Events Detail

Energy, Water, and Debt: Linked Problems, Common Solutions?

Thursday, January 12
11:45 AM - 3:00 PM

Click here to watch video of this event.

                    Jim Nussle

 Lane, Zamuda, Lyman, Montgomery

      Weinstein, Libecap, Olmstead,

              Hansen and Yanosek

In the last year, conflicts between energy needs and water quality and supply have increased and caught national media attention. Some of the protests against the Keystone XL pipeline were based on fears about potential for contamination of water. Opposition to shale gas development also draws heavily on worries about water pollution. And 2011 saw power plant output threatened, not by fuel shortfalls, but by shortages of cooling water.

With the economic recession wreaking havoc on local budgets, high and rising public debt is making it far less plausible that government will be able to buy our way out of energy and water scarcity.

How can energy and water challenges be addressed in light of these new economic realities? On what institutions should we rely to make the essential trade-offs? Is new technology the answer, and, if so, what technology, and how should it be fostered?

Jim Nussle, President & COO of Growth Energy, former Director of Office of Management and Budget, and former Chairman of the House Budget Committee, gave a keynote luncheon address. This was followed by two panel discussions.

The first panel gave brief overviews of the main challenges posed by the energy water nexus. It featured resentations by Craig Zamuda, Senior Policy Advisor of U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Climate Change Policy and Technology; John Lyman, Director of the Atlantic Council's Energy and Environment Program; and W. David Montgomery, Senior Vice President of NERA Economic Consulting. Hudson Visiting Fellow Lee Lane moderated the panel.

A second panel critically assessed current proposed solutions. It featured Gary Libecap, the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jes Munk Hansen, President of Grundfos North America; Sheila Olmstead, Tenured Fellow, Resources for the Future; and Kassia Yanosek, Founding Principal, Tana Energy Capital LLC. Hudson President & CEO Kenneth Weinstein moderated the panel.

Powerpoint Presentations

Gary Libecap

David Montgomery

Sheila Olmstead

Kassia Yanosek

Craig Zamuda

Hudson Institute

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Washington, DC 20005