eventually he’ll auction them oŠ for used to do, not what we’re doing now.” that in coming decades much of Australia road, the land is brown and bare. In wetter about AU $130 a head. And after all that, These days, the state government sends will become hotter, windier, and drier. times, he’d plant rice on nearly a third of Hill will be lucky to break even this year. a mental-health worker to monthly meet- Even ordinary Aussies are starting his 412 hectares; this year he has enough His wife, Gerardine, grew up on this ings in town, a routine prompted by an to sound a little panicked. A talk-radio water to irrigate just 44. Like many local farm, reachable by gravel road about uptick in suicides in the past few years. caller lobbies for relocating the country’s

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should save millions of megaliters of water but will burn many more megawatts, too. That’s because water-saving techniques like drip irrigation and pressurized pipe- lines carry a stiŠ ener¢ penalty. New projects also tackle water usage in cities, where close to 90 percent of the population now lives. Of these eŠ orts, the most ambitious is South East Queensland’s $9 billion water grid, which promises to drought-proof the region. In doing so, it’s also boosting the electricity consumed by the water system. That’s because of the new reliance on energy- intensive water technologies like desali- nation and wastewater recycling. Even as this country of 22 million people contemplates its dry future, it is already facing a startling reality: From here on, there will be no easy solutions. The future will bring only complex and sometimes heartrending trade-oŠ s.

“FOREVER UNINHABITABLE AND USELESS for all the purposes of civilized man.” A WORKER FROM And so Australian surveyor John Oxley MURRUMBIDGEE IRRIGATION dismissed the desiccated plains of central I N STA L L S N E W P U M P S A N D New South Wales nearly 200 years ago. PRESSURIZED Now that same area abounds with cit- P I P E L I N E S T H AT WILL REPLACE rus groves, vineyards, cherry orchards, OLD GRAVITY- FED CHANNELS and rice fields. What sustains all that [ middle right] . lush verdure is an irrigation network THE MOVE WILL S AV E WAT E R that can move up to 8.5 billion liters BUT USE MORE ELECTRICITY. of water every day from the mighty Murrumbidgee River to the sparkling irrigation channels that crisscross 120 000 hectares of farmland. Those earthen and concrete chan- 15 kilometers from Griffith, the agricul- Being a farmer has never been easy. agricultural center to Tasmania. A taxi nels, some nearly a century old, lose tural heart of central New South Wales. And Australia has never been the easiest driver in Sydney wonders why the gov- about 5 percent of their water through The couple has raised three children here. place to do it. It’s a largely dusty continent ernment isn’t building a giant pipeline to evaporation and leakage. Once the water Their yellow-brick ranch house is cheerful where droughts can span decades, only pump water from the country’s tropical reaches a farm, losses can be even higher and inviting, and a rose garden adorns the to give way in a day to torrential storms north to the arid south. A retired aca- if ine§ cient irrigation methods are used. foot of the sloping yard. There are animals that can go on until the dams overflow. demic suggests fl oating huge freshwater- So with funding from the government, everywhere—chickens, ducks, two sheep- Even so, there’s no precedent for what’s fi lled balloons along the eastern seaboard Murrumbidgee Irrigation (MI), which dogs, and a chatty long-billed Australian been happening here. The last eight or to replenish depleted waterways. is based in Gri§ th and operates the net- cockatoo named Charlie. But the Hills are nine years have been the driest since The Australian government has work, is replacing about a third of the seriously thinking about moving on. European settlement began two centu- responded to its water woes with a raft channels. Instead of the old, gravity-fed “I love this place, and I love farming,” ries ago. And it’s unlikely to get better of big projects. Its 10-year, $12.9 billion network, high-pressure pipelines and Gerardine says. “But I like what we anytime soon. Computer models predict (US $11.8 billion) “Water for the Future” pumping stations will now keep the used to do, not what we’re doing now.” that in coming decades much of Australia plan, whose aim is to “prepare Australia water moving and under pressure. Those These days, the state government sends will become hotter, windier, and drier. for a future with less water,” includes pipes and pumps, as well as the pipes and a mental-health worker to monthly meet- Even ordinary Aussies are starting $5.8 billion to modernize irrigation infra- pumps on individual farms, all require ings in town, a routine prompted by an to sound a little panicked. A talk-radio structure. [Note: All fi gures in this article electricity. The move will save water but uptick in suicides in the past few years. caller lobbies for relocating the country’s are in Australian dollars.] The program will also consume $2.5 million worth

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of electricity a year, says MI managing director Brett Tucker. “For nearly a hundred years, we’ve been a deliverer of water,” Tucker says. “We recognize now that we also deliver ener¢, because it’s embedded in the water, one way or other.” The electricity costs will be passed along to water customers. “Ener¢ isn’t getting any cheaper,” he says. “Our customers are worried.” But pricey electricity isn’t the farmers’ only worry. Water now carries a price, too. Each year, Australian farmers who rely on irrigation receive an allocation of available water, for which they pay a management fee; any extra water must be bought by the megaliter in a national market in which prices can fluctuate wildly. When it rains—no surprise here— water is cheap. But in a dry summer the INTERCEPTION SCHEMES LI K E price can soar, as it did three years ago, THI S ONE I N N E W S OUTH WALES KEEP when a megaliter was trading at $1200. SALT OUT OF T H E For a farmer like Trevor Hill, who M URRAY-DARLI NG BASI N’S WATERWAYS. needs about 15 megaliters (ML) per year BUT DROUGHT AND OVERALLOCATION for each hectare of rice, unpredictable OF WAT E R H AV E LEF T THE BASI N prices are a serious challenge. This past “UNBELI E VA B LY season, water started at about $300/ML, STRESSED.” falling to a more reasonable $130/ML in late January. By then, though, with the season two-thirds over, the lower price meant almost nothing to Hill’s bottom line. One of the goals of the market is to your water rights to someone else, such tled to water that doesn’t exist. The same son. Three years ago, though, they made compel farmers to save water. Agriculture as a farmer hundreds of kilometers away. paradox exists for water users along the a similar play and wound up losing their accounts for about 65 percent of Austra - That last part of the scenario both - Colorado River in the United States [see entire rice crop. lia’s water use, so it’s the most logical place ers Mike Neville, the mayor of Gri§th. “The Power of Water” in this issue]. “We’re always on the computer, wor- to look for e§ciencies. In general, farmers The last thing he wants is a waterless The Hills carefully track their water rying about water and trading,” says have responded. About half of the fruit town. And so he’s come to view water account on their home computer. Their Gerardine. “You try to plan, but you

and other horticultural farms in the MI as a community asset, like a good pub - license is for 1570 ML of water per year, CLO can’t really plan, because the availabil- C

district have adopted drip irrigation or lic library (which Gri§th has) and nice but nearly all of that is designated as a KWISE FROM TOP R ity of water is so unknown.” microsprinklers, which precisely release green parks (ditto). “general security” allocation, meaning water, fertilizer, and pesticides right at a “We’ve got to make sure this area that during dry seasons, they may get FARMING MAY SOON GET EVEN TOUGHER, plant’s roots. remains attractive so that people want to only a small fraction of it or none at all; at least for those who make their living ART

But the market’s rules can also lead bring water into the district, as opposed if they need more water, they have to buy IGH T in the Murray-Darling Basin, which has HUR M

to odd outcomes. In Griffith, everyone to trading it out,” Neville says. “What it on the open market. Last October, MI : I long been Australia’s food bowl. Named RENE DOW D

knows someone who’s decided to trade good is it if there’s no water?” informed them they would receive only OS for the two main rivers that flow through T his water and sit out a season, turn - 7 percent of their general-security water, EA D/M it, the basin covers a little over a mil - Y/

ing a tidy profit by growing nothing. A JUST HOW MUCH WATER G RIFFI T H H A S so they decided to buy an additional URRAY-DARLING BASIN AUT lion square kilometers in southeastern M few farmers have even sold their water or doesn’t have at any given time isn’t 210 ML. That still wasn’t enough water URRAY-DARLING BASIN AUT Australia, encompassing portions of five rights permanently; you can do that in always clear. A water license entitles for the 44 hectares of rice that Trevor states, including the rice farms of Gri§th, Australia, because water and land are the bearer to a certain allocation of water, intended to plant, but he took a gamble New South Wales. now bought and sold separately. typically measured in hundreds or thou- that either the allocation would grow or More than 150 years of farming and Let’s say you own a wheat farm. You sands of megaliters. But the licenses were that the market price would stay low. His grazing have left the region in rough shape.

could sell your house, barn, and land to established in the much wetter days of bet paid oŠ: Rainfalls upped the alloca - HORI T For years, the biggest problem in the HORI T

one person, perhaps a retiree who aspires the mid-1980s. Today the drought means tion to 30 percent, which left the Hills Y (2) basin was salt. Australian soil naturally to a rural lifestyle. Then you could sell that a Gri§th farmer is often legally enti- with just enough water to finish the sea- Y; contains a lot of it, deposited by ancient

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“We dealt with the salinity problem A DRY LAKE B E D AWA I T S remarkably well,” says Mike Taylor, W E T T E R TIMES. chairman of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, a federal agency charged with overseeing the region’s ecological revival. “What we weren’t dealing with were the environmental impacts from the over- allocation of water. And now we fi nd the system unbelievably stressed.” “Stressed” can mean lots of things: pesticide and fertilizer runoff that trig- gers rampant algal blooms; healthy streams reduced to muddy puddles; infes- tations of carp that push out native fi sh; the dying oŠ of native trees and grasses; the disappearance of entire wetlands, and with them, all the birds, fi sh, and animals. Taylor’s organization is now drafting a plan, due out later this year, that aims to fundamentally change the way Australia manages water in the basin. This time, engineering fi xes alone won’t do the trick. This time, people will simply have to use less water. Government scientists work- ing with Taylor’s group are now fi guring out how much groundwater and surface water is actually available. Next, they’ll ALGAE CHOKES A CREEK NEAR EUSTON, NEW SOUTH WALES. set limits on how much of it can be used. The goal is to ensure that enough water is set aside to keep the basin’s riv- ers, streams, and wetlands healthy. Only tled to water that doesn’t exist. The same son. Three years ago, though, they made inland seas and salt-laden winds oŠ the after the environment’s needs have been paradox exists for water users along the a similar play and wound up losing their ocean. Ordinarily the salt would have satisfied will the government consider Colorado River in the United States [see entire rice crop. stayed where it was, but irrigation raised other users—irrigators, towns, indus- “The Power of Water” in this issue]. “We’re always on the computer, wor- the water table in many areas and, along try, electricity generators. The amount of The Hills carefully track their water rying about water and trading,” says with it, the salt from deep below ground. water available to them “almost certainly account on their home computer. Their Gerardine. “You try to plan, but you At one point, an estimated 1200 metric will contract,” says Taylor. That process license is for 1570 ML of water per year, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: IRENE DOWDY/MURRAY-DARLING BASIN AUTHORITY; can’t really plan, because the availabil- tons of salt were being flushed into the has already begun: Several years ago, but nearly all of that is designated as a ity of water is so unknown.” Murray and Darling Rivers every day, and the government began buying up water “general security” allocation, meaning over irrigation had rendered nearly a mil- rights throughout the basin, primarily that during dry seasons, they may get FARMING MAY SOON GET EVEN TOUGHER, lion hectares of farmland either too water- from irrigators. By the end of 2009, it had only a small fraction of it or none at all; at least for those who make their living logged or too saline, or both. purchased 766 billion liters of water enti- if they need more water, they have to buy ARTHUR MOSTEAD/MURRAY-DARLING BASIN AUTHORITY (2) in the Murray-Darling Basin, which has Starting in the late 1980s, the govern- tlements worth just over $1.2 billion. it on the open market. Last October, MI long been Australia’s food bowl. Named ment began limiting how much salt each Farmers are fretting about their water informed them they would receive only for the two main rivers that fl ow through of the basin’s fi ve states could release into being diverted to swamps and billabongs. 7 percent of their general-security water, it, the basin covers a little over a mil- the rivers. At a number of sites, elabo- Alister Watt has lived and worked in so they decided to buy an additional lion square kilometers in southeastern rately engineered schemes were con- Gri§ th since 1974, fi rst as a livestock bro- 210 ML. That still wasn’t enough water Australia, encompassing portions of fi ve structed to intercept the highly saline ker and now as a water broker. Although for the 44 hectares of rice that Trevor states, including the rice farms of Gri§ th, groundwater before it reached the rivers he earns his living from the same water intended to plant, but he took a gamble New South Wales. and instead pump it into reservoirs or market that eventually will allow the that either the allocation would grow or More than 150 years of farming and deep aquifers. This has prevented some government to reduce the water alloca- that the market price would stay low. His grazing have left the region in rough shape. 370 metric tons of salt per day from enter- tion to farmers, he’s skeptical about the bet paid oŠ : Rainfalls upped the alloca- For years, the biggest problem in the ing the rivers. (Unexpected epicurean plan. “Everybody is making radical deci- tion to 30 percent, which left the Hills basin was salt. Australian soil naturally bonus: Murray River Salt, pink and fl aky, sions on the management of water in times with just enough water to fi nish the sea- contains a lot of it, deposited by ancient is now sold as a gourmet condiment.) when it’s very, very dry,” Watt says. “One

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Traveston Crossing Dam (proposed) Area of detail AUSTRALIA = Water treatment plant = Desalination plant Northern Regional day, the old fella upstairs is going to make Pipeline Dennien was working for the Queensland it rain, and everybody will get wet. What Pacific Water Commission, where he was execu- Ocean are they going to do with the water then?” Tarong tive director for regional planning and Australian rivers, he notes, aren’t like Power Station policy. The job title was largely aspira- other rivers. It’s normal for the Murray Pipeline Somerset tional; water wasn’t handled as a regional Dam and the Darling to dry up altogether dur- issue. Each municipality set its own water ing very dry years. Why exert so much restrictions, and there were 16 bulk water eŠ ort to preserve a state of nature that suppliers, each with its own territory. North Pine may not, in fact, be natural? Dam “You could drive down a street and on Wivenhoe, the main Wivenhoe Chris Davis, a water expert at the dam for South East Dam one side people weren’t allowed to water Queensland, can Brisbane University of Technology Sydney and a store 1.15 million their garden or wash their car,” Dennien member of Australia’s National Water megaliters of water recalls. “And on the other side, they had but fell to 16 percent Commission, concedes that “everybody’s capacity during the unlimited use of water. So they’d shoot perception of what’s natural is diŠ erent.” drought. water across the street to their neigh- Western Corridor Still, he says, it’s pretty clear that parts of Recycled Water bors! How crazy was that?” Project the basin need urgent attention. “The plan Bundamba, one of As dam levels continued to drop, will make or break the basin,” he says. three new waste- Swanbank planners in the Queensland govern- water treatment Power Station Taylor’s group has its work cut out plants, was built as a Southern ment, including Dennien, saw a way out for it, Davis adds. “The irrigators will be rainfall-independent Regional of the crisis. Much like an electricity grid, source of water. Pipeline unhappy, the environmentalists will be a regionwide water grid could link up unhappy,” he says. “If anybody is totally Hinze the storage dams and move the water to Dam happy, then [the Murray-Darling Basin where it was needed. Rather than rely- Authority] has got it wrong.” ing solely on rainfall flowing into the The new Gold Coast Desalination Plant uses reverse-osmosis technology to dams, they pushed for rain-independent IT’S POURING IN BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, provide up to 125 ML of water per day. sources: desalination and water treat- on a Sunday morning in February. Not ment technologies advanced enough to a half-hearted sprinkle, not a spitting turn sewage into drinking water. mist, but a hefty, healthy soaking, the WHEN Modeled on an electricity grid, the South East In 2006, the water grid plan was kind that sends pedestrians dashing for IN Queensland water grid has 340 kilometers of pipeline adopted, and in just under two years, cover in the nearest doorway. DROUGHT... connecting 14 storage dams and weirs, a desalination the desalination plant and advanced By mid-March, a series of such del- plant, and three water treatment plants. Though it will water treatment plants came online, uges had almost completely topped the allow the region to withstand future droughts, the grid uses lots of electric- with a total planned output of close to storage dams that supply water to this ity to treat and move up to 182 million liters of drinking water each day. 300 million liters of water per day—about city, the capital of Queensland. Less than half the region’s needs. Hundreds of kilo- three years earlier, though, a prolonged meters of pipelines were constructed, drought had left those same dams at just personal water consumption to no more predrought 300 L to 129 L. “It was so bril- capable of moving up to 182 million liters 17 percent capacity and the entire region than 140 liters per day—about what it liant,” Tan says. of drinking water per day. And water scrambling for options. takes to fi ll a bathtub. People could water Around the same time, the Queens- management was streamlined and made Now, there are a few things you can do their gardens or wash their cars only land government began building a truly regional: The 16 bulk water suppli- in a drought: You can conserve water, you with buckets and only during designated $9 billion water grid extending across the ers were merged into seven, each with its can channel it from where it is to where times. The government also pushed low- state’s southeast end, a 23 000-square- own specialized function, with the SEQ it isn’t, or you can fi nd new sources of it. fl ush toilets, low-fl ow showerheads, and kilometer area. The grid hooked up Water Grid Manager’s o§ ce at the top and Brisbane did all those things and more. water-e§ cient dishwashers and washing 14 existing dams and weirs as well as Barry Dennien as its CEO. The region’s massive response revealed machines. The local newspaper gave away a new desalination plant and three the importance of planning on a timescale vouchers for 4-minute shower timers. advanced wastewater-treatment plants. IN EARLY 2008, JUST AS THE PIECES OF greater than just a decade or two. But it Su-fern Tan, an architectural engi- More than 4000 people worked on the grid were coming together, a funny also brought to light the inevitable trade- neer who lived in Brisbane then, recalls the construction of the water grid, but thing happened: It started to rain. Last

oŠ between water and ener¢ : South East that time with a certain fondness. “When none with more zeal than Barry Dennien. ILLUSTRATION: BRANDON PALACIO November the drought was officially Queensland engineered a drought-proof we were stuck in tra§ c, those signs that “Barry’s like the evangelist of water,” declared over. future for itself, but one in which ener¢ normally say ‘Slow down, heavy tra§ c’ says Chris Snape, a program manager in At the height of the drought, opinion consumption for water has soared. instead said ‘Come on, Brisbane, let’s get the South East Queensland Water Grid polls had shown more than 80 percent The drought’s first surprise was the down to 140 liters per person per day,’ ” Manager’s office, which oversees the of the public in favor of adding recy- enthusiasm with which Brisbane resi- Tan says. grid’s operation. “I’ve never seen any- cled wastewater to the drinking supply. dents embraced water conservation. The Much to everyone’s surprise, resi- one as passionate about water.” After the rains came, people changed

government urged them to reduce their dents cut their daily water use from a When the drought started in 2002, MAP: ANDREW ZBIHLYJ their minds.

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= Water treatment plant = Desalination plant

Dennien was working for the Queensland Pacific Water Commission, where he was execu- Ocean tive director for regional planning and policy. The job title was largely aspira- tional; water wasn’t handled as a regional issue. Each municipality set its own water restrictions, and there were 16 bulk water suppliers, each with its own territory. “You could drive down a street and on one side people weren’t allowed to water their garden or wash their car,” Dennien recalls. “And on the other side, they had unlimited use of water. So they’d shoot water across the street to their neigh - bors! How crazy was that?” S OUTH EAST QUEENSLAND ENGI NEERED A DROUGHT-PROOF F UTURE F OR I TSELF, As dam levels continued to drop, BUT ONE I N WHICH ENERGY CONSUMPTION F OR WATER HAS SOARED. planners in the Queensland govern - ment, including Dennien, saw a way out “It’s like a kid with three types of food AND SO AUSTRALIA’S SEARCH FOR NEW of the crisis. Much like an electricity grid, on his plate,” says Snape. “If he doesn’t water efficiencies goes on, sometimes a regionwide water grid could link up have to eat the one he doesn’t like, why with odd or unexpected repercussions the storage dams and move the water to would he?” An antiwastewater cam - that reveal the growing tension between where it was needed. Rather than rely- paign by the pungently named “Citizens ener¢ and water resources—that gains ing solely on rainfall flowing into the Against Drinking Sewage” played on in the one will increasingly come at the dams, they pushed for rain-independent people’s fear of “poo water” in public ral- expense of the other. sources: desalination and water treat- lies, blog posts, and letters to the editors Continued on page 72 ment technologies advanced enough to of major newspapers. The group sent turn sewage into drinking water. out a half million copies of a glossy pam- Modeled on an electricity grid, the South East In 2006, the water grid plan was phlet called “Think Before You Agree to Powered Queensland water grid has 340 kilometers of pipeline adopted, and in just under two years, Drink.” Bottled water sales soared. connecting 14 storage dams and weirs, a desalination the desalination plant and advanced Scientists pointed out that the treated By Crazy plant, and three water treatment plants. Though it will water treatment plants came online, wastewater was so clean that kidney allow the region to withstand future droughts, the grid uses lots of electric - with a total planned output of close to dialysis patients could drink it. Besides, MOISTURE WHIP 300 million liters of water per day—about they said, the water wouldn’t be piped ity to treat and move up to 182 million liters of drinking water each day. A major hurricane half the region’s needs. Hundreds of kilo- directly into people’s homes but rather releases enough meters of pipelines were constructed, pumped into a storage dam, mixed with mechanical energy to predrought 300 L to 129 L. “It was so bril- capable of moving up to 182 million liters thousands of megaliters of other water, sustain the planet for liant,” Tan says. of drinking water per day. And water and then treated again before anyone got several years. If you could Around the same time, the Queens- management was streamlined and made to drink it. figure out a way to harness and land government began building a truly regional: The 16 bulk water suppli- It made no diŠerence. Bowing to pub- store that energy, you’d have a cheap, renewable, emissions-free $9 billion water grid extending across the ers were merged into seven, each with its lic pressure, the premier of Queensland, power source. state’s southeast end, a 23 000-square- own specialized function, with the SEQ Anna Bligh, announced that the treated Canadian engineer Louis Michaud kilometer area. The grid hooked up Water Grid Manager’s o§ce at the top and water would be sent to the dams only says he can do just that. Into his 14 existing dams and weirs as well as Barry Dennien as its CEO. when they fell below 40 percent. In the Atmospheric Vortex Engine—basically a new desalination plant and three meantime, it would be piped to two coal a large cylindrical room—he plans to advanced wastewater-treatment plants. IN EARLY 2008, JUST AS THE PIECES O F power plants outside Brisbane. At that inject warm air and steam to create a whirlwind. Once it gets going, the vortex More than 4000 people worked on the grid were coming together, a funny point, it was hard to justify the $2.5 billion should become self-sustaining and the construction of the water grid, but thing happened: It started to rain. Last investment in the treatment plants. will be used to drive a turbine. Michaud I none with more zeal than Barry Dennien. LLUS November the drought was officially But as Queensland’s population estimates that a 200-meter-diameter

“Barry’s like the evangelist of water,” T declared over. grows—about 1500 newcomers now machine could produce 200 megawatts. RA

T Sound too good to be true? Probably, says Chris Snape, a program manager in ION: BRAN D At the height of the drought, opinion arrive every week—the government will the South East Queensland Water Grid polls had shown more than 80 percent eventually have no choice but to use that but it’s at least theoretically workable. IHLYJ Manager’s office, which oversees the of the public in favor of adding recy - water. It has plans for two new desalina- An evaluation by a group of engineers at

ON P the Canadian Academy of Engineering grid’s operation. “I’ve never seen any- REW Z B cled wastewater to the drinking supply. tion plants, too. They may not get built for damned the project with faint praise one as passionate about water.” ALA After the rains came, people changed another 20 years, Dennien says, but the

C by stating that the idea “does not defy IO

When the drought started in 2002, MAP: AN D their minds. planning has already begun. known physics.” —Sally Adee

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BI O F U EL’ S WATER PROBLEM Irrigating biofuel crops on a grand scale would be disastrous BY DAVID SCHNEID ER

THE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF BIOFUEL over petroleum is that the sources of bio- fuel are so widely available. The geologic fates may not have endowed your corner of the world with oil or gas deposits, but just about everyone can grow plants to make fuel. Unfortunately, some of the places these crops are grown require irrigation, and when water enters the equation, biofuels are a lot less attrac - tive than the stu‰ they’re replacing. Take soybeans. According to Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber of the University of Texas at Austin, the pro- cessing required to turn soybeans into biodiesel requires negligible water. But increases in corn production appear to Even the more problematic sources U.S. freshwater consumption might go if you can’t depend on rain, raising the be in areas where irrigation is common. of petroleum—tar sands and oil shale— toward making biofuels. crop in the first place takes buckets. On That’s a problem, because irrigation don’t consume all that much water. A better idea is to use crops that don’t average in the United States, 28 liters of already accounts for 37 percent of the True, you need high-temperature steam require any more water than what local irrigation water are needed to produce water withdrawn from aquifers, lakes, to separate the petroleum from the rock rains provide. Oil palms in Indonesia and enough soybeans to propel an average and rivers in the United States (about it’s found in. But according to King and sugarcane in Brazil are already being vehicle 1 kilometer (12 gallons of water the amount used in ener production). Webber, the processing of tar sands into used to produce biofuels in large quanti- consumed per mile driven). Ethanol Now let’s look at the water involved fuel consumes on average just 0.78 L/km ties without irrigation. It’s not that these produced from corn grown on irrigated in the production of conventional petro- of water, and the processing of oil shale plants don’t need lots of water; it’s just fields is almost as bad. Driving a typical leum fuels. According to King and Webber, takes even less: 0.59 L/km. that the tropical lands they are grown on

flexible-fuel vehicle on E85 (85 percent whether you use gasoline or diesel in your Judged on a water-use Richter scale, ILLUSTR receive abundant rains. Indeed, it might ethanol fuel) produced from irrigated car, driving it a kilometer takes less than then, petroleum extraction and process- make more sense to import biofuels A cornfields consumes about 26 L/km on 0.33 L of water. Even that very modest esti- ing make for mere tremors, whereas corn- TIO N from such water-rich regions of the globe : BRANDO N

average, assuming both the corn’s seed mate “could be overly pessimistic about or soybean-based biofuels can amount MY than to try to grow them where there’s A

and stalks are transformed into ethanol. freshwater consumption,” says King, to building-leveling quakes. In their lat- /AL not enough water. One thing’s for sure:

At present, less than 20 percent of the because it doesn’t take into account that est study (with Ian Duncan, published P The future of any crop now being touted corn grown in the Midwestern corn belt some of the water used to boost oil recov- this past February), King and Webber ALA as a good source of biofuel will hinge on CIO

of the United States is irrigated. But the ery is extracted from oil wells themselves. suggest that by 2030 about 8 percent of N JEREMY NIXO how it slakes its thirst. J

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AVERAGE WATER REQUIREMENTS FOR DRIVING (Liters of water per kilometer driven)

0.26 1.5 Consumption GASOLINE FROM PETROLEUM Withdrawal

0.19 1.1 DIESEL FROM PETROLEUM

0.59 1.9 GASOLINE FROM O IL SHALE

0.78 2.0 GASOLINE FROM TAR SANDS

0.56 18 ELECTRICITY FROM U.S. GRID

26 35 E85 FROM IRRIGATED COR N*

28 35 BIODIESEL FROM IRRIGATED S OYBEANS

Consumption is the amount of water taken from a source that evaporates away or cannot otherwise be returned to its source. Withdrawal is defined as water that is removed from the ground or diverted from a surface-water source for use, some or all of which may be returned to that source.

* Using the whole plant.

Source: Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber, “Water Intensity of Transportation,” Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 42, no. 21, 2008, and King (personal communication)

Even the more problematic sources U.S. freshwater consumption might go they’ll cull them, dry them, and of petroleum—tar sands and oil shale— toward making biofuels. Powered extract the uranium. What to do with the leftover seaweed? Turn it don’t consume all that much water. A better idea is to use crops that don’t By Crazy into biofuels, of course! True, you need high-temperature steam require any more water than what local The Japan Atomic Energy to separate the petroleum from the rock rains provide. Oil palms in Indonesia and URANIUM FROM SEAWATER Commission, meanwhile, has it’s found in. But according to King and sugarcane in Brazil are already being engineered a synthetic polymer that adsorbs Webber, the processing of tar sands into used to produce biofuels in large quanti- The world’s oceans contain about 4 billion uranium, trapping the substance as the water fuel consumes on average just 0.78 L/km ties without irrigation. It’s not that these metric tons of uranium, a thousand times as flows through. After pickling a long, braided much as is available in all the world’s mines. tendril of the uranium-catching fiber for of water, and the processing of oil shale plants don’t need lots of water; it’s just But that nuclear-power treasure trove exists 30 days, researchers were able to capture takes even less: 0.59 L/km. that the tropical lands they are grown on in concentrations of just 3 parts per billion. 1.5 grams of yellowcake uranium in every

Judged on a water-use Richter scale, ILLUSTR receive abundant rains. Indeed, it might Retrieving it and separating it from all the other kilogram of the fiber. then, petroleum extraction and process- make more sense to import biofuels parts has been impractical, to say the least. Some major stumbling blocks remain, A ing make for mere tremors, whereas corn- TIO N from such water-rich regions of the globe Researchers in several countries, including including the energy needed to remove Japan and India, think they’ve figured out a the uranium from the seaweed and the : BRANDO N or soybean-based biofuels can amount MY than to try to grow them where there’s A way to get their hands on that watery uranium: recyclability of the synthetic fibers. And not to building-leveling quakes. In their lat- /AL not enough water. One thing’s for sure: by harvesting it, literally. In Japan, the Mitsubishi everyone is convinced the method will work. est study (with Ian Duncan, published P The future of any crop now being touted Research Institute has proposed genetically The French Atomic Energy Commission, which this past February), King and Webber ALA as a good source of biofuel will hinge on

CIO engineering seaweed that will selectively absorb had been collaborating with India on uranium

suggest that by 2030 about 8 percent of N JEREMY NIXO how it slakes its thirst. J the heavy metal. When the plants are mature, harvesters, recently bailed out. —Sally Adee

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If cultivation continues here as it has, the groundwater—the source of most of Punjab’s irrigation—could be exhausted in 20 years, say researchers at Punjab Agricultural University, in Ludhiana. The situation is not unique to Punjab. Collectively, India’s farmers extract PUMPING about 212 million megaliters of water each year to irrigate some 35 million PUNJAB hectares. That amount of water—enough to submerge London by more than DRY 100 meters—is considerably more than what flows into the aquifers through Cheap energy rainfall and runoff, and plummeting endangers India’s water tables now plague other areas as ability to feed itself well. Based on its aquifers’ natural rate BY SEEMA SINGH of recharge, Punjab can sustainably sup- PHOTOS B Y SEPHI BERGER S ON port at most 1.8 million hectares of rice, according to the state’s director of agri- culture, Balwinder Singh Sidhu. At pres- ent, it has 2.8 million hectares of rice. If THE NOR T HERN IND I AN S TAT E OF PUNJAB the situation doesn’t change, a food cri- is the country’s historic breadbasket, and 60-year- sis in India seems imminent. old Harnek Singh is one of the million farmers who A main culprit is grossly underpriced work its soil. On a sunny February afternoon in electricity. For decades, it’s allowed Khunimajra, about 275 kilometers from New Delhi, farmers to pump groundwater at very he is busy repairing his tube well. The tube well low cost. Now, not only is the water run- is simple: a steel pipe bored into the ground and ning out, but India’s electricity utilities attached to a cheap electric pump. This rudimen - lack the revenue to maintain their infra- tary tool is the engine of Singh’s success as a farmer. structure and provide rural communi- But it and millions of others like it are quickly drain- ties with adequate power. ing away India’s agricultural riches. In dirt-covered shorts and an undershirt, Singh IT’S ODD TO EVEN BE TALK I NG ABOUT squats amid the thick foliage that feeds his 50-odd India’s faltering agricultural sector, cattle, preparing his pump for the day’s most critical because in so many ways the Green event. He’s about to get the 4 hours of free electricity Revolution that began in the mid-1960s that lets him extract water from a natural reservoir has been a magnificent success. As the 82 meters underground. These days, that hardly suf- country’s farmland grew tenfold, India fices. He needs another 8 to 9 hours of power to fin- went from frequent famines to food self- ish watering his wheat and rice. So he’ll continue to su¢ciency, even as its population more run the pump with diesel generators, which cost him than doubled. US $4.50 an hour in fuel—a crushing price, consid- Punjab is important to India’s abil - ering that his farm’s annual revenue is just $20 000. ity to feed itself. Despite its small size, “Sometimes the [grid] electricity goes o• after 2 or it accounts for about a fifth of the coun- 3 hours, and I want to commit suicide,” says Singh. try’s wheat and more than a tenth of Even so, farmers are emptying Punjab’s aquifers its rice. What’s more, its productivity at an alarming rate. Each year, as the ground water has grown by an order of magnitude, table steadily retreats, they are forced to go half a to 11.5 metric tons of rice and wheat per meter deeper to pump water. Two abandoned wells hectare, the highest output in the world, on Singh’s farm o•er proof of the changing conditions. says G.S. Kalkat, the chairman of the Punjab State Farmers’ Commission. But because nearly all the state’s farm- HARNEK SINGH ON HIS FARM IN PUNJAB, I NDIA [top]. land is irrigated, this agricultural A FARMER’S P LAN FOR A DEEP E R W E L L ; bonanza has come at the expense of the HARNEK SINGH’S TUBE WELL;A WATER TOWER IN A WH EAT FIELD [bottom, from left]. state’s groundwater.

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How did unrealistic electricity pric- Bank, a few states scrapped free power ing to pay 4 to 5 rupees [$0.09 to $0.11] ing make that happen? India’s electricity in 2005 and reverted to a system of sub- per kilowatt-hour for a 24-7 metered grid is largely controlled by about 20 state sidized pricing. But not Punjab, which power supply.” boards. The fi rst of these was created in continues to dole out free electricity. 1948, to move the control of power genera- As farmers’ electricity use grew in THOUGH PUNJAB FALTERS, THE COASTAL tion away from private operators. But the Punjab, the quality, reliability, and state of Gujarat has managed to over- boards never managed to operate in good supply of that electricity all declined. come similar circumstances. As fi nancial health, and grid infrastructure Back in the 1980s, farmers could expect in Punjab, flat electricity tariffs in began to deteriorate. Soon enough, power 18 hours of electricity a day; now it’s at Gujarat led to mounting financial shortages became routine. most 6 hours. And because the ground- losses for the state electricity board In the mid-1970s, state governments water table has been falling at about and the rapid depletion of aquifers. It began to shift to a system of low, flat half a meter each year, farmers actually also spawned an informal water mar- electricity tariffs for farmers, on the need more energy every year to irrigate ket in which tube-well owners sold premise that the utilities’ profits from the same field. Though Punjab author- surplus water to poorer farmers who the agricultural sector were too small ities aren’t doing the math themselves, couldn’t afford tube wells or couldn’t to justify the cost of installing electric- a back-of-the-envelope calculation get permission to install them. ity meters. But as the agricultural rev- shows that raising the 8 ML needed In 2003, Gujarat’s state o¢ cials came olution gained momentum, ground- to irrigate one hectare of rice by an up with a plan to improve the power sup- water use shot up, while electricity extra half meter requires at least an ply in rural areas and curb ground water rates remained flat. Several states, additional 11 kilowatt-hours each year. consumption. A $254 million parallel G.S. KALKAT, CHAIRMAN OF THE PUNJAB including Andhra Pradesh, Madhya (That’s the energy needed to lift nearly STATE FARMERS’ COMMISSION, HOPES rural transmission network was laid Pradesh, and Maharashtra, as well as 30 empty Airbus A-380s.) India’s WATER CONSERVATION WILL WORK. across the state, with feeders for supply- Punjab, went even further and made Central Electricity Authority has esti- ing agricultural users separated from power free for farmers. The politicians mated that electricity demand will out- those going to commercial and residen- in these states viewed the move as an strip supply in Punjab by as much as ity of 157 gigawatts gets lost in the sys- tial users. Tube-well owners now pay easy way to bolster their populist cre- 28 percent this year. tem, either from technical problems in the market rate for full-voltage power for dentials and gain rural votes. the transmission and distribution sys- 8 hours a day—just long enough to irri- Only recently did that arrangement INDIA’S ELECTRICAL FAILINGS AREN’T tems or from theft. Even in the states gate an average-size fi eld, the state’s reg- begin to change. Under pressure from the really the farmers’ fault, of course. A with relatively well-run grids, less than ulators fi gured. Experts say the scheme World Bank and the Asian Development third of the nation’s installed capac- 65 percent of electricity use is metered. has cut groundwater pumping on Many Punjab farmers are now clam- medium and large farms. The farmers oring for metered electricity, which have benefi ted, too: Continuous and full- would be cheaper than running a diesel voltage power means less wear and tear generator. “No farmer has demanded on the tube wells’ electric motors. free power,” says Singh, the farmer in What’s more, villages in Gujarat Khunimajra. “Please charge [for it] and now have electricity around the clock, give us an assured supply.” of a quality seldom seen in rural India. Though some farmers agree with Access to reliable electricity has in turn NO PUNJAB Singh, clearly others do not. Tradition- led to a better drinking water supply REFILLS ally, electricity has been viewed as a and improved street lighting; rice and social benefit rather than a service to flour mills, telephone exchanges and be paid for. Those politicians who’ve kiosks, and computer-training centers tried to change the system haven’t fared are thriving. A study of 55 villages by New Delhi well. When he was chief minister of the International Water Management Groundwater changes in India the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Institute in 2008 concluded that the from 2002 to 2008, based on gravitational maps from the N. Chandrababu Naidu introduced scheme had managed to cap ground- GRACE satellites, show big metering; he was ousted in the next elec- water withdrawal in a fair manner. losses in the Punjab area [in red]. tion. Cases like Naidu’s cause Tushaar But not everyone has prospered. The Shah, a researcher at the International state’s small tenant farmers, who relied Water Management Institute, based in on the informal water market to irri- Colombo, Sri Lanka, to wonder whether gate their crops, have largely been cut Area of detail the Punjab farmers are in earnest. out of the new system, according to a GUJARAT INDIA “Many people have told me that Punjab survey by the Columbia Water Center farmers want metered power supply,” he India (part of the Earth Institute of says. “But I am not sure they will be will- Columbia University, in New York City).

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06.India.NA.indd 54 5/12/10 1:30 PM 10000 30000

25000

8000 20000

SPECIAL REPORT n WATER VS . ENERGY 15000

6000 10000

5000

4000 0 ing to pay 4 to 5 rupees [$0.09 to $0.11] To assist those poorer farmers, the state GREEN REVOLUTION per kilowatt-hour for a 24-7 metered government is subsidizing new tube- India’s yield of grain has nearly tripled as it has power supply.” well connections, which previously it irrigated more land using groundwater from had banned, says Shah, who headed tube wells. How much electricity farmers use for THOUGH PUNJAB FALTERS, THE COASTAL the International Water Management pumping the groundwater roughly follows the state of Gujarat has managed to over - Institute’s study. In the last three years, rate of electricity subsidies. come similar circumstances. As the state has issued 200 000 new connec- in Punjab, flat electricity tariffs in tions, he says, mostly to small farmers. Grain grows with groundwater…

Gujarat led to mounting financial “Gujarat has more or less resolved35 35 Millions 20 2000 losses for the state electricity board the ener«-water nexus to the extent it of hectares irrigated and the rapid depletion of aquifers. It is resolvable,” Shah says. 30 Yield (kilo grams 15 1500 also spawned an informal water mar - 25 25 per hectare ket in which tube-well owners sold G UJARAT’S EXAM P LE P ROVES THAT of food surplus water to poorer farmers who reform can work. But Gujarat may not hold20 grain) couldn’t afford tube wells or couldn’t all the answers for Punjab, says Kalkat, 10 1000 15 15 get permission to install them. the chairman of Punjab’s farmers’ com- Tanks

In 2003, Gujarat’s state o¢cials came mission. He worries about the effect of10 Wells 5 500 up with a plan to improve the power sup- metering on Punjab’s small farms—how 5 5 ply in rural areas and curb ground water will they pay for their electricity? Kalkat Canals consumption. A $254 million parallel favors alternatives that avoid the thorny0 0 0 1950 2009 G.S. K ALKAT, CH AIRMAN OF TH E P U N JA B rural transmission network was laid politics of electricity pricing. S TATE FARMERS ’ COMMISSION, HOP E S INDIA WATER CONS ERVATION WILL WORK. across the state, with feeders for supply- Some of these alternatives are ing agricultural users separated from already reducing water use. Two years those going to commercial and residen- ago, Punjab passed a law that sets a date Power matches the money ity of 157 gigawatts gets lost in the sys - tial users. Tube-well owners now pay close to the monsoon season when farm-10000 10 30 30000 Power subsidy tem, either from technical problems in the market rate for full-voltage power for ers can start sowing their fields; previ- (millions of rupees, 25000 the transmission and distribution sys - 8 hours a day—just long enough to irri- ously they would sow much earlier and 1 million Rs = US $22 400) tems or from theft. Even in the states gate an average-size field, the state’s reg- thus pump more water. Groundwater 8000 8 Power 20 20000 with relatively well-run grids, less than ulators figured. Experts say the scheme data shows that the law has had some consumption (gigawatt- 65 percent of electricity use is metered. has cut groundwater pumping on benefit, says Sidhu, the state’s director hours) 15000 Many Punjab farmers are now clam - medium and large farms. The farmers of agriculture. Punjab is also introduc - oring for metered electricity, which have benefited, too: Continuous and full- ing new varieties of rice that grow faster6000 6 10 10000 would be cheaper than running a diesel voltage power means less wear and tear and use less water. generator. “No farmer has demanded on the tube wells’ electric motors. To trim water use further, the state 5000 free power,” says Singh, the farmer in What’s more, villages in Gujarat agriculture department is now help - 4000 4 0 0 Khunimajra. “Please charge [for it] and now have electricity around the clock, ing farmers laser-level their fields. 1990 2009 give us an assured supply.” of a quality seldom seen in rural India. Farmland that isn’t flat requires as much PUNJAB Though some farmers agree with Access to reliable electricity has in turn as 25 percent more water. Using lasers

Singh, clearly others do not. Tradition - led to a better drinking water supply attached to high-power tractors, work- Sources: Grain growth: Department of Agriculture and ally, electricity has been viewed as a and improved street lighting; rice and ers can measure the terrain and then Cooperation, New Delhi; World Bank report “Deep Wells and Prudence: Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing social benefit rather than a service to flour mills, telephone exchanges and scrape away the excess grade. As of last Groundwater Overexploitation in India.” Electricity: Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission. Data compiled be paid for. Those politicians who’ve kiosks, and computer-training centers June, Punjab had about 700 laser level - by professors Kamal Vatta and Rupinder Singh Sidhu tried to change the system haven’t fared are thriving. A study of 55 villages by ers operating. As a result, some farm - well. When he was chief minister of the International Water Management ers have largely been able to stop using the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Institute in 2008 concluded that the groundwater for irrigation. 35 to crops such as corn, which requires a 2000 N. Chandrababu Naidu introduced scheme had managed to cap ground - Kamal Vatta and Rupinder Singh quarter of the water needed for rice but metering; he was ousted in the next elec- water withdrawal in a fair manner. Sidhu, professors at the Punjab Agri30- commands a much lower subsidy. 1500 tion. Cases like Naidu’s cause Tushaar But not everyone has prospered. The cultural University, say that the water25 Whether water conservation and Shah, a researcher at the International state’s small tenant farmers, who relied savings could go much further if state agricultural policy will be enough in Water Management Institute, based in on the informal water market to irri - subsidies were revised to favor less-20 Punjab or whether, as in Gujarat, a new 1000 Colombo, Sri Lanka, to wonder whether gate their crops, have largely been cut thirsty crops. At present, they say, incen15- electricity infrastructure is needed the Punjab farmers are in earnest. out of the new system, according to a tives for growing rice essentially pay for might not be clear for some time. At 10 “Many people have told me that Punjab survey by the Columbia Water Center the entire cost of extracting ground water, the rate Punjab’s groundwater is disap- 500 India (part of the Earth Institute of including the diesel generators. As a pearing, time is something India may not farmers want metered power supply,” he 5 says. “But I am not sure they will be will- Columbia University, in New York City). result, farmers feel no pressure to shift have enough of. J 0 0 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • I EEE SPECTRUM • NA 55

06.India.NA.indd 55 5/12/10 1:30 PM 56 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Singapore.NA.indd 56 5/13/10 10:36 AM SINGAPORE’S S K Y L I N E GLEAMS BEHIND THE MARINA RES E R VO I R . T HE NEWLY ENCLOS E D BAY IS FLANKED BY A THREE-PILLARED RES ORT BUILT ON RECLAIMED LAND. TINY TEST BEDS SINGAPORE n MALTA

SPECIAL REPORT n WATER VS . ENERGY

WIZARDS OF THE WATER CYCLE Singapore’s toilet-to-tap technology has saved the country from shortages— and a large electricity bill BY SANDRA UPSON PHOTOS BY D ARREN S OH

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SINGAPORE BEGAN ITS JOURNEY to sovereignty with a mighty jolt. The island was still an exotic outpost of the British Empire when World War II REVERSE-OSMOSIS delivered the shake-up. Japan’s army M E M B R A N E S was preparing to invade from the Malay AT A NEWATER PLANT, OVERSEEN Peninsula, and the British forces beat a BY HARRY SEAH [top right], PRODUCE retreat to Singapore across the one bridge THE NEWATER SAMPLED connecting it to the mainland. To thwart BY CHILDREN. the Japanese troops, the Royal Engineers blew up the bridge behind them. The blast sealed the island’s doom, for it also ruptured a critical pipeline that brought water from Johor, a Malay state. The people of Singapore discovered they had only a few days’ water stored in their meager reservoirs. The island was truly defenseless. The Japanese swiftly repaired the bridge, bicycled across the strait, and claimed victory. Sixty-eight years later, this port city has both gained territorial indepen- dence and managed to bootstrap its way to wealth in spite of a lack of water and ener€ . And now, against all odds, complete water independence—from both Malaysia and even the weather— is within easy reach. Rather than fl ush- ing waste into the sea, the water utility collects the country’s wastewater, cleans it to pristine levels, and returns it to the public supply. Singapore has thus short- circuited the water cycle by reducing it to to this tropical dollop of land, its ample Three choices: NEWater, The company calculated that the recycled an island-ringing loop. rainfall—some 237 centimeters a year. bottled water from water’s exceeding purity saves it more At first, no one relished the idea of It built dams to interrupt the fl ow of its Malaysia, and a glass fi lled at than half a million dollars a year, in part NEWater the tap. Your correspondent drinking wastewater. Rejuvenating streams and tiny rivers and built 15 res- by cutting out steps in its internal water- TASTE sat down to drink. The the waste stream requires electricity ervoirs to store rain. Such reservoirs NEWater was bland to purifi cation process. to power an intensive cleaning process, are crucial because they stand in for the TEST a fault, like paper made Singapore also started priming the and that investment makes the recycled groundwater that Singapore lacks. potable. The Malaysian public. The prime minister drank a bot- water more expensive than what’s used Then the utility did a radical thing. water delivered a cloying aftertaste—a perplexing tle of NEWater at a national festival, and by cities blessed with nearby freshwater After half a decade of research and tests at blend of dryer lint and berries. The drink from the the crowd cheered. The subtext was tap, however, was just right. lakes, rivers, and aquifers. But presented a pilot recycling plant, Singapore’s plan- clear—patriotic Singaporeans drink with a set of tough choices, Singapore ners unveiled their ultimate strate€ for wastewater. But the rest of Singapore chose water recycling—and so far it has water security. They would force waste- leave in their factories, but Harry Seah, the was slower to follow. A parody of a pop- worked admirably. water through filters under high pres- utility’s director of technolo€ and water ular nationalist song, “Count on Me, sure to remove all microbes, viruses, and quality, pointed out that NEWater was Singapore,” cheerily urged residents to WHEN SINGAPORE FINALLY SEPARATED larger impurities. The utility called its cleaner than most drinking water. “At fi rst “Drink Our Pee, Singapore.” from Britain and then Malaysia in the product NEWater, and it called the treat- I had to convince them,” Seah recalls. But The queasy reactions of some 1960s, water was at the top of the agenda. ment plant a factory. With great empha- soon enough, he had signed on the island’s Singaporeans didn’t deter the utility, The government negotiated two treaties sis on its sparkling newness, treated 12 wafer-fabrication plants and other elec- which built four more wastewater treat- with its mainland neighbor to guarantee a wastewater made its public debut in 2003. tronics manufacturers, and the utility ment plants and is about to increase its water supply, at a cost, for the next century. The real work was about to start. One laid dedicated pipes to deliver NEWater. NEWater production to 555 megaliters With a base supply in place, the water by one, the utility cajoled its customers Now Systems on Silicon Manufacturing a day. By the end of this year the plants utility went looking for more. The agency into accepting the water. Manufacturers Co., which uses ultrapure water to wash will treat enough sewage to cover nearly started with the one resource available wondered what residues the water might its silicon wafers, champions NEWater. a third of Singapore’s water needs.

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cut the atmosphere out of the transaction and to replace evaporation with speedier mechanisms—membranes. Here’s how it works: First, a treatment plant gathers up the city’s used water and separates out the large, easily removable impurities. About 60 percent of the water is released into the sea. The rest gets sent to a NEWater factory. The water enters contaminated with bacteria, viruses, and all sorts of carbon-based particles and emerges cleaner than what flows from just about any tap in the world. The main tactic of the water trade is to simply push water through tiny holes— the smaller the holes, the fewer the unde- sirable molecules that can sneak through. The art is to do so without sending the electricity bill skyrocketing or clogging up the tiny holes with grime. Here, the first step is to force the water through a membrane that blocks particles of up to 0.2 micrometers in size, catching most bacteria and protozoa. The membrane looks like a cylinder filled with skinny, hollow tubes. The stream flows into the porous straws. Water molecules push through the pores and collect outside the membranes, while the larger parti- cles continue traveling inside the tubes, to be disposed of separately. The water still needs to be stripped Three choices: NEWater, The company calculated that the recycled For now, only a tiny fraction of the of any viruses that might be adrift in the bottled water from water’s exceeding purity saves it more drinking supply is NEWater. About flow. For this the partially treated stream Malaysia, and a glass filled at than half a million dollars a year, in part 40 ML are blended in with the city-state’s needs a reverse-osmosis membrane. In the tap. Your correspondent sat down to drink. The by cutting out steps in its internal water- potable water each day, equivalent to one configuration, paperlike sheets of NEWater was bland to purification process. 2 percent of consumption. The utility also membrane more than a meter long are a fault, like paper made Singapore also started priming the built a seawater desalination plant that sandwiched between sheets called spac- potable. The Malaysian public. The prime minister drank a bot- produces 136 ML of water each day, or a bit ers. The stack of membranes and spacers water delivered a cloying aftertaste—a perplexing tle of NEWater at a national festival, and less than one-tenth of Singapore’s supply. is wound up into a cylinder, like a thick blend of dryer lint and berries. The drink from the the crowd cheered. The subtext was The city-state has all the water it needs. roll of wrapping paper. The core of the tap, however, was just right. clear—patriotic Singaporeans drink cylinder is an empty channel where the wastewater. But the rest of Singapore NATURE’S HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE RELIE S clean water collects. leave in their factories, but Harry Seah, the was slower to follow. A parody of a pop- on sunlight to evaporate water, leav - As the stream is pushed into one end utility’s director of technolo€ and water ular nationalist song, “Count on Me, ing behind salt and other impurities of the roll, the impurities slide along the quality, pointed out that NEWater was Singapore,” cheerily urged residents to and returning freshwater to Earth in spacers and never penetrate the polymer cleaner than most drinking water. “At first “Drink Our Pee, Singapore.” the form of rain and snow. But it can be membrane. The water molecules, how- I had to convince them,” Seah recalls. But The queasy reactions of some capricious: Most freshwater evaporates ever, escape through the 0.0001-µm pores soon enough, he had signed on the island’s Singaporeans didn’t deter the utility, from the oceans, where it rises through and slip into the central channel. 12 wafer-fabrication plants and other elec- which built four more wastewater treat- the atmosphere and then cools to form These two steps remove just about tronics manufacturers, and the utility ment plants and is about to increase its clouds. Winds push around the clouds, everything, but in a third and final step, laid dedicated pipes to deliver NEWater. NEWater production to 555 megaliters driving a few of them over land, where mercury lamps generate ultraviolet-light Now Systems on Silicon Manufacturing a day. By the end of this year the plants they deposit a mere tenth of the world’s rays that penetrate the water. The radia- Co., which uses ultrapure water to wash will treat enough sewage to cover nearly precipitation, according to the U.S. tion scrambles the genetic material of any its silicon wafers, champions NEWater. a third of Singapore’s water needs. Geological Survey. Singapore decided to bacteria and other microorganisms that

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glacier or how much rain falls during Sun, an associate professor of civil and monsoon season. Suddenly, Singapore is environmental engineering at Nanyang water rich. The water that falls from the Technological University, in Singapore, sky may have once washed the streets of has seen an uptick in interest in his work Paris or fi lled Cleopatra’s bathtub. Now on ener€ -e© cient membranes. “In most it’s augmented with some of the water water engineering, people didn’t care used by Harry Seah, Asit Biswas, and about how much energy goes in—until everybody else in Singapore. The utility recently. The energy crisis made this isn’t waiting for nature to turn its used a critical issue,” he says. Sun is inves- water fresh again—it’s letting technol- tigating a membrane design that uses o€ do the job. titanium-dioxide nanofi bers to fi lter water and generate electricity simultaneously. NOT EVERYONE CAN BE CAJOLED INTO But the research is far from mature, THE MARINA B A R R AG E T U R N S drinking recycled urine. In Queensland, so for now the ener€ cost will remain A BAY INTO A R E S E R VO I R Australia, and in San Diego, public opin- high. That’s the price Singapore must [at left] ion has thwarted local utilities’ water-recy- pay for a first-rate water supply and a PROTECTED FROM THE SEA [right]. cling ambitions. But at least three sites healthy country, says Kallidaikurichi. in the United States—Scottsdale, Ariz.; “You may argue that water here con- Orange County, Calif.; and northern sumes more energy, but the city needs might have slipped through, destroying from wastewater, he requires less than Virginia—purify wastewater and blend it more water, because it’s the city that’s their ability to reproduce. Now the water 1 MPa. That translates directly into the into their drinking water. producing more wealth.” is ready for the tap. energy cost for the whole plant—more In fact, most places reuse water—just The solution to making the trade-oª than 4 kilowatt-hours per thousand liters without meaning to do so. According to work, say Biswas and Kallidaikurichi, is THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NEWATER IS MUCH of water for seawater desalination, versus Peter Gleick’s The World’s Water 2002– purely economic: Singapore charges all greater than its literal contribution in 0.7 kWh for NEWater. “It’s a no-brainer,” 2003, each drop in the Colorado River its customers the marginal cost of water— drops or buckets or liters per person. says Seah, and his eyes crinkle into a is used 17 times. Similarly, residents of that is, the cost of producing another liter. “NEWater is key to our whole strate€ ,” laugh. “Win, win, win!” he says. London drink water that was discharged For Singapore, that means desalination. Seah says. Asit Biswas, an international water- from numerous wastewater treatment So the Public Utilities Board has set Seah is a soft-spoken, dapper man policy expert who splits his time plants upstream on the Thames. the price of water to pay for its energy- with a face that collapses frequently between the National University of In Singapore’s case, the deliber- intensive operations. into a brassy laugh. He’s been with the Singapore and the Third World Center ate reuse of water has played a promi- As a result, the utility has enough cash Public Utilities Board for almost two for Water Management, in Mexico, sees nent role in the country’s development. to investigate new technologies. Seah

decades, and he’s seen the NEWater Singapore as one of the few places where Seetharam Kallidaikurichi is the direc- ILLUSTRATION: BRANDON PALACIO; MAP: ANDREW ZBIHLYJ would like to cut the energy needed for project through to maturity. “The real the water authorities agree with his own tor of the Institute of Water Policy at the desalination by more than half, to 1.5 kWh beauty of NEWater is its multiplying controversial position—that water scar- National University of Singapore, and he per thousand liters, and the energy for effect,” he explains. What he means is city simply does not exist. What does argues that Singapore’s water strate€ NEWater to 0.4 kWh from 0.7 kWh. that if the utility recycles 50 percent of exist, just about everywhere, is bad has been the foundation of the country’s He’s optimistic. After all, the its wastewater, Singapore can squeeze water management. economic success in the last 45 years. NEWater processes would have con- one more drop out of every two it desal- The problem, he says, is that people “The evidence is beginning to emerge,” sumed more energy per liter had his inates or collects from the sky. “If I can tend to assume that water is like oil or he says, “that it’s not water among many engineers not experimented with them. achieve 100 percent recycling, I wouldn’t any other fossil fuel and that it behaves other things but water as central, the key “The technologies came from every- even need rain,” Seah says. according to the same basic economic to unlocking the vicious cycles of depri- where, but I think our value is in how we That’s critical, given how few options principles. “But water is not oil,” he vation and poverty into economic suc- exploit them,” Seah says. “How we put Singapore has. Half of the island has says. “Once we use oil, it breaks down cess and a good quality of life.” them together. How we wrote the soft- already been converted into rainwater into various components. You can’t But prioritizing water means using a ware. How we operate the plants.” catchment areas, and three new reser- put it back together.” Water, despite considerable amount of energy to make voirs will soon bring it to two-thirds. The its tendency to evaporate and trickle it, clean it, and move it. The question is other source of freshwater is Singapore’s out of reach, doesn’t change its molec- how to optimize the juggle of resources. one desalination plant, which consumes ular structure. “There is no limit to Because Singapore must import some NOT JUST so much ener€ it can cover only a frac- how many times water can be reused,” 290 billion cubic feet of natural gas to run NEWater tion of the overall demand. Biswas points out. its power plants, it can be said that the TOILETS... plants and Consider the details. To remove salt That simple fact radically changes the country has merely substituted one form reservoirs from seawater, Seah says the treatment way that water is counted. What’s avail- of dependence for another. dot the island, providing an plant must apply a pressure of about able to a city or country is not just a mat- The consequences of that depen- engineered stand-in for the 7 megapascals. To remove impurities ter of how much ice sits in a Himalayan dence are starting to hit home. Darren groundwater Singapore lacks.

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glacier or how much rain falls during Sun, an associate professor of civil and For example, he and his colleagues monsoon season. Suddenly, Singapore is environmental engineering at Nanyang found a way to introduce a bit of chlora- Powered water rich. The water that falls from the Technological University, in Singapore, mine, a disinfectant, into the membrane- sky may have once washed the streets of has seen an uptick in interest in his work filtration process. That addition By Crazy Paris or fi lled Cleopatra’s bathtub. Now on ener€ -e© cient membranes. “In most prevents the pores from clogging with- FREE ENERGY? URINE LUCK! it’s augmented with some of the water water engineering, people didn’t care out degrading the membrane mate- used by Harry Seah, Asit Biswas, and about how much energy goes in—until rial—a challenge that had stymied the You may not think of urine as a everybody else in Singapore. The utility recently. The energy crisis made this industry for some time. Clogged pores valuable resource—quite the isn’t waiting for nature to turn its used a critical issue,” he says. Sun is inves- mean more pressure to drive the water opposite, probably—but Ohio water fresh again—it’s letting technol- tigating a membrane design that uses through, with a larger electricity bill as University chemical engineer Gerardine Botte has come up o€ do the job. titanium-dioxide nanofi bers to fi lter water a result. Similarly, the utility’s engineers with a way to harness it for and generate electricity simultaneously. have found a way to use less pressure good. Botte’s technology NOT EVERYONE CAN BE CAJOLED INTO But the research is far from mature, in operating a membrane bioreactor, a e— ciently produces drinking recycled urine. In Queensland, so for now the ener€ cost will remain machine containing swarms of micro- hydrogen for fuel-cell- Australia, and in San Diego, public opin- high. That’s the price Singapore must organisms that snack on contaminants powered cars, from urine. ion has thwarted local utilities’ water-recy- pay for a first-rate water supply and a in the water. That innovation will soon Dry out that urine and you’re left with a compound called urea, a single molecule of cling ambitions. But at least three sites healthy country, says Kallidaikurichi. replace the fi rst fi ltration step, making which contains four hydrogen atoms. The in the United States—Scottsdale, Ariz.; “You may argue that water here con- NEWater about 20 percent cheaper to bonds that bind urea’s hydrogen are much Orange County, Calif.; and northern sumes more energy, but the city needs produce, Seah says. easier to break than the hydrogen bonds in Virginia—purify wastewater and blend it more water, because it’s the city that’s Other innovations are likely to trickle water, which is typically used as the source into their drinking water. producing more wealth.” out of Singapore’s water sector, as com- for hydrogen in fuel cells. Experimenting In fact, most places reuse water—just The solution to making the trade-oª panies and academics seek to profit with human urine, Botte showed that applying a mere 0.37 volt did the trick, without meaning to do so. According to work, say Biswas and Kallidaikurichi, is from the water utility’s interest in inno- much less than the 1.23 V required to split Peter Gleick’s The World’s Water 2002– purely economic: Singapore charges all vation. For example, researchers under water. What’s more, urea yields twice as 2003, each drop in the Colorado River its customers the marginal cost of water— Say Leong Ong, acting head of the envi- much hydrogen per molecule. is used 17 times. Similarly, residents of that is, the cost of producing another liter. ronmental sciences and engineering Botte’s research might lead to cheaper London drink water that was discharged For Singapore, that means desalination. division at the National University of hydrogen for fuel cells as well as cheaper from numerous wastewater treatment So the Public Utilities Board has set Singapore, are figuring out the mech- wastewater purifi cation: A scaled-up version plants upstream on the Thames. the price of water to pay for its energy- anisms used by mangrove trees and of the technology could generate hydrogen while treating sewage. —Sally Adee In Singapore’s case, the deliber- intensive operations. tilapia fi sh to process the salt in seawa- ate reuse of water has played a promi- As a result, the utility has enough cash ter, with the hope of one day designing nent role in the country’s development. to investigate new technologies. Seah membranes that mimic nature. what allows an economy to shift invest-

Seetharam Kallidaikurichi is the direc- ILLUSTRATION: BRANDON PALACIO; MAP: ANDREW ZBIHLYJ would like to cut the energy needed for Ultimately, Singapore will have true ment away from life-critical needs such as tor of the Institute of Water Policy at the desalination by more than half, to 1.5 kWh water security only if it can reduce its water to education, art, and a rich civic life. National University of Singapore, and he per thousand liters, and the energy for dependence on imported ener€ . A civi- An ener€ -secure water sector, then, will argues that Singapore’s water strate€ NEWater to 0.4 kWh from 0.7 kWh. lization’s surplus energy, arising from be a major question for the next 50 years has been the foundation of the country’s He’s optimistic. After all, the its trade and technological prowess, is of the tiny island’s nationhood. J economic success in the last 45 years. NEWater processes would have con-

“The evidence is beginning to emerge,” sumed more energy per liter had his CHINA Water imported Pacific INDIA he says, “that it’s not water among many engineers not experimented with them. from Malaysia Ocean other things but water as central, the key “The technologies came from every- to unlocking the vicious cycles of depri- where, but I think our value is in how we Area of NEWater Plant detail vation and poverty into economic suc- exploit them,” Seah says. “How we put 77 ML/day cess and a good quality of life.” them together. How we wrote the soft- NEWater Plant But prioritizing water means using a ware. How we operate the plants.” Reservoirs 23 ML/day considerable amount of energy to make it, clean it, and move it. The question is North Tunnel Sewerage System how to optimize the juggle of resources. NEWater Plant 145 ML/day Because Singapore must import some NEWater Plant NOT JUST 227 ML/day 290 billion cubic feet of natural gas to run NEWater South Tunnel NEWater Plant TOILETS... plants and Sewerage System 82 ML/day its power plants, it can be said that the (incomplete) country has merely substituted one form reservoirs of dependence for another. dot the island, providing an Desalination The consequences of that depen- engineered stand-in for the Plant dence are starting to hit home. Darren groundwater Singapore lacks.

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Today tend to use waste heat from adjacent Brine heater power plants and cheap oil instead BRUTE FORCE: Waste of electricity. Thermal desalination is not used in the United States: The THERMAL Heat exchange DESALINATION typical U.S. energy price of $0.065 per kilowatt-hour translates to $5200/ML HOW IT WORKS of water. At less than half a cent per Boil seawater, condense the liter, that’s cheap enough for bathing vapor, and drink the result. Seawater and drinking, but for irrigation or indus- Purified THE SALINE water trial uses, the price tag is staggering. UPSIDE SOLUTION Pure water no matter what the WHAT’S NEXT feedstock is. Condensationcollector Saudi Arabia’s Shoaiba, an 880-ML-per- Desalination takes too concentration, so the process is well day power and desalination plant on much energy, but emerging DOWNSIDE suited for highly saline waters. the Red Sea, is the largest thermal technologies will help Energy intensive, enormous infra- desalination plant in the world. But structure, toxic brine waste. ENERGY TRADE-OFF even for seawater, the market-research BY SALLY ADEE Evaporation and pumping can consume fi rm Lux predicts, thermal desalination ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILY COOPER BEST FOR up to 80 megawatt-hours per megaliter will not extend past the Middle East, Ocean water. The energy required is of water produced. Its use is largely con- which has the lion’s share of cheap oil the same regardless of the water’s salt fi ned to the Middle East, where plants to desalinate its very salty water.

DESALINATION—removing dissolved minerals from seawater, brackish groundwater, or treated In the Pipeline SPIN CYCLE: wastewater—appears at fi rst glance to be the ideal + BETTER PRETREATMENT answer to freshwater shortages. What could be HOW IT WORKS more attractive than harnessing the planet’s seem- − Purified A team of researchers at Palo Alto ingly inexhaustible 1.34 quadrillion (that’s 15 zeros) − − water − Research Center (PARC), in California, − megaliters of seawater? Oceans are drought-proof. − has developed a reactor that In theory, so is wastewater. − − Ion separates particulates from water + sponge In the Persian Gulf, where seawater normally − by sending it through a long, curved + + − + + + + channel. Hydrodynamic forces cause contains a lip-puckering 45 grams of salt per liter, + + − − + + the particles to become concentrated thermal desalination is king. This method vapor- Brackish + + + Metal near the inner wall of the channel, water − + + izes water to purify it. Pretty much everywhere which allows for easy separation. else, desalination is done by reverse osmosis, which purifi es water by forcing it through mem- ZAP ’EM: UPSIDE branes. Both methods cut down the salt to a drink- ELECTRICITY Uses very little energy; compact; able 0.5 gram per liter. INSTEAD − reduces the footprint of RO But there’s a price. As long as the cost of desal- OF MEMBRANES pretreatment. ination continues to depend on the cost of enerŠ , HOW IT WORKS DOWNSIDE DOWNSIDE these technologies won’t help much of the enerŠ - Capacitive deionization works with- Works only for brackish water; The channels themselves might be starved developing world that needs them the out membranes. It fi lters impurities in practice, electrodes can foul. Does most. And desalination isn’t just enerŠ intensive; by streaming the water between two not mitigate toxic brine. there’s also the problem of the toxic sludge it leaves charged electrodes. The electrodes behind. In this business, brine—the concentrated attract ions in the water, which stick to BEST FOR them, leaving freshwater. The attached Brackish water. result of purifying water—might as well be a four- ions eventually clog the electrodes, but letter word. Throwing the brine back into the ocean cleaning is easy: Simply reverse the ENERGY TRADE-OFF Purified water can kill fi sh and smaller denizens of the food chain. electrical polarity to fl ush the ions back Far less pressure means less energy. Several contenders might make history of these out. Good candidates for electrodes concerns. New methods in the pipeline reduce desal- are advanced materials such as carbon WHAT’S NEXT aerogel and mesoporous carbon. This year, a test reactor will be ination’s enerŠ demands in innovative and intrigu- Feed water unveiled in New Mexico, part of ing ways. Further off are technologies that could Support UPSIDE an international project led by web turn desalination’s Achilles’ heel into a source of Easy to clean; requires less power. The Campbell Applied Physics, in Rancho Porous substrate strength: In the future, desalination might just be process could theoretically go on for- Murieta, Calif., and several U.S. Barrier powered by the very stu” it fi lters out. J ever without changing electrodes. national laboratories.

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tend to use waste heat from adjacent PUSH! BEST FOR Brine heater power plants and cheap oil instead REVERSE OSMOSIS Brackish groundwater, which contains Waste of electricity. Thermal desalination on average only 3 to 5 grams of salt per is not used in the United States: The HOW IT WORKS Purified liter. RO is also increasingly being used Heat exchange water typical U.S. energy price of $0.065 per Separate saltwater and to desalinate seawater, however. kilowatt-hour translates to $5200/ML freshwater with a membrane of water. At less than half a cent per that blocks salt ions, and ENERGY TRADE-OFF liter, that’s cheap enough for bathing the freshwater rushes to Waste The pressure needed to push Seawater and drinking, but for irrigation or indus- the salty side by the natural Feed water water through the membrane is Purified Membrane water trial uses, the price tag is staggering. process of osmosis. Reverse proportional to the water’s salinity. osmosis (RO) uses hydraulic Higher pressure means higher energy WHAT’S NEXT pressure to shove water molecules boron, arsenic, lithium, and some cost. On average, RO demands at Condensationcollector Saudi Arabia’s Shoaiba, an 880-ML-per- in the opposite direction, with the pharmaceutical compounds. When least 3.5 MWh/ML produced from concentration, so the process is well day power and desalination plant on membrane holding back the salt. membranes become clogged, they brackish water and more for seawater. suited for highly saline waters. the Red Sea, is the largest thermal must be scraped and bleached desalination plant in the world. But UPSIDE or they stop working; cleaning, WHAT’S NEXT ENERGY TRADE-OFF even for seawater, the market-research Comparatively low energy cost. however, reduces the expensive A Carlsbad, Calif., plant slated to open Evaporation and pumping can consume fi rm Lux predicts, thermal desalination membranes’ lifetime. Pretreating in 2012 will produce more than 189 ML up to 80 megawatt-hours per megaliter will not extend past the Middle East, DOWNSIDE the water to remove the gunk slows of drinking water per day from the of water produced. Its use is largely con- which has the lion’s share of cheap oil Toxic brine; can’t completely fi lter the rate of fouling but requires a lot Pacifi c Ocean, making it the biggest fi ned to the Middle East, where plants to desalinate its very salty water. potentially harmful substances like of real estate. RO plant in the United States.

SPIN CYCLE: susceptible to fouling. Does not + BETTER PRETREATMENT address desalination’s toxic brine output. HOW IT WORKS − Purified A team of researchers at Palo Alto BEST FOR − − water − Research Center (PARC), in California, Seawater, brackish water, − − has developed a reactor that and wastewater. Feed water − − Ion separates particulates from water + sponge − by sending it through a long, curved ENERGY TRADE-OFF + + − + + + + channel. Hydrodynamic forces cause Unlike centrifuges, which spin + + − − + + the particles to become concentrated contaminants out of water using Brackish Waste + + + Metal near the inner wall of the channel, g forces in the thousands or tens water − + + which allows for easy separation. of thousands, PARC’s laboratory- scale system requires g forces in the UPSIDE single digits. That reduces the energy Particles Uses very little energy; compact; demand of pretreatment to only − reduces the footprint of RO 2.5 kWh/ML of water. pretreatment. WHAT’S NEXT Purified water DOWNSIDE DOWNSIDE A test reactor will be installed on a U.S. Lift and centrifugal Works only for brackish water; The channels themselves might be Navy aircraft carrier later this year. force in practice, electrodes can foul. Does not mitigate toxic brine. BORDER PATROL: substances with proper molecular iden- ENERGY TRADE-OFF BEST FOR BETTER MEMBRANES tifi cation to cross the barrier. First on the Membranes that work at lower pres- Brackish water. chopping block are arsenic and boron. sure should slash RO’s energy demand. HOW IT WORKS ENERGY TRADE-OFF Purified water The next generation of membranes UPSIDE WHAT’S NEXT Far less pressure means less energy. will rely more on clever chemical IBM’s membranes show a 90 percent In March, IBM Almaden and the engineering and less on brute force reduction in boron concentration. King Abdulaziz City for Science and WHAT’S NEXT to push water molecules across them. Technology, in Saudi Arabia, announced This year, a test reactor will be Feed water Less hydraulic pressure means the new DOWNSIDE a joint e¢ ort to build a solar- powered unveiled in New Mexico, part of Support membranes would reduce RO’s energy Not yet commercially available. Doesn’t water desalination plant using an international project led by web demands. At IBM Research in Almaden, address the problem of toxic brine. Almaden’s membrane work. The plant Campbell Applied Physics, in Rancho Porous substrate Calif., researchers are working on mem- will produce 30 ML per day. Murieta, Calif., and several U.S. Barrier branes that will be at once tougher and BEST FOR national laboratories. more sophisticated, permitting only Wherever RO is used now. Turn the page for Uncharted Waters

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Uncharted Waters PULL! of the seawater. Then heat BEST FOR FORWARD OSMOSIS drives o¢ the ammonia and Any salt concentration.

CO2, leaving freshwater. HOW IT WORKS ENERGY TRADE-OFF Yale University spin-o¢ Oasys, UPSIDE Oasys says the technology Purified headquartered in Cambridge, Requires very little energy. In uses one-tenth of the energy water Mass., has developed a theory, the draw solution can required by today’s RO plants. method that places seawater be recycled indefi nitely. next to an even more concen- WHAT’S NEXT trated salt solution, separated DOWNSIDE The start-up received Draw solution by a membrane. The concen- Toxic brine waste. The US $10 million in investment Waste trated solution, a mixture of ammonia solution must be funding in 2009 and is now Seawater Membrane ammonia and carbon dioxide, completely removed from working on a commercial sucks the freshwater out drinking water. platform.

DIFFERENCE ENGINE: “Desalination plants produce extremely

OSMOTIC POWER salty water as the by-product,” says Power Spike Narayan, IBM Almaden manager HOW IT WORKS of science and technology. “So you Osmosis could be the foundation have concentrated brine, and you Pressurized of a new power-generation have wastewater coming in with no water Turbine method. Separate two sources salt. Bring them together and you of water with very di¢ erent salt can generate energy while you dilute

concentrations—for example, river the brine.” Water with water and ocean water, or salty brine higher saline and nonsaline wastewater—with UPSIDE concentration a thin semipermeable membrane. Generates electricity as it dilutes toxic Water will rush to the salty side by brine waste. osmosis, increasing the pressure on Low saline water the salty side. The resulting pressure DOWNSIDE Semipermeable di¢ erence can drive a turbine and The pilot plant produces only enough membrane generate electricity. A Norwegian power to run a co¢ eemaker. ENERGY TRADE-OFF WHAT’S NEXT company called Statkraft is doing Coupled with a desalination plant, Statkraft’s 10-kW-capacity pilot plant just that. Its engineers think osmotic BEST FOR osmotic power could generate 3 watts began operating in November 2009 power could potentially provide Anywhere rivers meet oceans or of electricity per square meter of in Tofte, near Oslo. The company says 1700 terawatt-hours a year. This where desalination and wastewater membrane, partly recouping some of it can have a full-scale plant operat- method could even repurpose the treatment plants can cross their the energy cost of desalination. ing by 2015. brine waste of desalination plants. streams.

BUG POWER: BEST FOR Electrons MICROBIAL As yet, this technology is being Oxygen FUEL CELLS studied only for wastewater and brackish groundwater. Power

Cathode HOW IT WORKS Microbial fuel cells can generate ENERGY TRADE-OFF

Electrons + power by cleaning contaminated Will generate rather than con- Purified salty water. The bacteria eat sume energy—if it works. water salt and other substances in the

Anode contaminated water, and as they WHAT’S NEXT clean the water, they generate Research on microbial fuel − excess electrons as part of their cells is ramping up around metabolic processes. the world, including at the Biofilm University of Queensland, in UPSIDE Brisbane, Australia, and Tsinghua Wastewater Self-cleaning; generates power University, in Beijing. Engineers at for desalination. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Membrane in Tennessee, are working on DOWNSIDE combining these fuel cells with a Carbon Still in the lab. capacitive-deionization reactor. dioxide

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VA L L E T TA , THE CAPITAL OF MALTA

world’s fi rst smart grid that will govern to desalinate seawater, the parched both electricity and water. For the elec- islands’ two main sources. tricity utility, Enemalta Corp., in Marsa, When utility rates rise, of course, the €70 million (about US $88 million) everybody blames the government. The grid will make detecting theft easy, dis- inevitable pointing fingers curled into tribution fair, and administration effi- raised fists at the end of February as cient. It will also make environmental thousands of trade unionists and ordi- MALTA measures easier to promote, through TAKES pricing options that reward conserva- ITALY tion and solar energy; solar panels are GOZO a viable alternative on these sunstruck Area of detail CONTROL islands. Water Services Corp., in Luqa, With the world’s will use the smart grid to shave kilowatt- COMINO hours o‰ its enerŠ bill by optimizing its first multiutility Cirkewwa control systems. And both the electric RO Station Pembroke smart grid, Malta RO Station aims to save and water utilities will monitor every water and money watt and liter fl owing onto their respec- tive grids and compare those measure- BY HARRY GOLDSTEIN MALTA ments to the readouts of every meter in Valletta the system. That way, losses through theft, leakage, and defective meters can Ghar Lapsi RO Station PHOTO: HANS PETER MERTEN/GETTY IMAGES; MAP: ANDREW ZBIHLYJ “IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, NOBODY be pinpointed quickly. wants to pay for anything!” my cab driver But while the grid will help both Malta has bellows as he drops us off at the head- utilities keep a lid on costs, energy the highest quarters of a Maltese utility. He’s railing and water prices are ultimately tied 8600 density of against electricity theft. It’s a problem to Malta’s total dependence on oil, its BY LAND, that many people here would prefer not shortage of freshwater, and the fact that private wells to discuss. Our cabbie isn’t one of them. as a member of the European Union, it 3 BY SEA in the world— He doesn’t know it, but with me in the car must implement a sustainable water 30 per square is Roberto Aguilera Gonzale, IBM Global policy this year. Part of that policy is to kilo meter—for a total of about 8600. Services’ program manager for a project force water conservation on consumers These boreholes tap the shrinking to install technoloŠ that should put an through price increases. So the govern- aquifers that supply the country end to the theft—and do much more. ment is setting the price of electric- with 60 percent of its potable water. Here in this tiny nation of 400 000, a ity. That in turn determines the price The rest comes from three seawater seven-island archipelago strung between of water, because Water Services uses reverse- osmosis plants, located at Italy and Tunisia, IBM is building the electricity to extract groundwater and Pembroke, Ghar Lapsi, and Cirkewwa.

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nary Maltese jammed the streets of the capital, Valletta, to protest hikes in their utility bills. On 1 March, a motion in the Maltese House of Representatives to repeal the new tariffs went down to defeat by a single vote. Malta’s political and geographical circumstances make it a uniquely chal- lenging place to institute new water and energy policies. Unlike Singapore or China, where word from the top decides all matters, the Maltese have a vibrant democracy, one where issues are debated in public and decided on election day, often by razor-thin margins. Unlike the United States or Australia, every deci- sion taken by the national government is local. Each citizen bears the conse - quences not just of some faceless bureau- crat’s whims but also the actions of his or her neighbors. With the country’s energy supply at the mercy of world oil markets and its groundwater run - ning out, Malta is approaching the point where the people must choose between conserving water and electricity or pay- ing ever higher prices to desalinate their water and power their homes. That’s where the smart grid will help. With the vast amounts of data it gener- ates, government o¡cials, the utilities, and citizens will be able to make more informed decisions. “You will have thou- sands of times more information than you have now,” says Paul Micallef, who oversees the introduction of the meter management system for IBM Global Services. “Unless you’re in the position of the utilities, you can’t even fathom the change that’s going to happen.” private cisterns that store the scant Over the years, Water Services has than half that and at 37 ML per day in IN MALTA, WATER AND ELECTR ICITY ARE 550 millimeters of annual rainfall. The installed a series of technologies to get the summer. inextricably bound—and not just in cisterns were mandated for all homes ever more water from each watt con - The plant sits on the beach next to a the minds of protesters and politicians. by the Renaissance rulers of the islands, sumed in its RO plants. As a result, the Maltese army shooting range. Seawater Roughly one-third of Malta’s water the Knights of St. John of Malta, in the enerŠ used to desalinate 1 million liters is pumped into a reservoir under the comes from three aging plants that 16th century and came in handy during of water has dropped from 5 kilowatt- plant from boreholes that have been squeeze the salt out of seawater through siege or drought. hours 25 years ago to 2.8 kWh today. drilled along the seashore. The sediment reverse osmosis (RO). Another third is Electricity accounts for 75 percent of The newest plant, commissioned in the boreholes filters out dead fish, sea- pumped out of Malta’s shrinking aqui- the cost of the water produced by Water in 1992 at Pembroke, about a kilo meter weed, and garbage; sand, pebbles, and fers by approximately 8600 private Services’ RO plants. So when Enemalta from the upscale hotel district of St. seashell fragments settle in the reservoir. borehole owners who extract water free raised electricity rates for large commer- Julian’s, has a capacity of 54 megaliters JOSHUA RO MER The seawater is then shoved at 7 mega- of charge. About a quarter is pumped cial customers by 60 percent, it effec - of water per day. As we tour the facility, pascals—enough pressure to shoot a out of Water Services’ own boreholes. tively bumped up domestic and com - Pembroke’s operations manager, Warren stream of water 700 meters in the air—

The rest comes either from small RO mercial rates for water, too, by as much Vella, tells me that in the relatively rainy O (3) through a series of pipes stuffed with

plants run by a few large hotels or from as 25 percent. winter season, the plant operates at less MIRABELLI MATTHEW hollow-fiber or spiral-bound membranes.

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PROTESTERS A NG R Y A BOU T R I S I NG UTILITY RATES FILL THE STREETS OF MALTA’S CAP I TA L , VALLETTA, IN F EBRUARY. AT T H E PEM BROKE RO P LANT [TOP RIGHT] , WATER SUCKED FROM THE SEA IS BLASTED THROUGH T HOU S A N D S OF M ETERS OF FILTER- FILLED PIP ES.

Over the years, Water Services has than half that and at 37 ML per day in About 40 percent of the seawater is con- enerŠ only if you can control pressure installed a series of technologies to get the summer. verted into potable water this way. The and flow rates precisely. That’s the point ever more water from each watt con - The plant sits on the beach next to a remaining brine flows along one side of of linking the smart grid to the utility’s sumed in its RO plants. As a result, the Maltese army shooting range. Seawater the plant to drive a Pelton wheel, a turbine existing supervisory control and data- enerŠ used to desalinate 1 million liters is pumped into a reservoir under the that turns a 6-kilovolt motor, which in turn acquisition system. With historical and of water has dropped from 5 kilowatt- plant from boreholes that have been forces fresh seawater through the mem- real-time data at their fingertips, Vella hours 25 years ago to 2.8 kWh today. drilled along the seashore. The sediment branes. Brine flowing on the opposite side and his colleagues expect to take advan- The newest plant, commissioned in the boreholes filters out dead fish, sea- of the plant funnels into a mechanical pres- tage of such conditions as lower seawater in 1992 at Pembroke, about a kilo meter weed, and garbage; sand, pebbles, and sure exchanger where it spins a ceramic salinity, when less pressure is needed to from the upscale hotel district of St. seashell fragments settle in the reservoir. rotor, which imparts that pressure to new push the water through the membranes. Julian’s, has a capacity of 54 megaliters JOSHUA ROMER The seawater is then shoved at 7 mega- seawater entering the exchanger from the Until recently, most of Water Services’ of water per day. As we tour the facility, pascals—enough pressure to shoot a other side. Finally, the brine leaves the sys- engineering e‰orts have been aimed at Pembroke’s operations manager, Warren stream of water 700 meters in the air— tem and returns to the sea. saving enerŠ and stopping leaks. Now

Vella, tells me that in the relatively rainy O (3) through a series of pipes stuffed with At each stage in the conversion of the utility is turning its attention to

winter season, the plant operates at less MIRABELLI MATTHEW hollow-fiber or spiral-bound membranes. saltwater to fresh you can hope to save detecting and plugging a di‰erent kind

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of leak: commercial losses that stem from meters that aren’t sensitive enough to measure very low water flow. Over the next three years IBM will outfit the old water meters with new data-collection modules. The mod - ules convert the analog pulses to digi - tal signals, which are then radioed to devices called concentrators that col- lect data from meters located in a par - ticular zone and transmit that data in batches to Water Services. By compar- ing the amount of water being read by individual meters with the amount of water flowing into each zone, the utility will discover discrepancies that will help them track down slow leaks. “It’s a powerful tool to basically drill down and go to the key problem areas,” says Stephen Galea St. John, Water Services’ chief o¡cer of operations. “It’s a question of low-lying fruit.”

IT’LL TAKE A FEW YEARS TO PLUCK that fruit. The five-year project began in 2009 and involves more than 100 IBM personnel working alongside about twice as many employees from the utilities. Dozens of programmers, engineers, and project managers click away on ThinkPads in a situation room at Water JOSEP H G IULIANO, Services’ headquarters. Here they’re AN E NEM A LTA TECHNICIAN, INSTALLS knitting together the business systems A P LATE THAT HIDES THE that will ingest, analyze, and act upon WIRES CONNECTING TO NEW SM A R T the hundreds of thousands of data points M ETERS [top]. N EXT, HE P ROGRAM S T H E that the water and electric meters will M ETERS WITH CUSTOM E R generate each day. In some instances, INFORM AT ION [bottom left] . programmers are building things from AS A FINAL STEP AGA I N S T TAMPERING, HE SEALS scratch, such as an advanced meter EACH M ETER WITH A management system, which both Water BAR-CODED P LASTIC TAG [bottom right] . Services and Enemalta will use. IBM is also replacing the billing system the two utilities have long shared with a new one from the German firm SAP. Actual con- Enemalta was losing up to 14 percent of its to stop the unit-counting disk from rotat- sumption and billing data will be avail - electricity to theft. More recent estimates ing; turning the meter at an angle so that able to customers via a new Web portal show total commercial losses of 8 percent, the disk touches the magnet inside the that accepts online payments and helps with theft being a major factor. meter and stops rotating; opening the customers understand their own con- As Anthony Gauci, project manager link between the voltage and current sumption patterns. for automated metering at Enemalta, coils so the meter registers no consump- Just as Water Services’ newly outfitted explains over the whine of a drill during tion; and splicing in a wire to bypass the meters will help minimize commercial an installation, electricity thieves are an meter completely and connect the power

losses, the electric smart meters made by enterprising lot, and they love the old directly to the main switch of the thief’s O (3) Enel, of Italy, are the first line of defense electromechanical meters. Popular tam- home or business. against electricity theft. Four years ago pering methods include drilling a hole in With curious residents looking on,

government officials estimated that the meter cover and inserting an object Enemalta technician Joseph Giuliano MER RO JOSHUA

68 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Malta.NA.indd 68 5/13/10 1:55 PM Discover these Essential Water Titles from Wiley

Environmental Hydraulics Elements of Tidal-Electric Engineering 5 Volume Set Robert H. Clark Jean-Michel Tanguy 9780470107096, Cloth, 280pp, $155.00 9781848211520, Cloth, 2,192pp, $765.00 March 2007, Wiley-IEEE June 2010, Wiley - ISTE Co-publishing As interest in tidal-electric power generation continues This series of five volumes proposes an integrated to grow in response to demands for renewable sources of description of physical processes modeling used by scientific energy, readers can now turn to Elements of Tidal-Electric Engineering for disciplines from meteorology to coastal morphodynamics. Volume the first comprehensive treatment of the subject. The author, Robert H. 1 describes the physical processes and identifies the main Clark, a leader in the field for almost fifty years, has spearheaded several measurement devices used to measure the main parameters that important research projects and consulted with governments and private are indispensable to implement all these simulation tools. Volume industries around the world on tidal-electric issues. The focus of this text 2 presents the different theories in an integrated approach: is the feasibility study. mathematical models as well as conceptual models, used by all disciplines to represent these processes. Volume 3 identifies the Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces main numerical methods used in all these scientific fields to translate from the Nanoscale mathematical models into numerical tools. Volume 4 is composed of a series of case studies, dedicated to practical applications of these to the Global Scale tools in engineering problems. Volume 5 identifies and describes the Patricia Maurice modeling software in each discipline. 9780470400364, Cloth, 441pp, $115.00 June 2009, Wiley-Interscience Ozonation of Water and Waste Water: Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces covers everything from the theory A Practical Guide to Understanding Ozone and its of charged particle surfaces to how minerals grow and dissolve to new Applications, 2nd Edition frontiers in W-R interactions, such as nanoparticles, geomicrobiology, and Judy Ann Libra, Adrian Saupe climate change. Numerous case studies help contextualize concepts while 9783527319626, Cloth, 378pp, $130.00 chapter-ending practice and thought questions facilitate comprehension. February 2010, Wiley-VCH The only complete guide to ozone technology on the market, this book Water Treatment Plant Performance contains everything from chemical basics to technical and economic Evaluations and Operations concerns. Now updated to include the most recent developments in water treatment and industrial processes. John O’Connor, Tom O’Connor, Rick Twait 9780470288610, Cloth, 264pp, $99.95 White’s Handbook of Chlorination January 2009, Wiley and Alternative Disinfectants, 5th Edition This book provides a step-by-step look at the most Black & Veatch Corporation current water treatment technologies, balancing academic theory and professional practice. A compilation of studies conducted over the past 9780470180983, Cloth, 1,062pp, $149.95 decade at the Bloomington, Illinois Water Treatment Plant, it presents December 2009, Wiley studies that are useful as templates for comparable long-term studies at Continuing the tradition of combining theory and other water utilities. practice, the 5th edition of The Handbook of Chlorination is a major

revision of this classic book. This new edition is a thorough up to date reference on the use of chlorine, chlorine dioxide, ozone, peroxone Advanced Membrane Technology and bromine, bromine chloride, iodine, and ultraviolet radiation in water Applications and wastewater treatment. Anthony G. Fane, W. S. Winston Ho, Takeshi Matsuura Environmental Calculations: 9780471731672, Cloth, 994pp, $155.00 A Multimedia Approach September 2008, Wiley-AIChE Robert G. Kunz This book comprehensively covers the manufacturing and industrial 9780470139851, Cloth, 703pp, $125.00 applications of membranes plus quality management and Six August 2009, Wiley-AIChE Sigma, along with providing membrane fundamentals. Membranes: Handbook of Environmental Permitting Calculations Fundamentals, Manufacturing, and Applications is an important provides an essential reference for the technical calculations to reference tool and source for professionals in industries such as water obtain environmental permits. Along with accurate explanations, the treatment, pharmaceutical companies, and fuel cell processing. text includes helpful chemical equations, examples, and case studies to assist and illuminate calculations.

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06a.p69.NA.indd 69 5/11/10 1:06 PM takes out the building’s 10-year-old ana- The appliance uses an ultra violet lamp to much higher electricity and water log meters and replaces them with the Powered kill bacteria and bugs. Element Four dreams prices looms. Enemalta has no plans smart meters. He also installs a plate of using its atmospheric generators to supply to replace its oil-fired power plants, so that hides all the cables connecting to By Crazy safe drinking water in poor rural areas. But a it will be subject to the vagaries of the the meters, a simple but effective mea- planned 20-liter-per-day generator can soak petroleum market for the foreseeable up 720 watt-hours per liter, and such places sure to thwart would-be splice-and- ATMOSPHERIC future. To further complicate matters, WATER GENERATION often have an unstable electricity supply, or bypass thieves. none at all. And when you consider where the studies show that salt water is infil- Giuliano works with a handheld Extracting freshwater from thin air electricity comes from, the WaterMill makes trating Malta’s aquifers, which supply device that plugs into the meter and pro- is a seductive idea, especially for arid places even less sense. A typical coal-fired power plant about 60 percent of the country’s fresh- grams it with customer contract infor - that see little rainfall but are also very humid, consumes about 1.8 liters of water per kilowatt- water. That will inevitably lead to a shift mation. Once installed and locked with like parts of Mexico and South America. hour of electricity generated. If that’s your toward more seawater desalination and A number of companies now sell home-scale power source, it would actually take 1.3 liters of bar-coded seals, the meters communi- more enerŠ consumption. atmospheric water generators—basically water to make one liter of water. Really. cate over power lines at 2.5 kilobits per glorified dehumidifiers. Still, the device is headed for testing in Gordon Knox, who spent 28 years second with a data concentrator inside The WaterMill, for example, from Canada’s Australia, Mexico, South America, and the as a geologist with Shell Oil Co. and the local substation. The substation con- Element Four, can produce up to 11 liters Bahamas, where the main goal is just to have now studies Malta’s aquifers, believes centrator in turn sends data wirelessly to of drinking water a day (what an average a consistent source of clean water, no matter the country is headed for a reckoning. Enemalta’s main o¡ces. family might use on a tight water budget). the energy cost. —Anne-Marie Corley Malta has a porous rock system, Knox As of February, technicians had tells me, with nooks and crannies into installed more than 11 000 smart meters polled by the central system. By mea - control the amount of power available which either rainwater or seawater in a handful of test zones. The plan is for suring how much electricity is being to a customer. That’s a huge change can infiltrate. In the aquifers, fresh - 80 000 smart meters to be installed each put on the grid and comparing that from today, when meter readings (done water floats on top of the denser sea - year for the next three years. By the begin- with the electricity the smart meters at most twice a year), service adjust - water. This freshwater layer, known ning of 2013, all of Malta’s electricity and are registering, Enemalta can spot ments, and power cuts to nonpayers as a lens, is dynamic: When water is water meters should be hooked up to the discrepancies and analyze them with must be performed in person. pumped out of an aquifer, the fresh - utilities’ respective computer networks. IBM’s Cognos software to identify the water lens becomes thinner, and sea - ATION: BRANDON PALACIO BRANDON ATION: The meters store consumption, pro- nature of the losses. System adminis - E VEN IF ENEM ALTA WRINGS EVERY LAST R water takes its place beneath. Studies LLUST file, and event data and are periodically trators can also query the meters and cent from its grid, the potential for I by the Malta Resources Authority and The Exact Lens you need, Proceedings IEEE SPECTRUM PRESENTS: The Expert Support you want Build a Better Prototype of the IEEE: A Four-Part Webinar Series Sponsored by National Instruments Pioneering technology Custom Lens Designer and Manufacturer. from the inside out. Thousands of Lens Sizes in Stock. This Webinar series will provide useful tips about how to create a prototype for your next Universe Kogaku America designs Most Lenses Ship Same Day. project and what tools can save money and get a high-quality product to market fast. Lens Assemblies for Every Application... Build a Better Prototype for Your Medical Imaging Lenses Next Green Project • 24 June 2010 Microscope Objectives & Eyepieces Focus on Medical Lenses Photographic Lenses A new industrial revolution is underway to transform energy production to cleaner, Lens Mounting Accessories from Prototype to Production more sustainable technologies. Learn how to use cutting-edge graphical system design Lens Filters and Accessories Lens assemblies for medical imaging and diagnostic cameras techniques to implement embedded monitoring, control, and test applications for smart Image and Barcode Lenses from Universe Kogaku are available off-the-shelf in a wide grid, renewable energy, and energy-efficient applications. variety of sizes and styles designed for use with today’s high- UV Quartz Lenses resolution diagnostic cameras. Our design capability and 60 Moderator: Brian MacCleery, National Instruments, Senior Product Manager, CCD and CMOS Lenses Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy years of manufacturing experience allow us to produce any Proceedings of the IEEE. CCTV Lenses special lens.... in any quantity! Applications include Endoscope Upcoming Webinars: Subscribe today. Diode Laser Lenses and fiber scope couplers, diagnostic camera hand pieces, and September 16 2010: Build a Better Prototype for Your Next Robotics Project www.ieee.org/proceedings High Resolution Lenses medical X-ray scanning. Contact Universe for drawings, full performance data, and pricing. November 18 2010: Build a Better Prototype for Your Next Medical Project Your Custom Lens Assembly Register today at SPONSORED BY: www.spectrum.ieee.org/webevents www.UKAoptics.com In USA: 516-624-2444 Email: [email protected] © 2010 Universe Kogaku (America) Inc.

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06.Malta.NA.indd 70 5/13/10 1:55 PM The appliance uses an ultra violet lamp to much higher electricity and water the Malta Environment and Planning wastewater through RO and use addi- kill bacteria and bugs. Element Four dreams prices looms. Enemalta has no plans Authority predict that in just five years, tional disinfection measures before of using its atmospheric generators to supply to replace its oil-fi red power plants, so the groundwater may no longer be pumping it back into the ground. safe drinking water in poor rural areas. But a it will be subject to the vagaries of the usable. Knox’s own estimates, which Meanwhile, the water price planned 20-liter-per-day generator can soak petroleum market for the foreseeable are based on publicly available data, increases are encouraging individ- up 720 watt-hours per liter, and such places future. To further complicate matters, place the date for total groundwater ual Maltese to take matters into their often have an unstable electricity supply, or none at all. And when you consider where the studies show that saltwater is infil- salinization as far out as 2025. own hands. “Now that the water price electricity comes from, the WaterMill makes trating Malta’s aquifers, which supply Knox is convinced that if business has run up, we can see already a lot of even less sense. A typical coal-fi red power plant about 60 percent of the country’s fresh- as usual continues, Malta will be forced actions,” says Joseph Cilia, a professor consumes about 1.8 liters of water per kilowatt- water. That will inevitably lead to a shift to produce all of its water with reverse in the power and control engineering hour of electricity generated. If that’s your toward more seawater desalination and osmosis. While Water Services’ existing department at the University of Malta. power source, it would actually take 1.3 liters of more enerŠ consumption. RO plants can meet all of Malta’s current Cilia’s own home is a showcase of the water to make one liter of water. Really. Still, the device is headed for testing in Gordon Knox, who spent 28 years needs, costs would skyrocket. He fi gures Maltese home of the future. He recently Australia, Mexico, South America, and the as a geologist with Shell Oil Co. and the desalinated water costs residents installed photovoltaic panels with help Bahamas, where the main goal is just to have now studies Malta’s aquifers, believes about five times as much as ground- from government subsidies. He also a consistent source of clean water, no matter the country is headed for a reckoning. water. So shifting entirely to desalinated placed the water tanks of his toilets the energy cost. —Anne-Marie Corley Malta has a porous rock system, Knox water—all other factors being equal— 3 meters above the bowls and set them tells me, with nooks and crannies into would triple consumers’ water bills. And up to flush automatically, thereby cut- control the amount of power available which either rainwater or seawater if oil prices rise, water prices would rise ting his water bill by 40 percent. to a customer. That’s a huge change can infiltrate. In the aquifers, fresh- even more. “It’s often human nature that when from today, when meter readings (done water floats on top of the denser sea- Water Services’ St. John agrees that faced with a real crunch, they’re then at most twice a year), service adjust- water. This freshwater layer, known groundwater salinization is inevita- energized to do something about it,” ments, and power cuts to nonpayers as a lens, is dynamic: When water is ble if nothing is done to curb usage. So Knox says. If that’s true, maybe the must be performed in person. pumped out of an aquifer, the fresh- he is preparing for the worst. His team Maltese can conserve their way to a sus- water lens becomes thinner, and sea- is working with the Malta Resource tainable future. The alternative, to para- EVEN IF ENEMALTA WRINGS EVERY LAST water takes its place beneath. Studies Authority to research ways to replenish phrase that cab driver, is one nobody

cent from its grid, the potential for PALACIO BRANDON ILLUSTRATION: by the Malta Resources Authority and the aquifers. One idea is to run treated wants to pay for. J The Exact Lens you need, Proceedings The Expert Support you want of the IEEE: Pioneering technology Custom Lens Designer and Manufacturer. from the inside out. Thousands of Lens Sizes in Stock. Universe Kogaku America designs Most Lenses Ship Same Day. Lens Assemblies for Every Application... Medical Imaging Lenses Microscope Objectives & Eyepieces Focus on Medical Lenses Photographic Lenses Lens Mounting Accessories from Prototype to Production Lens Filters and Accessories Lens assemblies for medical imaging and diagnostic cameras Image and Barcode Lenses from Universe Kogaku are available off-the-shelf in a wide variety of sizes and styles designed for use with today’s high- UV Quartz Lenses resolution diagnostic cameras. Our design capability and 60 CCD and CMOS Lenses years of manufacturing experience allow us to produce any Proceedings of the IEEE. CCTV Lenses special lens.... in any quantity! Applications include Endoscope Subscribe today. Diode Laser Lenses and fiber scope couplers, diagnostic camera hand pieces, and www.ieee.org/proceedings High Resolution Lenses medical X-ray scanning. Contact Universe for drawings, full performance data, and pricing. Your Custom Lens Assembly www.UKAoptics.com In USA: 516-624-2444 Email: [email protected] © 2010 Universe Kogaku (America) Inc.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 71 09PEE020dProeedingiPgedFin.indd10/21/09 1 2:3:3 PM

06.Malta.NA.indd 71 5/13/10 1:55 PM LIFE IN DROUGHT Continued from page 49

DREXEL PREPARES TOMORROW’SLEADERS Master’s Degree in Engineering Technology Recognized nationally for its engineering programs, Drexel University introduces a Master of Science in Engineering Technology. This professional, multidisciplinary degree focuses on the applied and technological aspects of engineering.

Unlike other discipline-speci c engineering technology degrees, Drexel’s master’s program touches upon all aspects of industrial engineering, layering in business and leadership skills to prepare you for a position in management. With salaries currently on the rise,* this field offers exciting opportunities for those who want to expand their knowledge of advanced engineering technology.

*Bureau of Labor Statistics Outlook Handbook 2009-10

Visit goodwin.drexel.edu/aet or call 215-895-6253 T REATED WA STEWAT E R INTENDED FOR SOUTH EA ST QUEENSLA N D’ S DRINKING WAT E R SUPPLY IS INSTEA D BEING PIPED TO TWO You Design. COA L POW ER PLA N T S . Consider, for example, that over the past eight years, more than a quarter million homeowners in South East Queensland We Help. have installed rain water storage tanks. The tanks seem like a no-brainer: Why not use the rain that falls on your roof to IEEE Spectrum hosts the TI Resource Library water your lawn or flush your toilet? With a purifier, you can and provides IEEE members with access to resource even drink it. New housing developments in Brisbane are now guides, videos, articles and catalogs with valuable required to install such collectors. There’s just one problem, says Ted Gardner, a scientist in information on TI’s services, product o
erings the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource and applications, and expertise. Management. The cheap little pumps that power the tanks use a lot of electricity. Gardner’s team studied electricity usage Visit today at in one posh neighborhood on the outskirts of Brisbane that spectrum.ieee.org/ti-resource-library touts its ecofriendly million-dollar homes. Each has an 18- to 22-kiloliter tank and an ultraviolet disinfection system. High Performance Analog » Your WayTM Gardner found that the electricity used per kiloliter of water was up to 10 times as high as that for regular city water in cen- tral Brisbane; ignoring the UV system, it was still three times as much. The reason, of course, is that a single huge indus - trial pump that moves water to thousands of customers is much more e§cient than the aggregation of thousands of tiny house- hold pumps. “People think big things are bad things,” Gardner says. “With water, big is actually e§cient.” Simply maintaining those small pumps also has an ener¢ Continued on page 74

72 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Australia.NA.indd 72 5/12/10 4:13 PM Take the next steps to finding your ideal job.

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06a.p73.NA.indd 73 5/11/10 10:40 AM LIFE IN DROUGHT IEEE SPECTRUM HOSTS THE Continued from page 72 cost. An industrial-scale pump that serves 250 000 people may Powered get serviced four or five times a year, while a little pump By Crazy might need maintenance once a year or so. Now multiply FIRE ICE Resource that annual repair by several hundred thousand, add in the Researchers Library costs of fueling and running all have been studying those service trucks, and the methane Find solutions guides, application notes, tutorials, ener¢ penalty is vast. hydrate and design tools to help you overcome common It’s also true, though, that for decades. The volatile the water grid itself uses more substance, a combination of design challenges, learn about emerging market electricity than the amal - methane gas and water ice, trends, or simply hone your competitive edge. gamation of water systems exists in cold and high-pressure that it replaced. In part that’s environments, such as Alaskan Visit the first source for innovative permafrost or beneath ocean because water is heavy, and sediments. Scientists estimate designers everywhere! moving 182 ML of it around that the world’s supply of every day takes energy. methane hydrate could dwarf spectrum.ieee.org/ Desalination and waste water the combined energy stored maxim-resource-library treatment are electricity in all other fossil fuels. And intensive, too. The net effect methane is a much cleaner burning fuel than gasoline, oil, is that the average household or coal. in South East Queensland Extracting it is another now pays about $2 per kL story. Think of methane for water, up from $1 a few hydrate as an icy cage that years ago. Dennien’s office traps the methane molecules is working with research - inside. To release the natural gas, you either warm the ers at the Queensland Cyber substance or ease the pressure; Infrastructure Foundation the methane vaporizes, leaving and the University of Queens- behind a puddle of water. land to construct a computer Most research has focused UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering model that will analyze how on extracting the methane, Lecturers/Senior Lecturers in the grid uses energy and but it turns out the water help optimize its operation. itself may have value. “The Electronic Engineering water from gas hydrates will The Department of Electronic and Electronic Engineering at UCL is Running the desalination by nature be fresh with no recognised as one of the leading Departments for research in its subject and treatment plants during impurities,” says Timothy area, worldwide. The Department also has an extensive teaching programme both at undergraduate and Masters level. Postgraduates off-peak hours, for example, Collett of the U.S. Geological substantially outnumber undergraduates in the Department. Further would cut electricity costs. Survey. A team of scientists at information about the Department can be found at www.ee.ucl.ac.uk. For South East Queensland Sandia National Labora tories The Department wishes to make two appointments at Lecturer or Senior and indeed for the entire led by geochemist Je’ery Lecturer level, one of the posts being a fixed term five year appointment Greathouse is now looking into to cover the appointment of one of our staff to a Royal Society country to continue to grow separating methane hydrates University Research Fellowship. and prosper, people will need For these appointments we particularly seek candidates with research from the salty water that experience in communications and networks or electronic circuits and to recognize such trade-offs. surrounds them by exploiting whose research interests are either within or complementary to our Australia will never have all the density di’erence between existing programme. the freshwater that it wants. the salt water and the hydrate- Applicants should have a record of carrying out internationally leading trapped freshwater. research, together with demonstrated ability in obtaining the support But maybe, with deliberate But the researchers will necessary for work at the highest international level, and an outstanding planning, bold initiative, and publications record. The ability to inspire students and research staff to still face the same problem achieve their full potential is also of great importance to us. an eye to the future, it can that’s stymied scientists The salary and level of appointment will be set according to experience have the water it needs. elsewhere: figuring out in the range £35,415 to £55,142 inclusive of London Allowance (UCL “There’s a lesson for all a cost-e’ective way to Grades 7 to 9). IO governments in this: You can- separate the methane C Further details of the posts including how to apply are available at from the water. Despite ALA http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/jobs/ search on Reference Number 1137656 or not look out just 10 years or 20 from Ms Vicky Coombes, [email protected]. years,” says Dennien. “We’re heavily funded studies in ON P Closing date: 28th June 2010 at 5pm. many countries, including looking at 50 years from now— the United States, Japan,

UCL Taking Action for Equality. We particularly welcome female D ION: BRAN

what’s the population going T applicants and those from an ethnic minority, as they are under- India, and China, nobody has RA represented within UCL at this level. to be, and where’s our water managed to do that. T LLUS going to come from?” J —Sally Adee I

74 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.Australia.NA.indd 74 5/12/10 4:13 PM University of Central Lancashire

PRESTON

SCHOOL OF BUILT & NATURAL ENVIRONMENT Chair of Energy & Power Management Systems Management Contract Ref: 95A-28-05 Play a leading role at the forefront of academic excellence in our dynamic, modern university. There’s never been a more exciting time to focus on the 21st century demands to our energy infrastructure. Or a more opportune moment to develop significant new approaches to help countries meet diverse generation and supply challenges. Delivering a major strategic partnership with BAE Systems, you’ll build your own research team and pursue new research opportunities, such as industry engagements and the Where today’s establishment of synergies in the Energy field across the University. You’ll need an outstanding international research record, in either technology gurus energy generation, transmission, and distribution or enabling technologies for Smart Energy Systems. Not to mention experience of managing energy research and innovation teams. A strong converge. communicator, you’ll consult and interact with a wide range of people and organisations, and be committed to teamwork The brightest minds and multidisciplinary collaboration. For further information, please contact Professor Joe Howe, email [email protected] discussing the biggest topics. Apply on line and obtain further details at: www.uclan.ac.uk/jobs UPCOMING JUNE WEBINARS: or call 01772 892324 quoting the relevant reference. Agility Development of Safety Critical Systems Closing date: 4pm, 18 June 2010. • 3 June The University offers flexible patterns of work including job sharing, part-time and short term contracts and is This webinar presents a workflow tailored for safety critical systems working towards equality of opportunity for all. development that produces the right set of work products at the right time with the minimum cost and effort. www.uclan.ac.uk/jobs www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar Capture the Concept — A First Look at COMSOL Multiphysics 4.0 • 16 June Learn how to analyze quickly and efficiently all relevant aspects of your design to bring it to life. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar Build a Better Prototype for Your Next Green Project • 24 June This webcast will provide useful tips on how to create a green project prototype and tools that will save money and get a high-quality product to market fast. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) AVAILABLE ON DEMAND WEBINARS:

Faculty of Engineering Improving Hybrid Electric Vehicle Design through Advanced Numerical Simulation The group Science, Engineering and Technology of Learn how engineers are using comprehensive numerical simulation to the K.U.Leuven, Electrical Engineering Department understand, utilize and optimize the tight interplay of physics that occur (research unit ESAT-ELECTA) has an opening at both the component and system level of HEVs. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/1579578 for a full-time academic staff member. Calibre DRC Automated Waiver Technology The vacancy aims at developing excellent research, In this webinar, the Auto-Waiver approach for Calibre DRC is presented. education and services on Intelligent Energy Grids. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar/1504908

Candidates should hold a PhD degree in Engineering Sciences SPONSORS: or Engineering Technology. To be eligible for this tenure track position the candidates should have obtained their PhD less than 7 years before the start of the appointment.

All info [email protected] electronic application at http://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/ Sign up today! vacatures/engineering.html www.spectrum.ieee.org/webinar

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 75

06a.p75.NA.indd 75 5/12/10 10:01 AM R4695.indd 1 5/12/10 9:52 AM Electrical Engineering Juniper Networks, Inc. Technical Marketing Specialist is recruiting for our #12430: Product expert on high-end fi rewalls & Department Sunnyvale, CA offi ce: presales technical advisor for network deployments of company products. TENURED FACULTY POSITION WITH ENDOWED IT Engineer, Staff #15800: Work w/ Software Engineer #9008: Develop PROFESSORSHIP: The Electrical Engineering members of IT & its bus. stakeholders to ensure system technologies and new features on JUNOS Department in the Henry Samueli School of the identity & access mgmt. roadmap meets the kernel for Juniper products. Engineering and Applied Science at University bus. reqmts. Technical Support Engineer #15691: of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is conducting Software Engineer #15911: Work w/ Work w/ customer to resolve technical & non- an intensive search for appointment to the Prod. Line Mgmt. and design/implement L2/L3 technical problems related to router, protocols & Northrop-Grumman Opto-Electronic Chair. The switching features. network design. Chair is dedicated to all areas of opto-electronics and photonics. The individual appointed to this Software Engineer #6999: Analyze Software Engineer Staff #10652: De- professorship will be a distinguished scholar with reqmts, dev. functional & design specs, design, sign & dev. diagnostics, drivers & kernel modules. dev. network security SW for IKE, IPSEC, PKI outstanding contributions to the fi eld of Software Engineer #6619: Design, dev. & protocols as part of IPSEC VPN. opto-electronics. test SCCP VOIP App Layer Gateway on high & low Software Engineering Sr. Manager performance platforms. Applications or nominations accompanied by the #2879: Work closely w/ prod. mgmt & SW dev. candidate’s CV, list of publications and names of Software Engineer #8571: Design, archi- teams to ensure overall quality of network security three referees should be sent by August 31, 2010 tect, & implement network security components. products. to: Search Committee, Northrop-Grumman Chair, Technical Systems Analyst #15494: The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Product Manager Sr. Staff #12443: De- Design, dev, modify, debug & evaluate programs/ Applied Science, Boelter Hall 7400, UCLA, 405 fi ne market reqmts working w/ partners, customers technologies like Agile PLM, Vastera apps support- Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095. & analysts. ing products manufacturing & logistics domain. The University of California, Los Angeles is an ASIC Engineer #11116: Create verifi cation Software Engineer Staff #15166: plan & environment for ASIC design. Equal Opportunity/Affi rmative Action Employer Design, dev. system & maint. networking SW for and invites applications from women, minorities, ASIC Engineer #12498: Develop architec- next generation data center products. and people with disabilities. ture, micro-architecture and RTL implementations, for large, complex, high-speed ASIC systems. Juniper Networks, Inc. Software Engineer #15511: Design & is recruiting for our implement high-complexity multi-service network- El Segundo, CA offi ce: Graduate ing & network security SW. Software Engineer #13832: Design, dev. Assistantships Software Engineer Staff #12385: & maint. IP routing, MPLS signaling & multicast Architect & dev. VOIP communication systems on SW used on a range of company platforms, in Embedded Software Unix-based platform. deployed in various environments, from small Software Engineer #11423: Develop SW enterprises to large service providers. Engineering/ for company packet forwarding engine. Electrical Engineering Software Engineer #11793: Participate in Juniper Networks, Inc. cross-functional teams delivering WAN accelera- is recruiting for our tion features in Juniper products. Westford, MA offi ce: Gannon University has graduate ASIC Engineer #14873: Work closely w/ de- Technical Support Engineer #11436: assistantships available for the Fall sign team to verify company’s next generation ASIC. Work w/ customers & partners by supporting 2010, semesters for the two-year QA Engineer #4488: Work w/ product company’s edge router product line deployed in Masters Program in Embedded Software mgmt. & SW dev. teams to ensure quality of large & advanced IP networks. Engineering/Electrical Engineering. Juniper’s network security products. Sales & Marketing, Staff Sr. #4259: Iden- Prospective candidates must have BS Software Engineer #5550: Design, dev. tify bus. opportunities in areas/markets & educate & in Electrical/Computer Engineering or & maint. IP routing & MPLS signaling SW as a infl uence customers to buy products & services. equivalent. Traineeships include full member of the Routing Protocols group. tuition and a yearly stipend of $30,000. Software Engineer #6502: Analyze & fi x Juniper Networks, Inc. Successful candidates will work on problems to improve SW quality of the Kernel. is recruiting for our industrial projects under faculty direction Bridgewater, NJ offi ce: that are integrated with their course work Sales Engineer #1621: Assist Acct. Mgrs. for approximately 25 hours/week during w/ technical sales activities in new & existing Systems Engineer #8526: Support & the school year and 45 hours/week opportunities. respond to RFI/RFQs. Deliver pre-sales & technical during the summer. Software Engineer #7323: Research & presentation to the customer. dev. WAN acceleration SW for use in multiple Candidates should apply on-line at product lines. Mail resume with job code # to http://www.ecs.gannon.edu/GETS Software Engineer #14786: Design, Attn: MS A3.1.1.102. Please contact Dr. Fong Mak implement, & maint. platform specifi c debugger & Juniper Networks ([email protected]) for diagnostic SW on next generation highly scalable 1194 N. Mathilda Avenue Embedded Software Engineering/ networking platforms. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Electrical Engineering.

76 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06a.p76.NA.indd 76 5/11/10 1:14 PM Distinguished Lecturer - Power Engineering City College of New York/CUNY (Job ID: 2141)

Full/Part Time: Full-Time Regular/Temporary: Regular 3 GENERALDUTIES Performs teaching duties in area(s) of expertise as noted below. Distinguished Lecturers are EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, E S experienced practitioners or teachers in their professions or fields of expertise. Distinguished Lecturer positions are full- (ACADEMIC PROGRAM MGT OFFICER 5) time but non-tenure track positions with a maximum appointment period of seven years, subject to annual reappointment. CONTRACT TITLE Distinguished Lecturer FLSA Exempt UC Berkeley - Main Campus CAMPUS SPECIFIC INFORMATION The Electrical Engineering Department of the City College of the City University of New York invites outstanding applications with strong academic credentials for a distinguished lecturer position. This is The Center for E3S was established by the National New York invites outstanding applications with strong academic credentials for a distinguished lecturer position. This is a non-tenured position, renewable yearly for up to 7 years. The position includes teaching and/or teamteaching, both Science Foundation as a Science & Technology Center 3 lecture and laboratory-based courses in the area of power generation, transmission and networks. Primary (STC), with a 5-year, $24.5 million grant. E S will responsibility of the position will be to lead or assist with the instruction of power engineering, including, but not limited research revolutionary, out-of-the box concepts, and to: power systems, power electronics, and power engineering design. Responsibilities will include but will not be limited scientific principles that would enable fundamentally to, coordinating laboratory activities and instruction, preparing class materials, grading, advising students and new and different science for digital information conducting classroom instruction. The Electrical Engineering Department at The City College has active teaching and processing, in order to achieve a radical reduction in research programs in computer architecture, telecommunication networks, wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, signal energy consumption. The Center’s focus is at the heart processing, photonics engineering, remote sensing and power engineering. With its highly motivated students, talented of information processing. faculty, and ABET accredited programs, the City College's mission emphasizes access and excellence in undergraduate and graduate education and research. The Executive Director will oversee the day-to-day MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor's degree and a record of achievement in a profession or field of expertise related 3 MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor's degree and a record of achievement in a profession or field of expertise related operations of the Center for E S and actively coordinate to anticipated teaching assignments. Also required is the ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution. with principal investigators, other faculty, and their PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS The candidate should have extensive knowledge and significant practice experience with staff at partner institutions. Must be able to identify a history of leadership in the area of power engineering. S/he is expected to have superior teaching skills. A Master's development opportunities and lead efforts to obtain degree and several years of relevant experience are the minimum qualifications required. A PhD is desirable. The funding or other support for E3S and lead outreach successful candidate must demonstrate a strong commitment to excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching. efforts to promote the activities of the Center, including COMPENSATION $40,844 - $114,104 Commensurate with education, accomplishments and experience. web presence, printed media, and campus public affairs. BENEFITS CUNY offers a comprehensive benefits package to employees and eligible dependents based on job title and 3 BENEFITS CUNY offers a comprehensive benefits package to employees and eligible dependents based on job title and Represent E S at local, national, and international classification. Employees are also offered pension and Tax-Deferred Savings Plans. Part-time employees must meet a meetings, workshops, and conferences and provide weekly or semester work hour criteria to be eligible for health benefits. Health benefits are also extended to retirees who subject matter expertise on the Center’s research, meet the eligibility criteria. education, and knowledge transfer programs. HOW TO APPLY To apply please log on to www.cuny.edu. Navigate to Careers at CUNY and then log into the applicant tracking program Careers at CUNYFirst and apply online by clicking "Apply Now" and following the instructions. First Review Date: April 19, 2010 In addition, to be considered for this position, you must send a curriculum vitae, the names of three references and For full details and to apply please visit: a statement of research and teaching goals to: [email protected]. Please include in the subject line of the http://jobs.berkeley.edu e-mail "Distinguished Lecturer - Power Engineering Search." CLOSING DATE Open until filled with review of applications to begin 4/15/10. and reference requisition #10796 The City University of New York is an Equal Opportunity Employer which complies with all applicable laws and regulations, and encourages inclusive excellence in its The University of California, Berkeley, employment practices. is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Associate or Full Professor - Computer Engineering (Tenure Track) U.S. Army RDECOM City College of New York/CUNY (Job ID: 2135) CERDEC NVESD Full/Part Time: Full-Time Regular/Temporary: Regular FLSA Exempt GENERAL DUTIES Performs teaching, research, and guidance duties in area(s) of expertise as noted below. Shares responsibility for committee and department assignments, performing administrative, supervisory, and other functions as may Senior Research Scientist be assigned. for Signal and Image Processing CAMPUS SPECIFIC INFORMATION The Electrical Engineering Department of the City College of the City University of New York invites outstanding applications with strong academic credentials for a tenure track faculty position at the rank of associate or full professor. Areas of interest must include VLSI systems or computer architecture. Experience in simulation The RDECOM CERDEC Night Vision and Electronic and software tools is also necessary. Responsibilities include conducting scholarly research that generates publications in Sensors Directorate, Ft Belvoir, VA, is looking for first rate journals and conferences, attracting significant external research funding, and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses. Moreover, the candidate is expected to supervise graduate (M.S. and PhD) students, and serve on the an Engineer or Scientist to serve in a Scientifi c or department and college committees. The Electrical Engineering Department at The City College has active research programs Professional (ST) Position as the Senior Research in computer architecture, telecommunication networks, wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, signal processing, photonics Scientist for Signal and Image Processing. Position engineering, and remote sensing. With its highly motivated students, talented faculty, and ABET accredited programs, the is responsible for the development of new signal City College's mission emphasizes access and excellence in undergraduate and graduate education and research. Since it is located in New York City, City College is in the close vicinity of many research and industrial labs. and image processing techniques that extract and located in New York City, City College is in the close vicinity of many research and industrial labs. optimize information from advanced sensors, opti- MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS For Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor designations: Ph.D. degree in area(s) of expertise, or equivalent as noted mizing and identifying the signal(s) associated with below. Also required are the ability to teach successfully, interest in productive scholarship or creative achievement, and targets/threats while separating them from signals ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution. associated with background clutter and compres- For Instructor designation: A Master's degree in area(s) of expertise, and/or active progress toward a Doctorate, or sion of sensor data for transmission over tactical equivalent as noted below. Also required are the ability to teach successfully, interest in productive scholarship or creative achievement, and ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution. sensor networks. achievement, and ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS An outstand ing academic or industrial record and a PhD in Electrical or Computer The incumbent of this position must have special- Engineering are required. The successful candidate must demonstrate a strong commitment to excellence in ized experience in sensor signal and image process- undergraduate and graduate teaching and the ability to attract significant research funding. Applicants should, in addition, demonstrate a history of scholarly research and leadership in their field. ing technology. Typically, applicants for ST positions demonstrate a history of scholarly research and leadership in their field. COMPENSATION Associate Professor - $82,299 - $96,635, Full Professor - $82,299 - $166,364 (Commensurate with rank, are expected to have a graduate degree, signifi cant COMPENSATION Associate Professor - $82,299 - $96,635, Full Professor - $82,299 - $166,364 (Commensurate with rank, education, accomplishments and experience.). research experience, and a national or international BENEFITS CUNY offers a comprehensive benefits package to employees and eligible dependents based on job title and classification. reputation in his/her fi eld. Employees are also offered pension and Tax-Deferred Savings Plans. Part-time employees must meet a weekly or semester work hour criteria to be eligible for health benefits. Health benefits are also extended to retirees who meet the eligibility criteria. How to apply: U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain a hour criteria to be eligible for health benefits. Health benefits are also extended to retirees who meet the eligibility criteria. TOP SECRET security clearance are required. Refer HOW TO APPLY To apply please log on to www.cuny.edu. Navigate to Careers at CUNY and then log into the applicant tracking program Careers at CUNYFirst and apply online by clicking "Apply Now" and following the instructions. In addition, to www.opm.gov, job announcement number DA- to be considered for this position, you must send a curriculum vitae, the names of three references and a statement of ST-01-10 for application requirements/process and research and teaching goals to: [email protected]. Please include in the subject line of the e-mail "Associate / Full additional information. Questions should be directed Professor Computer Engineering Search" to Mrs. Genie Shires, 703-704-1140, or by email: CLOSING DATE Open until filled with review of applications to begin April 15, 2010. The City University of New York is an Equal Opportunity Employer which complies [email protected] with all applicable laws and regulations, and encourages inclusive excellence in its employment practices.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 77

06a.p77.NA.indd 77 5/11/10 1:16 PM Algorithm Developer/Radar Systems • Algorithms for moving target detection and SAR, through-the-wall sensors, aerospace radar systems for ISR and/or fi re-control, advanced concepts, radar payloads and technology prototyping ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY RF Systems Engineer • Embedded computing and real- department of time software applications for radar system development, Solutions for the Real World radar signal processing, hardware-in-the-loop simulation, in- Computer Engineering tegration and test • High power microwaves Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute interact Tenure Track Faculty Position Ground Tactical Radar Engineer • Weapons location with colleagues across Georgia Tech and the national research radar, CRAM, next-generation systems, technology insertion, The Department of Computer Engineering at and development communities to advance technology support- test and evaluation the Rochester Institute of Technology invites ing National Security. Our researchers work in a team-oriented environment, developing innovative solutions and taking their Intelligence Analysis • Analyze threat systems, threat sys- applications for one tenure-track position at ideas from the white board through analysis, modeling and tem simulators, FME • Future threats, foreign systems analysis the Assistant Professor level starting in the 2010-11 academic year. Priority will be given simulation, prototype, integration, and test and evaluation. Electronic Warfare Research Engineer • Perform GTRI is also involved in training through extensive profes- modeling, simulation, analysis and concept development of to applicants in the areas of sional education programs. RF electronic warfare systems • Develop analytical tools us- VLSI Design, Digital and Embedded Successful candidates should have a BS/MS/PhD in a relevant ing MATLAB and similar programs to support analysis and Systems, or Computer Architecture. engineering, mathematics, or physics discipline. development programs A Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering or re- Real-Time Embedded Software Developer Develop ap- Missile Defense Radar Engineer/Systems Engineer • lated discipline is required. Preferred candidates System of systems engineering, radar systems engineering, plication software used for defensive avionics and related testing, • will have a strong publication record, potential phased array antenna systems analysis, digital beamforming, training, and instrumentation • Integrate aircraft and ground sys- electronic protection, track and sensor fusion algorithms, mod- tems using MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet, and Tactical Data Links to develop an independent research program and interest in quality teaching. We are seeking eling and simulation, test and evaluation of complex systems Candidates interested in the GTRI postings listed above should individuals who are committed to contributing Antenna Design Engineer/Electromagnetic Phe- send their resume and statement of interest to hiring coordi- to RIT’s core values, honor code, and statement nomenology • Antenna design and analysis, novel antenna nators, Ms. Melanie Scoville, [email protected]. concepts, conformal and wideband antennas, antennas for edu, Voice 404-407-7915 and Mr. Joe Brooks, joe.brooks@gtri. of diversity. Computer Engineering is known for radar and communications systems, antenna measurements, gatech.edu, Voice 404-407-7144. its outstanding curricula, modern facilities and career-oriented education. In addition to state- antenna calibration, advanced techniques • Electromagnetic Due to the unique nature of our work, US Citizenship is propagation, EMI/EMC, advanced sensing techniques and required for employment. Current collateral or elevated of-the-art teaching laboratories and computing phenomenology exploitation security clearances are especially desirable. Georgia Tech facilities, the department houses laboratories to Electronic Attack/Protection Research Engineer • is an equal opportunity employer. support research in VLSI Design, Networking RF EA/EP techniques development, algorithm development and Information Processing, Real Time Com- and evaluation, hardware development, test and evaluation, Georgia Tech puter Vision and Image Processing, Hardware data analysis, modeling and simulation www.GTRI.gatech.edu Design, High Performance Architectures and Embedded Systems. Faculty members are ac- algorithms and architectures. IDA/CCS research staff tively engaged in research, innovative teaching, Positions at members have always been at the forefront of comput- partnerships with industry, and participate in ing, as evidenced by lasting, visible contributions to cross-disciplinary Ph.D. programs in Comput- the Institute for areas as varied as multi-threaded architectures (e.g., ing and Information Sciences, Microsystems Horizon), novel computing systems (e.g., FPGA-based Engineering, and Imaging Science. Defense Analyses Splash and Splash-2, Processing-In-Memory chips), RIT is one of the largest private universi- design and implementation of operating systems (e.g., ties in the U.S., and has been recognized on Center for the Linux kernel), and programming language design The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Great and implementation for high-performance computing Colleges to Work For” list. Rochester has a di- Computing systems (e.g., Universal Parallel C and Cinquecento). verse population, was named one of America’s Sciences IDA/CCS research staff work on complex topics often Friendliest Cities, was ranked 7th among the engaging multidisciplinary teams; candidates should “10 Best Cities to Raise a Family,” and was 6th The Institute for Defense Analyses Center for demonstrate depth in a particular fi eld as well as a on the list of “Best Places to Live in America” Computing Sciences (IDA/CCS) is looking for broad understanding of computational issues and out of 379 metropolitan areas. outstanding researchers to address diffi cult comput- technology. Because the problems of interest are For more information, visit ing problems vital to the nation’s security. IDA/CCS is continually evolving, IDA/CCS recruitment focuses on an independent, applied research center sponsored by self-motivation, strength of background, and talent, www.rit.edu and www.ce.rit.edu. the National Security Agency (NSA). Emphasis areas rather than specifi c expertise. Review of applications will begin on June for IDA/CCS technical staff include high-performance Located in a modern research park in the Maryland 30, 2010; the position will remain open until computing, cryptography, and network security. Mem- suburbs of Washington, DC, IDA/CCS offers a com- fi lled. To apply, submit cover letter, curricu- bers of the technical staff come from a diverse variety petitive salary, an excellent benefi ts package, and a lum vitae, research interests, teaching phi- of backgrounds, including computer science, com- superior professional working environment. losophy and list of references to puter architecture, computer/electrical engineering, information processing, and the mathematical scienc- U.S. citizenship and a Department of Defense TSSI https://mycareer.rit.edu. es; most have Ph.D.s. Special attention is paid to the clearance (with polygraph) are required. IDA/CCS will Search for IRC#37954. design, prototyping, evaluation, and effective use of sponsor this clearance for those selected. The Institute Additional inquiries may be sent to new computational algorithms, tools, paradigms, and for Defense Analyses is proud to be an equal opportu- [email protected]. hardware directly relevant to the NSA mission. Stable nity employer. funding provides for a vibrant research environment, The Rochester Institute of Technology is an Please send responses or inquiries to: and an atmosphere of intellectual inquiry free of ad- equal opportunity/affi rmative action em- Dawn Porter ministrative burdens. ployer. All individuals with the ability to con- Administrative Manager tribute in meaningful ways to the university’s The center is equipped with a very large variety of IDA Center for Computing Sciences continuing commitment to cultural diversity, hardware and software. The latest developments in 17100 Science Drive pluralism, and individual differences are en- high-end computing are heavily used and projects Bowie, MD 20715-4300 routinely challenge the capability of the most advanced [email protected] couraged to make application.

78 NA • IEEE SPE CTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06a.p78.NA.indd 78 5/12/10 10:03 AM The Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Departments of the Universidad de Chile invite applications for two full-time faculty positions in Advanced Networks and Future Internet Services at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. The main duties of these positions are (Ref. 0910/144(370)/2) undergraduate and graduate teaching, and research at the Universidad de Chile (located in Santiago, Chile). These positions are part of a new interdisciplinary program, which seeks to foster research and teaching in an area shared by the EE/CS departments. Details are available at http://ingenieria.uchile.cl/ concursos_academicos2010   Director of Instructional Laboratories   Director of Facilities [email protected] fi                    http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/personnel                            

Innovation doesn’t just happen. Read fi rst-person accounts of IEEE members who were there.

IEEE Global History Network www.ieeeghn.org

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JUNE 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • N A 79

090382G2.185 .5Fin.indd 1 /5/10 12:09:5 PM

06a.p79.NA.indd 79 5/11/10 2:30 PM 0.6

0.4

0.2

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Proof #7 LAYOUT FINAL 5/12/10 @ 4:22 pm MS/MM NA the data

1.0 ONCE- THROUGH COOLING Capacity factor** * COOLING TOWER indicates how much COAL energy a source actually produces as a percentage of what it would generate if it were operating at its 0.8 peak output 24 hours a day. NUCLEAR 92%

COAL 80%

GEOTHERMAL 73%

SOLAR THERMAL 73%

0.6 NATURAL GAS 60%

HYDROELECTRIC 42%

NATURAL GAS WIND 21% ONCE- PHOTOVOLTAIC 15% THROUGH COOLING COOLING* TOWER 0.4

Wind and photovoltaic Geothermal power systems technology consume water produces its carbon (KILOGRAMS PER KILOWATT-HOUR) (KILOGRAMS CARBON and produce footprint from the carbon only in the carbon dioxide 0.2 manufacturing of dissolved in the hot the equipment. water that powers it. Hydroelectric water GEOTHERMAL PHOTOVOLTAIC consumption is NUCLEAR from evaporation ONCE- SOLAR of the reservoir THROUGH COOLING THERMAL behind the dam. HYDROELECTRIC WIND COOLING* TOWER

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

WATER CONSUMED (LITERS PER KILOWATT-HOUR) * Once-through cooling dumps heat into surface water and returns the water to its source. Relatively little water is actually consumed by evaporation, but much more water must be available for the power plant to withdraw. Carbonated Water ** Circle size indicates capacity factor.

T’S NOT enough to reduce carbon take into account the water used in long-distance, high-voltage DC dioxide emissions from energy manufacturing the equipment. But lines could transmit water- and Iproduction, according to a 2009 they are intermittent sources that carbon-free solar photovoltaic report by market research fi rm Lux can’t be depended on 24-7. Nuclear power from sunny-but-dry deserts. Research, in Boston. You have to power doesn’t have that problem, They could also let us build those worry about water too. The company but it’s a much thirstier way to make thirsty nuclear power plants on the plotted the carbon intensity (in electricity. In short, there are no coasts, where they would drink only kilograms per kilowatt-hour) and perfect solutions. abundant ocean water. the water intensity (in liters per Improving e˜ ciency can reduce The trouble is that alternate low- kilowatt-hour) of typical “green” and both carbon output and water water and low-carbon technologies “dirty” sources of energy to illustrate consumption, and indeed there cost money, whereas both water how tightly bound carbon and water are technologies available now and carbon are, in most places, still are. Fortunately, certain technologies that can blunt a power plant’s quite cheap. Real change to our could let us break the link. water needs, according to the energy mix will require a recognition As you might expect, solar analysis. But Lux senior analyst of their real costs. photovoltaic and wind power Michael LoCasio has a more —Samuel K. Moore

produce the least carbon and radical suggestion: Restructure Source: “Global Energy: Unshackling Carbon consume the least water, even if you the power grid. Loss-limiting, From Water,” Lux Research, June 2009

80 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JUNE 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

06.DataInfographic.NA.indd 80 5/12/10 4:24 PM Your innovations help shape the future.

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Introducing the new IEEE Member Group Term To learn more about this new Life with Living Bene ts Insurance Plan. plan exclusively available to IEEE members, including plan What if there was a life insurance plan that would not only help features, costs, eligibility, make sure your financial future is protected should you die, but renewability, limitations, terms would also pay a cash benefit when you experience a critical of coverage, and exclusions, illness, such as major heart attack or stroke? Well, now there is. call 1.800.493.IEEE (4333) or The Group Term Life with Living Benefits plan is a traditional term visit www.ieeeinsurance.com/ life insurance plan that provides a benefit should the unthinkable lifewithbene ts. occur. In addition, this plan enables you to receive a portion of the death benefit when you experience a qualifying critical health condition, such as a heart attack, stroke or some malignant cancers – thereby providing immediate funds during what can be a difficult time, financially and emotionally, for you and your family.

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Over one million people around the world speak MATLAB. Engineers and scientists in every field from aerospace and semiconductors to biotech, financial services, and earth and ocean sciences use it to express their ideas. Do you speak MATLAB? PHOTO: European Space Agency ©2010 The MathWorks, Inc.

Saturn's northern latitudes and the moon Mimas. Image from the Cassini-Huygens mission.

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