    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                            THE ENERGY WATER NEXUS:
                         DRIER WATTS AND CHEAPER DROPS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                             SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 MARCH 7, 2019

                                   __________

                                Serial No. 116-5

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

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                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                 HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
    ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma,
    DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois                Ranking Member
    SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon             MO BROOKS, Alabama
    AMI BERA, California,                BILL POSEY, Florida
        Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
    CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             BRIAN BABIN, Texas
    LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas               ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
    HALEY STEVENS, Michigan              ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
    KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma                NEAL DUNN, Florida
    MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
    BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
    JERRY McNERNEY, California           PETE OLSON, Texas
    ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
    PAUL TONKO, New York                 MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
    BILL FOSTER, Illinois                JIM BAIRD, Indiana
    DON BEYER, Virginia                  VACANCY
    CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               VACANCY
    SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
    KATIE HILL, California
    BEN McADAMS, Utah
    JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
                                     ------

                             Subcommittee on Energy

                    HON. CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania, Chairman
    DANIEL LIPINKSI, Illinois            RANDY WEBER, Texas, Ranking Member
    LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas               ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
    HALEY STEVENS, Michigan              NEAL DUNN, Florida
    KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma                RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
    JERRY McNERNEY, California           MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
    BILL FOSTER, Illinois
    SEAN CASTEN, Illinois

                             C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                                 March 7, 2019

                                                                       Page
    Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                               Opening Statements

    Statement by Representative Conor Lamb, Chairman, Subcommittee on
      Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
      of Representatives.............................................     6
        Written Statement............................................     8

    Statement by Representative Randy Weber, Ranking Member,
      Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and
      Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................    12
        Written Statement............................................    14

    Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
      Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................    16
        Written Statement............................................    17

    Statement by Representative Frank D. Lucas, Ranking Member,
      Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................    20
        Written Statement............................................    21

                                   Witnesses:

    Dr. Vincent Tidwell, Principle Member of the Technical Staff at
      Sandia National Laboratories
        Oral Statement...............................................    24
        Written Statement............................................    27

    Kate Zerrenner, Senior Manager at Environmental Defense Fund
        Oral Statement...............................................    32
        Written Statement............................................    34

    Dr. Richard Bonner, Vice President of Research and Development at
      Advanced Cooling Technologies
        Oral Statement...............................................    43
        Written Statement............................................    45

    Dr. Ramen P. Singh, Associate Dean for Engineering at OSU-Tulsa,
      and Professor and Head of the School of Materials Science and
      Engineering at Oklahoma State University
        Oral Statement...............................................    49
        Written Statement............................................    50

    Dr. Michael E. Webber, Chief Science and Technology Officer at
      ENGIE
        Oral Statement...............................................    54
        Written Statement............................................    57

    Discussion.......................................................    63

                            THE ENERGY WATER NEXUS:
                         DRIER WATTS AND CHEAPER DROPS

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019

                      House of Representatives,
                                Subcommittee on Energy,
                   Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                       Washington, D.C.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
    room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Conor Lamb
    [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. This hearing will come to order. Without
    objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
    time.
        Good morning. Welcome to today's hearing titled, ``The
    Energy Water Nexus: Drier Watts and Cheaper Drops.'' I'd like
    to thank our panel of witnesses for being here today. I'd also
    like to thank both Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas
    for introducing the Energy and Water Research Integration Act
    of 2019, which addresses the energy-water nexus issues that
    we'll be discussing today. I think it is tremendous that our
    Committee's leadership has started this year off with a major
    piece of legislation that is bipartisan, and I commend them for
    that.
        The connection between energy and water is indisputable. It
    takes a lot of water to produce energy and a lot of energy to
    produce clean water. Large-scale power plants mainly use water
    as a cooling source. I've seen this back home. We have a
    nuclear power plant and a coal-fired power plant right next to
    each other in my district that use a lot of water on the Ohio
    River. A substantial amount of this is used to produce other
    common fuel sources like oil and gas, which produces a lot of
    wastewater, also a significant issue in western Pennsylvania
    where I'm from where we have a lot of natural gas drilling
    taking place.
        The Energy and Water Research Integration Act of 2019 aims
    to decrease energy and water intensity when we use these
    resources by integrating water production use and treatment
    considerations throughout DOE's (Department of Energy's) R&D
    (research and development) programs. Reducing the water
    intensity of energy and the energy intensity of water
    production will help our environment and, most importantly, it
    should decrease the utility bills for our people back home.
        This is not a new field of research. Congress instructed
    DOE to create a program to address this back in 2005 with the
    Energy Policy Act, and in 2012 the Department created the
    Energy-Water Nexus Crosscut team. This created a plan for
    future work in research at DOE. They have held a series of
    roundtable discussions, including some with the witnesses who
    are here today, and we thank you for filling us in on those.
    Unfortunately, this team was disbanded at the beginning of this
    Administration.
        The Administration has recently launched an initiative that
    focuses on water production and announced two new funding
    opportunities for desalination, but these are only some
    components of I think the overall nexus that we need to be
    addressing.
        So restoring a focus to this connection we view as crucial.
    Global energy consumption and water demand will continue to go
    up and likely will for decades into the future. This is
    exacerbated by climate change, meaning it's going to get worse
    and more difficult to solve, which is why I think we need a
    whole-of-government and of course bipartisan approach on this.
        The relationship between energy and water we also know is
    very specific to particular regions. In the west when
    temperatures are high, water use for cooling power plants is
    much less efficient or not even available when there are severe
    droughts. Sea-level rise affects the water sources along the
    coast, increasing the need for energy-efficient water treatment
    capabilities. Weather can affect the demand for energy like
    extreme winter weather events experienced back home in my
    district where we have plenty of water but often have some very
    cold temperatures. This threatens both the energy and water
    infrastructure.
        So efficiency measures would help mitigate all of these
    problems, and that's where our discussion will focus today. We
    are going to look at the nexus between energy and water, but
    also talk about some solutions that are innovative. One of the
    witnesses we have here today, Dr. Richard Bonner, has led many
    projects related to water use and energy production at a small
    business in my home State of Pennsylvania, so I will use my
    prerogative to welcome you, Dr. Bonner, as a fellow
    Pennsylvanian. We're thrilled to have you here. His projects
    have been funded through various government programs such as
    ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy), which we
    view as a program that's vital to our energy research and
    development. We need more innovative projects like yours in
    this field, and we all look forward to your testimony.
        [The prepared statement of Chairman Lamb follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. And now the Chair recognizes my Republican
    colleague and friend, Mr. Weber, for an opening statement.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Today, we will hear from a panel of experts on the
    challenges in the U.S. energy-water nexus and discuss the
    Department of Energy's (DOE) role in enabling fundamental
    research and development in support of these critical
    resources.
        A sustainable supply of both energy and water is essential
    to the maintenance of U.S. economic health, environmental
    stability, and national security. Water is needed to produce
    energy, and energy is required to extract, treat, and transport
    water. This fundamental and tightly intertwined relationship is
    often referred to as the energy-water nexus. We see the energy-
    water nexus at work in the production of fossil fuels and
    biofuels, and in the functioning of thermoelectric power plants
    across our great country.
        Historically, energy and water systems in the United States
    have been planned and managed separately. Today, it is clear
    that no matter what the future cross-section of the U.S. energy
    market looks like or will look like, we will need to develop an
    integrated approach to these two systems. A number of Federal
    agencies have supported research and development efforts
    related to the energy-water nexus, including the Environmental
    Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of the Interior (DOI),
    and the Department of Energy (DOE).
        With its strong expertise in energy technologies and world-
    leading, I might add, fundamental science capabilities, DOE is
    uniquely suited to lead the national energy-water nexus
    conversation. The Department enables high level use-inspired
    basic research that supports our understanding of today's
    evolving energy-water nexus throughout its national laboratory
    system.
        At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (N-REL), DOE
    funds research into a wide portfolio of advanced technology
    solutions to today's energy-water nexus concerns, including
    desalination using renewable energy technologies and the
    reduction of water needs for solar technologies.
        At the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), DOE
    funds research in advanced cooling and water treatment
    technologies, nontraditional water use, and modeling tools to
    evaluate the impact of fossil energy development on both
    surface and subsurface water resources.
        And at Sandia National Laboratories--you all have heard of
    that, right? At Sandia National Laboratories researchers are
    focused on creating new water supplies using advanced
    technologies. Sandia also supports research that develops and
    provides decisionmaking tools to U.S. institutions that control
    the supply and demand of both water and energy.
        Recently, the Trump Administration has taken a number of
    steps to prioritize research in the energy-water nexus. In
    October 2018, Secretary Rick Perry announced the launch of a
    DOE-led Water Security Grand Challenge, which will incentivize
    the development of new technologies to address critical U.S.
    water security challenges.
        Then in December, DOE announced $100 million in funding for
    an Energy-Water Desalination Hub focused on early stage
    research and development. This hub will explore nontraditional
    water sources and provide desalination technologies that are
    both cost-competitive and energy-efficient.
        I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing today
    and the witnesses for providing their testimony, and I'm
    looking forward to learning more about this important research
    in our hearing today.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. And the Chair now recognizes
    Chairwoman Johnson for an opening statement.
        Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
    good morning and welcome to our witnesses.
        I'm delighted that we're holding this hearing--it's very
    timely--to bring attention to the interplay between water, one
    of our most valuable natural resources, and our energy systems.
    Our energy and water systems are intrinsically interconnected.
    Not only does energy play an important role in the extraction,
    treatment, and transportation of water, but water is also used
    in many stages and types of electricity generation.
        In my home State of Texas, we face a multitude of issues at
    the energy-water nexus, for example, large amounts of water are
    used during the process of fracking for oil and gas extraction.
    However, the needs of the large oil and gas industry can be at
    odds with the needs of the agricultural community, where
    farmers struggle to conserve water and energy to save costs,
    especially in the face of increasingly extreme droughts in the
    State. Of course, water is an important resource for energy and
    agriculture, but it's also critically important for the people.
        My own city of Dallas, which is inland, is the fastest-
    growing metropolitan area in the United States, which puts a
    strain on our already limited water resources in the State.
    Moreover, all of these issues are exacerbated by our rapidly
    changing climate. These days, we regularly withstand harsh
    droughts, extreme heat, hurricanes, and wildfires. This uptick
    is extreme--in extreme weather events is causing water, food,
    and energy insecurity, which only increases the urgency with
    which we must act.
        For these reasons, I have been working for many years in
    Congress to address this important issue through my work in
    developing the Energy and Water Resource Integration Act. This
    Congress, I reintroduced that bipartisan bill with my colleague
    and friend Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Lucas. It
    instructs the Department of Energy to incorporate the
    consideration of water use and treatment into all of its
    relevant research, development, and demonstration programs, and
    to establish additional coordination functions to ensure that
    we are giving this issue adequate attention and resources
    moving forward.
        I want to thank you, Mr. Lamb, for convening this panel.
    I'm very pleased to see the strong representation of witnesses,
    and especially from Texas today. I look forward to having a
    robust discussion and I--as I complete my statement, I will say
    that I do have to attend a Subcommittee on Water in the
    Transportation Committee, so I will dip out in a little bit.
        Thank you, and I yield back.
        [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
        And the Chair now recognizes Ranking Member Lucas for an
    opening statement.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairman Lamb, for holding this
    hearing today, and thank you to our witnesses for being here.
        There might not be two more important and interconnected
    pieces in our daily health and economic stability than water
    and energy. Water is used to produce energy, and energy is
    required to treat and distribute clean water. Both are
    essential, and both depend on the other.
        That is why this Congress I joined my colleague, Chairwoman
    Johnson, in introducing H.R. 34, the Energy and Water Research
    Integration Act, which will be the subject of today's hearing.
    This bill will improve our understanding of the relationship
    between water use and energy production while encouraging the
    development of innovative technologies that could improve
    efficiency and production in both sectors.
        It's important to remember that many of the issues
    surrounding the energy-water nexus are regional and so require
    consideration of local factors. For example, in Oklahoma
    agriculture is clearly a third part of the relationship. While
    agriculture is the single largest consumer of water, it is also
    a critical piece of the national economy and contributes
    indirectly to the energy sector through the production of
    biofuels.
        Additionally, oil and gas operations, especially horizontal
    drilling and hydraulic fracking, which are vital in the pursuit
    of cleaner energy markets, require large volumes of water and
    can also produce water. While this presents localized water
    treatment challenges, it also leads to opportunities for
    beneficial reuse of water through fluid lifecycle management.
        Today, Raman Singh will provide--Doctor I should say--Raman
    Singh will provide a valuable perspective from the research
    community on ways to improve water management and energy
    efficiency by developing carbon- and water-neutral fossil
    energy technologies. I look forward to hearing how his
    collaborative multi-university effort, led by Oklahoma State,
    can conduct transformative research while working with industry
    to safely implement new approaches to the field. This research
    can also complement the work being conducted at our national
    labs.
        I'm pleased to see DOE pursuing work in this area, both
    through the multi-agency Water Security Grand Challenge and the
    recently announced DOE Energy-Water Desalination Hub. By
    focusing on early stage R&D, this hub will work to develop
    novel filtration membranes that can transform brackish or
    produced water into water communities can reuse. Because of the
    complex relationship between energy and water systems, this
    challenge will require a multi-disciplinary approach.
    Interactions between chemists, engineers, geologists,
    legislators, and others will be required, along with
    collaboration between government, industry, and universities. I
    believe the legislation introduced by Chairwoman Johnson and
    myself can help to streamline and prioritize this work.
        I thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look
    forward to our discussion this morning. And with that, I yield
    back, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you, sir.
        If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
    statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
    point.
        Now, I'd like to introduce our witnesses. First, we have
    Dr. Vincent Tidwell, who is a Distinguished Member of the
    Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Tidwell
    has more than 20 years of experience conducting and managing
    research on basic and applied projects in water resource
    management, nuclear and hazardous waste storage and
    remediation, and collaborative modeling. Currently, he is
    leading several studies that address issues concerning the
    energy-water nexus, including support for long-term
    transmission planning in the western and Texas
    interconnections, climate impacts on energy-water relations,
    and international energy-water pinch points. Dr. Tidwell was a
    lead author for the Land, Water, Energy cross-sectoral chapter
    of the 2014 National Climate Assessment.
        Ms. Kate Zerrenner--did I get that right?
        Ms. Zerrenner. Close enough.
        Chairman Lamb. Close enough. I'm sorry about that. Is a
    Senior Manager at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Ms.
    Zerrenner leads EDF's Texas--can you just say it so that I make
    sure I get it right?
        Ms. Zerrenner. Zerrenner.
        Chairman Lamb. Zerrenner, thank you. Ms. Zerrenner leads
    EDF's Texas and national energy-water nexus efforts and
    develops and implements strategies to promote energy and water
    efficiency in Texas. Her work aims to address financial,
    regulatory, and behavioral barriers to advancing clean energy
    options that reduce climate change impacts, water intensity,
    and air pollution.
        Prior to joining EDF, Ms. Zerrenner worked at the U.S.
    Government Accountability Office analyzing U.S. action on
    climate change and the voluntary carbon offset market, SAIC, on
    climate change projects for the U.S. Department of Energy and
    the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.
    Department of Energy.
        Dr. Richard Bonner is the Vice President of Research and
    Development of Advanced Cooling Technologies. Dr. Bonner has
    led research programs involving the thermal and fluid sciences,
    including several programs related to the energy-water nexus.
    He has published more than 45 papers, one patent, and four
    patent applications. Dr. Bonner has also led advanced thermal
    projects development programs from concept to production for
    over 125 customers covering a wide range of commercial
    industries.
        We also have Dr. Michael Webber, who's based in Paris,
    France, where he serves as the Chief Science and Technology
    Officer at ENGIE, a global energy and infrastructure services
    company. Dr. Webber is also the Josey Centennial Professor in
    energy resources and Professor of mechanical engineering at,
    you guessed it, the University of Texas at Austin. There's a
    heavy Texas imprint on our hearing today. Mr. Ranking Member,
    if I didn't know any better, I would suspect a conspiracy was
    afoot. But we do have a Pennsylvanian on the panel, so I know
    we're safe.
        Mr. Weber. Yes, but he spells his name wrong.
        Chairman Lamb. Dr. Webber is the author of Thirst for
    Power: Energy, Water, and Human Survival published in 2016.
    We're guessing he picked up the second B somewhere in Paris
    probably, and then that switch to Texas is where it falls off.
        The Chair now recognizes Ranking Member Lucas for the
    introduction of our final witness.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairman.
        It is with great pleasure I introduce one of my
    constituents as our witness today, Dr. Raman Singh. He holds a
    number of academic positions, including Associate Dean of
    Engineering at Oklahoma State-Tulsa; Head of the School of
    Materials Science and Engineering at the College of
    Engineering, Architecture, and Technology at Oklahoma State
    University (OSU); and the Director of the Helmerich Advanced
    Technology Research Center at OSU-Tulsa campus.
        His research has been funded by the National Science
    Foundation, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
    Administration), the Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science
    and Technology, the Oklahoma Transportation Commission, the
    U.S. Army Research Office, the Department of Energy, and
    industry. And prior to joining OSU, Dr. Singh was a
    postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology,
    a faculty member of the State University of New York at Stony
    Brook. Dr. Singh holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical
    engineering and applied mechanics, both from the University of
    Rhode Island, and a bachelor of technology degree in mechanical
    engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.
        Thank you, Dr. Singh, for both being at Oklahoma State and
    being here with us today. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Ranking Member.
        As our witnesses should know, you will each have 5 minutes
    for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be
    included in the record for the hearing. When you all have
    completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions.
    Each Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel.
        We will start with Dr. Tidwell.

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. VINCENT TIDWELL,

              DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE TECHNICAL STAFF,

                      SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES

        Dr. Tidwell. Chairman Lamb, Ranking Member Weber, and
    distinguished Members of the Committee, I thank you for this
    opportunity to testify here before you this morning on this
    critical issue of energy and water nexus. Again, my name's
    Vincent Tidwell, and I'm with Sandia National Laboratories.
        I want to start on a personal note as I had the opportunity
    to view the energy-water nexus firsthand. This past week while
    I was on vacation I traveled from Albuquerque, New Mexico to
    Park city, Utah. And on this trip I crossed the San Juan, the
    Colorado, and the Green Rivers, along with the Rio Grande. I
    also passed numerous power plants, hydropower dams, oil and gas
    plays and coal mines. The relation between these important
    resources was evident. Equally evident was the critical role
    these resources play in the economy, livelihood, culture, and
    environment of the communities that they serve. These resources
    are our heritage, so thank you for your concern and interest in
    securing these resources for generations to come.
        There are three points I'd like to make this morning. First
    is a challenge. Energy-water nexus is expressed in varied ways
    that often depend on location. Second is an opportunity. We can
    manage the nexus through integrated planning involving
    coordinated action between water and energy managers. My third
    point again highlights an opportunity, in this case, to harness
    the deep expertise of our national laboratories, academia,
    industry, and other Federal agencies to develop advanced water
    treatment technologies to make new sources of water available
    at competitive costs.
        To my first point, place really matters when it comes to
    the energy-water nexus. For example, in the west we've had
    difficulty in siting new power plants due to limited water
    supply. While in the east, we have had problems in times of
    drought with existing power plants having to operate
    differently due not to limited water supply but because of
    elevated water temperatures. Drought affects hydropower
    everywhere, but it's a particular issue in the northwest where
    hydropower counts for over 60 percent of all generation
    capacity.
        On the other end of the spectrum we see penetration of wind
    in the plains States and solar in the southwest, which has
    drastically changed and reduced our energy-water burden in
    these regions. This variation simply reflects the geographic
    differences in our energy, water, and climate systems,
    underscoring the need for deep understanding of these linkages
    with broad nationwide participation.
        To my second point, integrated planning provides an
    important platform for managing the nexus. As a personal
    example, I've led a team of researchers, including my colleague
    Dr. Webber to bring State water managers together with energy
    managers from the Nation's three interconnections to help
    integrate water into their long-term transmission planning,
    specifically identifying where water might limit the siting of
    new thermoelectric power generation or where drought might
    impact the operations of existing power plants or hydropower
    assets.
        Beyond integrated resource planning, though, we need to
    integrate waste stream management. Significant quantities of
    water and energy are required to manage waste, including
    emissions scrubbers, carbon capture systems, and produced water
    management. But we don't have to consider these as waste as new
    technologies are emerging to extract value from these streams
    such as latent heat, biogas, potable water, and commercial
    chemicals.
        My final point again addresses an opportunity, that of
    advanced water treatment technology. In 1961 President Kennedy
    said if ``we could ever competitively at a cheap rate get fresh
    water from salt water, it would be in the long-range interest
    of humanity, which would really dwarf any other scientific
    accomplishment.'' Today, there are over 18,000 desalination
    plants and operations around the world, but desalination is
    still not cheap. Why? The source waters are highly variable.
    We're also having to deal with other contaminants beyond salt,
    as we find in our municipal industrial wastewaters, produced
    water, and agricultural return flows. There's also the
    confounding issue of concentrate management. That is, what do
    we do with the salts when we separate them?
        Toward this need, the DOE has issued a call for an energy-
    water desalination hub, which will invest in early stage R&D.
    This provides an unprecedented opportunity to coordinate
    expertise across Federal, academic, and industrial research
    complexes to develop new materials and new processes that will
    fundamentally change the way we treat water in the future.
        In conclusion, the energy-water nexus is a complex and
    nuanced issue. While we are making progress, more work is
    needed. And I want to stress that we have the opportunity to do
    more than simply avoid future problems but rather we can
    radically change the way our energy systems depend on fresh
    water while creating new sources of water at competitive
    prices.
        Thank you for convening this hearing, and I look forward to
    your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Tidwell follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Dr. Tidwell. Ms. Zerrenner?

                      TESTIMONY OF KATE ZERRENNER,

               SENIOR MANAGER, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND

        Ms. Zerrenner. Thank you. Chairman Lamb, Ranking Member
    Weber, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here
    today.
        Again, my name is Kate Zerrenner. I'm a Senior Manager of
    Energy-Water Nexus Initiatives at Environmental Defense Fund,
    Texas office.
        Our energy choices matter, so coal, natural gas, and
    nuclear all use vast amounts of water. Solar PV, wind use
    negligible amounts, energy efficiency uses none, and that
    matters because about 85 percent of our current energy
    resources come from nuclear and fossil fuel, and that requires
    about 133 billion gallons of water per day or about 41 percent
    of total U.S. freshwater withdrawals.
        And the energy-water nexus is a cascading problem. And with
    extreme weather energy-water nexus can quickly turn into
    energy-water collisions. With climate change, this is
    intensifying the extremes in our weather. For example, in a
    drought, waters for cooling is more limited, reducing the power
    needed to move water, air conditioning spikes during hot and
    dry days increasing the demand for power, which increases
    demand for diminishing the water supply to cool that power
    system. And this matters because of resilience.
        So when we're looking at States like mine like Texas, we
    suffered a multiyear drought from 2010 to 2015, which was only
    ended by catastrophic flooding that we endured for 3 years,
    culminating in Hurricane Harvey. So building resilient systems
    matters. It matters to make sure that, as we see these drought
    and flood cycles, which we're used to in Texas but they're
    getting more extreme. So like an athlete on steroids, climate
    change may not necessarily be causing these extreme weather
    events, but they are enhancing their performance.
        So some of the ways we've addressed this in Texas is we're
    looking at some specific solutions. Two legislative sessions
    ago--you may remember this, Ranking Member--we passed a bill
    requiring the State to look at using solar and wind to
    desalinate brackish groundwater on State-owned lands. The study
    was finished and done by the Webber Energy Group and found
    nearly 200 cost-effective sites on State-owned lands, which is
    significant because about 98 percent of the State of Texas is
    privately owned, so 194 cost-effective sites for using solar
    and wind to desalinate brackish groundwater.
        We've also--EDF has partnered with the Pecan Street
    Project, which is a nonprofit that looks at energy and water
    from the smart technology perspective, and we looked at the
    end-user results of what the energy intensity of our water
    systems and the water intensity of our energy systems in the
    home are. A lot of people aren't aware of the amount of water
    they're using when they turn their clothes dryer on, for
    example. And one of the things we found is that in homes with
    solar panels, for example, the water footprint of those homes
    decreased by nearly 80 percent with solar panels on their
    homes. So there is a significant impact on our water in terms
    of how we use our energy and vice versa.
        The key to all of this is data. That Pecan Street Project
    was the first of its kind to do very granular data collection
    so that we actually know what we're looking for. We know what
    we're trying to address. EDF partnered with the Texas Army
    National Guard to model and map 60 of its 90-plus installations
    across the 10 climate zones of Texas. And what we did is we
    took the climate data in a water scarcity solar potential, wind
    potential, energy efficiency potential, geothermal potential,
    and electricity prices and overlaid all of these things
    together so we could give the Texas Army National Guard the
    data they needed to invest smartly into what made the most
    sense in terms of the water scarcity, the solar potential. For
    example, El Paso came out on top with water scarcity and solar
    potential, so they can then take that to the appropriators and
    say we need to invest in solar in our installations in El Paso,
    and then they can use money that would otherwise be spent on
    electricity bills to be spent on things like training and
    equipment. So there are real-world implications for the choices
    we make in terms of our water and our energy choices.
        The Federal Government has a fantastic role to play here.
    Data collection, standards, streamlined reporting, all of those
    things can be done with--H.R. 34 helps to lay that groundwork.
        In 2011 Chairwoman Johnson requested GAO (Government
    Accountability Office) to do a report on the energy-water
    nexus. I would say an updated report of that nature would be
    warranted. It has been 8 years. A comprehensive review of both
    Federal programs and funding streams throughout the Federal
    Government could help increase the coordination across the
    Federal agencies that work on energy-water nexus issues.
        And with that I close, and I look forward to any questions.
    Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Zerrenner follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. Dr. Bonner?

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. RICHARD BONNER,

               VICE PRESIDENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT,

                   ADVANCED COOLING TECHNOLOGIES INC.

        Dr. Bonner. I would first like to thank the Committee and
    its leadership for the opportunity to testify on the energy-
    water nexus.
        I've worked at Advanced Cooling Technologies, a small
    business located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for over 13 years.
    The company started in 2003 and has grown to 130 employees. The
    company was predominantly funded through the government-
    sponsored research programs in its early days. Today, it still
    relies on government funding for many of its new technology-
    development initiatives. I currently serve as the Vice
    President of R&D at Advanced Cooling Technologies.
        I've closely led several research programs related to the
    energy-water nexus while serving as a principal investigator.
    In the ARPA-E ARID (Advanced Research in Dry cooling) program,
    I led the development of a technology that could effectively
    cool power plants using air instead of water. Our technology is
    analogous to a DVR but for heat. We demonstrated that you can
    store cold energy at night and later cool the power plant
    during the day when the ambient temperature is warm and the
    electricity demand from the grid is the greatest.
        Through the Department of Energy's Small Business
    Innovative Research program, we've developed non-wetting
    coatings and surface structures to improve condensation to more
    effectively remove heat from the steam circulating through
    power plant steam turbines.
        In another effort funded through the Department of Energy's
    Fossil Energy Crosscutting Research program, we are developing
    longer-life non-wetting coatings that are capable of being
    replenished to maintain their cooling effectiveness for
    decades.
        Researchers in our R&D group are looking to solve other key
    water issues as well. Through the Department of Energy's Small
    Business Innovative Research program, we're looking at new ways
    to desalinate water. Through another Department of Energy-
    funded program, we are developing new ways to collect sunlight
    to use the energy to directly drive the desalination of brine.
        Finally, for the U.S. Department of Agriculture we're
    looking at ways to desalinate brackish water and use the water
    to directly feed the roots of plants by using a system of
    underground plumbing. This innovation may make it possible for
    the agricultural industry to tap into the vast amounts of
    brackish water available, which will free up freshwater
    supplies for other critical applications.
        Recently, I was invited by the Arizona Public Service
    Company to tour the Palo Verde generating station. Palo Verde
    is the Nation's largest net power generating station. The
    nuclear power plant is located in the desert regions of
    Arizona, not near any bodies of water, which makes it unique.
    Their current water solution is quite interesting. The power
    plant water is completely supplied by treated sewage that is
    purchased from several local large municipalities. However, the
    demands on this water supply are causing the municipalities to
    increase the price of this precious water supply, which will
    ultimately lead to an increase in the cost of power for the
    region. I met with their senior engineering team to present
    some of the water reduction and cooling solutions that we have
    developed, and we hope to begin working with them in the next
    few months.
        Without the substantial funding and experience gained
    through the numerous government-sponsored research programs
    that I mentioned, we would not be talking with the Arizona
    Public Service Company to solve their water and cooling
    problems. The government-sponsored funds are critical to small
    businesses such as ours so we can take our ideas and mature
    them to the levels demanded by the marketplace.
        Finally, I would like to discuss some recommendations to
    the Committee about some legislative features that would help
    industry better solve the energy-water nexus problem. I want to
    first remind and impress upon the Committee with--the scale
    with which power plants operate. It is simply massive. Further,
    power plants are not built every day. As a matter of fact,
    they're not built often at all in the United States anymore.
    This makes the often-mentioned R&D valley of death that much
    more deadly for companies, universities, and national labs as
    they try to commercialize their research in this area.
        So how do you go from the bench top in a lab to power
    plant-sized systems, and how can the government help? I suggest
    that any legislation in this area should aim to address these
    questions by allowing some portion of the funding through
    scale-up and subscale demonstrations perhaps as a follow-on for
    successful programs. I have seen this follow-on type of program
    work very well in the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research)
    programs. I could see something similar for some of your other
    funded efforts.
        I also want to discuss the cost-share requirements that
    have been common for many of the Department of Energy-funded
    programs as of late. Given the difficulties of scaling up and
    the large follow-on investment that is required by companies to
    reach utility scales, the R&D cost-share requirements seem to
    unnecessarily hinder industry's flexibility to use financial
    resources where they are needed most. I recommend that the cost
    share be eliminated or at the very least changed to allow the
    companies to get their cost-share credit through non-R&D-based
    investments. These alternative investments could include
    capital spending on related production equipment, intellectual
    property protection, or perhaps sales and marketing.
        It has been my privilege to testify in front of you today.
    Thank you again for the opportunity. I look forward to
    answering any of your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Bonner follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. Dr. Singh?

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. RAMAN P. SINGH,

            ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR ENGINEERING AT OSU-TULSA AND

           PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF SCHOOL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE

               AND ENGINEERING, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

        Dr. Singh. Good morning. It's my honor and privilege to be
    here. I'm the Head of the School of Materials Science and
    Engineering at Oklahoma State University, and I also direct the
    Helmerich Research Center. I do have to apologize. I'm not a
    native Oklahoman, but in my own defense, I got to Oklahoma as
    soon as I could, and I've managed to raise two daughters in
    Tulsa. And they will both end up going to college in Oklahoma
    right now.
        I'm leading and building a consortium of multiple
    universities led by Oklahoma State involving Caltech, the
    University of Utah, Northeastern State University, and the
    University of Tulsa, along with several industry partners and
    Sandia to look at the safety and sustainability of fossil fuel
    production and consumption. And it is with regards to that that
    I'm going to talk about the produced water and the water issue
    today, which is only one aspect of what we are looking for in
    our consortium.
        My perspective is that the prosperity of any nation,
    prosperity of our Nation ultimately depends on our ability to
    safely and sustainably produce and consume energy. And the bulk
    of our energy today, even though you don't realize it, comes
    from fossil fuels. There will be a future where we will
    displace these fossil fuels with renewables, but there has to
    be a bridge. And the way we see technology today, this bridge
    primarily comes from natural gas produced through hydraulic
    fracturing. It's a significant resource that we have. It's the
    cleanest-burning fossil fuel with the least impact on
    greenhouse gas production.
        But this is where water comes in because you require water
    to essentially break rock in terms of hydraulic fracturing. You
    require large amounts of water, and more often than not, this
    water is fresh water. And then the process itself produces
    water, which is known as produced water, which is stuff that
    comes out of the ground along with the production of shale oil
    and shale gas. And it is highly contaminated. It carries a lot
    of salt, and by itself, dealing with produced water has led to
    other engineering challenges by itself.
        There are three areas of technology that I want to focus
    on. The first one is the hydraulic fracturing process itself. I
    think there are significant opportunities in trying to minimize
    the amount of fresh water that's used in this process and at
    the same time increasing the efficiency in which we are able to
    recover materials.
        Right now, the recovery rates are typically 10 to 20
    percent, so we--and this is where all the projections are made,
    so we are recovering only about 1/10 of what is possible in
    terms of shale oil and shale gas. There is some research that
    has gone on. The way I look at it is water is not the only way
    to break rock. It's a good way and it's a simple way, but there
    are other ways which involve combination of rocks, and this is
    a research area that I have been focused on.
        The other aspect is what do you do with the produced water
    that comes out? Now, electrical or solar desalination of
    produced water is expensive. It's very highly energy-dense. But
    the idea that we're looking at is that we want to try and get
    it clean enough to drink. We don't have to get it clean enough
    to drink. We have to get it clean enough so that we can use it
    for something else and look upon it as a resource rather than a
    waste that needs to be disposed.
        There are a lot of membrane filtration technologies based
    on ceramic nonporous membranes that are being pursued. This is
    some work that we're doing at Oklahoma State. And the idea is
    that you get it to the point where the number of total
    dissolved solids--that's how you track how contaminated the
    water is--is down to a point where you could perhaps use it for
    industrial processes, you could use it for agriculture or
    rangelands without trying to get it clean enough to drink.
        And the other resource that is fairly interesting from the
    perspective of produced water is being able to extract
    chemicals from it. I'll give you an example. Lithium, the
    demand for lithium has been growing tremendously. It will
    continue to grow as we move more toward an electrical-based
    economy simply because of battery storage requirements. We
    import all of our lithium today. If we were to be able to
    extract 50 percent of the lithium that comes out in produced
    water, we would become a net exporter of lithium without
    introducing any other mining operations as far as lithium is
    concerned. And that's just one example of what can be pulled
    out.
        Unfortunately, the problem is very complex. I mean, I'm an
    engineer. I like to think like an engineer. I like to believe
    that all problems of the last 100 years have been caused by
    engineers and all solutions came by engineers, too, right, so--
    but a problem this requires, you know, a nexus between
    engineers, legislators, regulators, industry, academia, and so
    forth, and that's where I think this Committee can play a
    tremendous role in terms of setting the tone in the direction
    we need to go forward. So it's been an honor and a privilege
    for me to be here, and I would be welcome in taking any
    questions. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Singh follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Dr. Singh. I'm glad you said that
    because the next time I go home and someone tells me that the
    politicians in Washington are screwing everything up in this
    country, I'm going to say, no, I have it on very good authority
    it's the engineers.
        So, Dr. Webber, go ahead.

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. MICHAEL WEBBER,

             CHIEF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AT ENGIE,

                       AND PROFESSOR AT UT AUSTIN

        Dr. Webber. Thank you very much. Chairman Lamb and Ranking
    Member Weber, I appreciate the opportunity to submit testimony
    today. As you've heard, the energy-water nexus presents unique
    challenges and invites crosscutting solutions. Because the
    energy system depends so extensively on water and the water
    system depends so extensively on energy, they are both
    vulnerable to cascading failures from one sector to another.
    For example, a water constraint can become an energy
    constraint, and an energy constraint can become a water
    constraint. If water is not available at the right place and
    time with the right quantity and quality, then the power sector
    might struggle to generate and deliver electricity. And if
    energy is not available because of blackouts, then the water
    sector struggles to treat and deliver water. That means the
    energy-water nexus is a resilience challenge for planners.
    Thankfully, it also invites crosscutting solutions, especially
    for conservation and efficiency, namely in saving water saves
    energy and saving energy saves water, which avoids
    environmental impact and improves resilience.
        For my remarks I will focus on two aspects: The energy use
    for the water system and specific challenges related to
    managing wastewater from oil and gas production, building on
    Dr. Singh's comments.
        The combined water and wastewater system is a hallmark of a
    modern society, and because the economic and public health
    benefits are so extensive, they are the most important public
    investments a society can make. These water and wastewater
    systems also require vast sums of energy for pumps, blowers,
    chemicals, and mechanical equipment. We use more energy in our
    buildings to heat water, and industry uses even more energy to
    treat that water further, for example, to make ultra-pure water
    for semiconductor fabrication or to make steam for use in
    refineries. All told, about 13 percent of national energy
    consumption is for direct water and steam services. About 1/3
    of that or about 4 percent of national energy consumption is
    just to heat water in our homes and businesses. That is about
    twice the amount of energy that Sweden uses to run their entire
    country. So we use a lot of energy just in heating the water.
        As a result, water heating represents an opportunity for
    saving energy and avoiding emissions. In most parts of the
    United States, shifting from electric heating toward natural
    gas heating or solar water heating reduces energy use and
    CO2 emissions. And if we clean the grid up similar
    to what we have in the Pacific Northwest that's mostly hydro,
    then electric water heating would be an excellent option as
    well.
        Incentives and information guides to encourage adoption of
    more efficient appliances that use heated water like
    dishwashers and clothes washers will continue to provide
    nontrivial savings. According to one study, the average U.S.
    household could save hundreds of dollars on their electricity
    and water bills by making those appliance upgrades with the
    types of upgrades that pay for themselves, meaning they save
    money in addition to reducing consumption. In addition, wisely
    managing the end uses of water and energy would improve the
    resilience and efficiency of military installations, which
    makes this a national security issue also.
        The water sector's energy needs can also be used to
    integrate higher fractions of renewables into the power sector.
    Water treatment, wastewater treatment, and modern desalination
    plants that use reverse osmosis are particularly electricity-
    dependent. They can be ramped up and down and operate flexibly,
    which makes them a good companion for variable resources like
    wind and solar. Furthermore, it is much easier and cheaper to
    store water than to store electricity. For example, you can use
    simple water tanks to store water instead of expensive
    batteries. And that means integrating renewables with the water
    sector can help make the electricity sector more resilient
    while providing valuable grid services and speeding the
    adoption of clean forms of power.
        Another issue, as you heard, is the amount of wastewater
    produced alongside oil and gas extraction. Unfortunately, water
    and wastewater are often moved by trucks, which are less
    efficient, dirtier, and more destructive to communities and
    more destructive to roads than pipelines. Building a pipeline-
    based wastewater collection system would improve the safety and
    impose much less environmental risk compared with truck-based
    movement. Such a system would also reduce the cost for oil and
    gas production, helping propagate the ongoing boom in places
    like west Texas. A water pipeline network would also enable
    specialized capabilities with economies of scale for treating
    this very dirty water, which would open up the case for water
    recycling and reuse while avoiding disposal by underground
    injection.
        The Federal Government can help. Uncertainty about gaining
    right-of-ways on Federal lands make it harder for developers to
    build these wastewater collection networks, which inhibits the
    construction of treatment and recycling systems, leaving
    underground disposal as a primary wastewater management option
    and putting pressure on aquifers. Facilitating pipeline
    construction would help accelerate the adoption of better
    management pathways.
        In addition, policy stability and certainty is important
    for developers making decisions to invest in long-lived assets.
    Policy shifts from year to year and government shutdowns
    increase those costs and delay the projects that have
    environmental benefit.
        A couple closing comments is that in addition to
    facilitating the development of water collection networks, the
    Federal Government has other actions it can take. Encouraging
    the Department of Energy to have water in mind for its programs
    is a good place to start. And encouraging water planners to
    keep energy in mind is also important. In addition, data
    collection and sharing programs can make a big difference. Data
    on urban water use is particularly scarce in comparison with
    our energy data, which makes it harder to manage usage or
    improve resilience. The EIA (Energy Information Administration)
    dataset set the gold standard for energy data, and we need
    something similar for water, perhaps by creating the agency
    with that task or by expanding the EIA's mandate to include
    tracking of water demand and supply.
        And last, one of the most important policy levers for the
    Federal Government is to sponsor R&D. Incremental improvements
    will not solve these challenges quickly enough, so there's a
    need to scale up the effort. The U.S. innovation system is the
    best in the world, so it makes sense to leverage those
    strengths to our advantage.
        Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts. I'd be
    happy to answer any questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Webber follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. We will now begin our round of
    questions, and the Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
        Dr. Tidwell, I wanted to ask you, many people have
    identified how water issues vary across the country, especially
    as climate change gets worse and worse and becomes more
    apparent. I can give you a local example. You know, I know
    you've talked about out west there's often droughts and water
    shortage. In western Pennsylvania where I live, the problem is
    often too much water. We're having very intense and more
    frequent rainstorms. We are a very hilly area. And
    interestingly, someone told me there's roughly 5,000 water
    systems in the United States, the continental United States for
    treatment and drinking water. About 1,000 of them exist in the
    10 counties of southwestern Pennsylvania. It's an interesting
    historical legacy. It makes it very hard to coordinate our
    efforts when it comes to water treatment.
        So I was curious if you could just give us a very brief
    insight on how we can help to encourage the regional
    cooperation as necessary in these different areas?
        Dr. Tidwell. Thank you, Chairman, for that question.
    Certainly, I think one of the low-hanging fruits that we have
    for this energy-water nexus is this very problem of integrated
    planning and bringing different groups together. Certainly, the
    opportunities that we face with these small systems, there are
    rural water industrial groups that help these systems and to
    provide them with the tools that they can then use and work
    with their local constituents I think would be one important
    place.
        Another important place as we go forward is going to be in
    the development of workforce skills as many of these smaller
    areas don't--are not able to employ folks with the necessary
    skills. And so going forward, we're going to need to develop a
    trained workforce as some of these more complex technologies
    come in place to treat water, to manage our water systems and
    our wastewater systems. So I think----
        Chairman Lamb. That's a fantastic point. Thank you very
    much.
        Dr. Webber, I wanted to ask you about the pipelines for
    hydraulic fracturing and wastewater, big issue in western
    Pennsylvania where we're doing a lot of hydraulic fracturing.
    I'm not familiar with pipelines being constructed near where we
    live for the actual wastewater. Most of it is being trucked
    out, and it does cause a lot of impact on the local
    communities. Are there areas where they have successfully built
    a pipeline network for this?
        Dr. Webber. This is a good point. Water and wastewater is
    primarily moved by trucks, and the trucks are a source of
    discontent with a lot of the communities because they change
    the rural lifestyle. They add a lot of noise, a lot of dust.
    They lead to traffic accidents and deaths and road impact.
    Pipelines generally are much more expensive to build but much
    safer and cheaper to operate once you have them built, and
    there are some nascent water and wastewater collection systems
    out in New Mexico and west Texas primarily, maybe a little bit
    in the Bakken shale in North Dakota as well.
        So there are some examples where you have concentrated
    production of oil and gas and you have a policymaking process
    where it's easier to build and the land is also flatter and
    easier to build on, say, than the Appalachian Mountains and
    other places. It's easier to build, and then that reduces the
    cost for sourcing the water, collecting the water, treating the
    wastewater, that kind of thing. So there are some examples.
        When I talk to oil and gas operators, I think they'd like
    to see more water and wastewater systems built because it would
    reduce cost and do less damage.
        Chairman Lamb. Do we have any policy levers at our disposal
    on the Federal level to try to encourage that, and in an area
    like mine that is topographically a little bit different than
    the southwest?
        Dr. Webber. I think the--a lot of these decisions are made
    at the local level or the State level, so often it's State-
    level policymakers, but there are some Federal levers at play
    whenever you're on Federal lands, for example. As you get
    further west, you get to BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands,
    for example, and then the Federal levers become much more
    important. Most of it's at State-level decisionmaking, but
    there's a role for the Federal Government to play in convening
    the State-level policymakers in sharing data and information
    that they can't collect themselves. So I think there is a role
    for the Federal Government, but it requires cooperation at the
    local and State level as well.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you very much. And last question very
    quickly, Dr. Singh, you mention alternatives to water for
    hydraulic fracturing. Just in sort of 10 seconds or less, are
    we close on any other fluids besides water or I guess non-fluid
    solutions?
        Mr. Weber. Turn your mic on, please.
        Dr. Singh. I think water will continue to be the major
    driving fluid, but the amount of water that's used can be cut
    down a lot. And plus some of the produced water can be recycled
    and used back at the source itself or--for that. Does that
    answer your question?
        Chairman Lamb. It does. Thank you very much.
        I now recognize Mr. Weber for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I'm going to give you something to read here about purple
    pipe. Very quickly, Dr. Tidwell, have you ever heard of purple
    pipe?
        Dr. Tidwell. Yes, sir, I have.
        Mr. Weber. Ms. Zerrenner, is that right?
        Ms. Zerrenner. Right.
        Mr. Weber. Right that it's right or right that you've heard
    about pipe?
        Ms. Zerrenner. Both.
        Mr. Weber. OK, good. Dr. Bonner?
        Dr. Bonner. I haven't heard about it.
        Mr. Weber. Dr. Singh?
        Dr. Singh. No, I haven't.
        Mr. Weber. Dr. Webber?
        Dr. Webber. Yes, and I've written extensively about it and
    done research on purple pipe.
        Mr. Weber. Really? OK. You know that it's a system that
    takes from the home or business--it's not necessarily
    wastewater from the toilet, for example, but it may be from the
    sink or dishes or whatever, and it treats it to the extent that
    it doesn't have to be drinkable but it could be used for
    irrigation and other things like that. And I thought perhaps
    that might be part of you all's focus today. But we'll go there
    later.
        Now, I am from Texas, as Dr. Webber knows, and I often say
    that any State worth its salt has a desalination plant. And
    some of you all will get that on the way home. And we have one
    in Texas. Back in my days in the Texas State Legislature, I had
    the opportunity to tour a large-scale desalination plant in
    Brownsville. Have any of you been to that plant? She has but
    you all haven't. Ladies are always leading the way. Have you
    all noticed that, gentlemen? It's OK to say yes. OK. I want to
    get you all softened up here.
        I've seen firsthand the amount of electricity required to
    convert brackish water to potable water. Dr. Singh and Dr.
    Tidwell, as you know, DOE recently announced $100 million in
    funding for an energy-water desalination hub that we talked
    about focused on early stage research and development to
    explore those uses for nontraditional water sources and to
    develop new desalination technologies. So a couple of questions
    for you, and I'll start with you, Dr. Tidwell. Will the
    research funded by this hub focus on reducing the energy
    necessary to be used in those current desalination plants? Your
    thoughts?
        Dr. Tidwell. Yes, sir, that's a good question. And, yes, I
    think there are opportunities to help with existing plants. One
    would be--one example would be with improved membrane
    technology that would help reduce fowling, so that would be one
    example where we----
        Mr. Weber. So the product--the output--the product would be
    cleaner, easier. But do you know what the number one energy
    driver is in a desal plant--or need is in a desal plant?
        Dr. Tidwell. It's the pressurization of the----
        Mr. Weber. It's the pumps.
        Dr. Tidwell. Pump----
        Mr. Weber. The pumps there in Brownsville--and I'm going
    back now 10 years. It must have been this big around----
        Dr. Tidwell. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Weber [continuing]. And the electricity required to
    drive those is really tremendous.
        Dr. Tidwell. Which is forcing the water through those
    membranes
        Mr. Weber. Correct.
        Dr. Tidwell [continuing]. So anything that can help improve
    that permeability----
        Mr. Weber. Right.
        Dr. Tidwell [continuing]. Is--would help reduce----
        Mr. Weber. Efficiency, get more water out a little cheaper.
        Dr. Tidwell. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Weber. Because they're bringing water. And I think it
    was a 12-inch pipe. Now I'm going from memory, you know, from
    the Gulf of Mexico into Brownsville, and the distance you have
    to bring requires of lot of electricity and a lot of pumps. Do
    you agree with that, Dr. Singh, that that focus will be on
    increasing the efficiency?
        Dr. Singh. Yes, I agree because conventional desalination
    requires--it's very energy-intensive.
        Mr. Weber. Yes.
        Dr. Singh. And the only reason you would do that is if you
    had no other source of potable water. There are technologies
    based on electrocoagulation, which can clean up what's going in
    before the membranes kick in. There are technologies using
    ceramic membranes, which can increase the efficiency, but that
    efficiency will need to go up.
        Mr. Weber. Right. And of course that's going to depend,
    let's face it, on the cost of electricity, right? And so I
    think we could all agree that the lower the price of natural
    gas is, the cheaper that energy companies can produce energy.
    That, in and of itself, will have a reduction in the cost of
    desalination. Would you all agree with that? Absolutely, you
    bet you. So fracking is a good thing. I'm glad we all agree on
    that.
        In your opinion, Dr. Tidwell, what impact could this hub
    have on your research? What would your role be?
        Dr. Tidwell. Most of my work is around modeling and
    analysis, and so importantly, understanding how climate change
    affects the resilience of our energy-water systems and
    integrating uncertainty in those changing climates, changing
    demands for water, changing technology, and how we can plan for
    a robust, resilient system going forward into the future.
        Mr. Weber. How about you, Dr. Singh? Your research--how
    would you correlate this--correspond--how would this impact
    you?
        Dr. Singh. Two areas of research, one would be increasing
    efficiency of basically breaking up rock to increase extraction
    efficiencies not only for fracking but also for geothermal
    systems. And the second aspect would be--which we haven't
    talked about today, would be releasing the mitigation due to
    induced seismicity or reinjection, so these are the two areas
    that would be affected the most.
        Mr. Weber. OK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Horn for 5
    minutes.
        Ms. Horn. Good morning. Thank you all for your testimony.
    And Dr. Singh, as a fellow Okie, it's good to see you here
    today.
        So I have a couple of lines of questioning, and I want to
    start with you because I think you brought up a couple of
    important points. As I'm sure it comes as no surprise to
    anyone, both water and energy are big issues in my home State,
    as well as that of the Ranking Member of the Full Committee. So
    I wanted to follow up on some of the points that you made about
    the need for interdisciplinary work because part of the
    challenge with fracking is--and the challenges that we've seen
    in Oklahoma with earthquakes and things like that comes from
    the wastewater reinjection more so than just the breaking up of
    the rock itself. So I wanted to see if in your research you had
    looked at the impact that that might have of taking the water
    in addition to taking it out and reusing it, the impact in
    other areas for energy production.
        Dr. Singh. I don't understand the other-areas part, but I
    can talk a little bit about the reinjection. Reinjection right
    now is not very well understood. I mean, the way--we have a
    traffic light system in which if they feel that there is
    something that's going to happen, reinjection stops. And this
    reinjection problem is not necessarily a problem that's limited
    to fracking. Induced seismicity also happens in geothermal
    fields--in some geothermal fields in Europe in technology--
    energy production technology that is quote/unquote ``much
    greener'' than fracking.
        So there is--there were initially some concerns in terms of
    how clean does the produced water need to be for it to be
    reused for fracking, but that concern is not because of
    reinjection. That concern is mainly from being able to control
    the chemistry to allow the fracking process to be more
    efficient.
        Ms. Horn. And if the technology continues to develop to
    take the wastewater from the fracking process to be more
    usable, potable even if it's not drinkable, what impact does
    that have on the amount of reinjection that would have to
    occur?
        Dr. Singh. So to give you some numbers, a fracking
    operation and the well in its lifetime will take about, you
    know, 2 to 8 million gallons of water. We produce about 60
    times produced water every day than that's used in the city of
    Washington, D.C. So some of that will go back as--for
    reinjection, but that's not the only solution. The other
    solution also has to be to look upon produced water as a
    resource to use it for other purposes. And in Oklahoma that,
    for example, could be agriculture or rangelands and not
    necessarily cleaning it up all the way for human consumption.
        Ms. Horn. Thank you. The second area--and I'm going to open
    this up because I think it may be best for Dr. Tidwell but if
    anyone else has thoughts on this, in Oklahoma, in addition to
    the municipal, State, and other Federal issues, we have 39
    tribes, federally recognized tribes in the State of Oklahoma,
    so this energy-water nexus also impacts issues surrounding
    tribal sovereignty and water usage and water rights. So I'm
    wondering if you could talk more about policy recommendations
    or areas that you see emerging with this Federal, State, local,
    tribal lands issue.
        Dr. Tidwell. Thank you, Congresswoman. I--this is a very
    important issue. I think at the end of the day, what it really
    boils down to is improved communication across all of these
    different entities. One of the important aspects of
    particularly the Indian water rights is that in many cases in
    the west they hold rights or their rights haven't been fully
    adjudicated, so they play a very important role in how future
    water might play out in many cases in the western United
    States. And so they are an important player that we need to
    bring to the table, as well as the States. The States
    ultimately have jurisdiction over their water.
        I might mention that DOE also has numerous programs for
    helping to support energy development on Native American land.
    So all of these particular activities need to be coordinated
    and, you know, integrated planning is a very important part of
    all that.
        Ms. Horn. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. And I recognize Ranking Member
    Lucas for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        As I mentioned in my opening statement, there's an
    abundance of natural gas resources in my district and in many
    parts of the great State of Oklahoma, as we discussed. But also
    as a farmer, I understand and appreciate the importance of the
    reliability of water, and I'm particularly interested in the
    research partnerships and results in these areas.
        So I turn to you, Dr. Singh. In your testimony, you
    expressed the same sentiment by saying, ``Meaningful
    interactions are needed across a variety of stakeholders,
    including universities, local governments, and industry.'' Can
    you give us some examples of that collaboration that you and/or
    Oklahoma State and industry stakeholders have been a part of
    that's generated beneficial results?
        Dr. Singh. I'll give you one small example, and this came
    about from our discussion with ONEOK. ONEOK transports a lot of
    natural gas that's produced. In the winter to transport this
    natural gas across pipelines, they have to add methanol to--as
    an antifreeze basically. Now, at the same plant they're flaring
    methane and burning it into--you know, burning it away. So one
    technology that came about--and this is research now that's
    being done and this actually involves partnership with a very
    eminent chemist at Caltech is to take the onsite methane,
    convert it into methanol, use that methanol instead of pumping
    methanol to the stations and then discarding it at the other
    end.
        The only reason this came about was because I was in
    discussion with the ONEOK researcher and talking about issues,
    and this is a very specific example, I understand, but I think
    in terms of my perspective at the Helmerich Research Center, a
    lot of this discussion has been driven by industrial advisory
    boards in identifying the problems that academia can solve.
        Mr. Lucas. So let's touch on that for just a moment, the
    industrial advisory boards. Your experiences with the
    interaction and--are there ways that perhaps we could help
    encourage that collaboration?
        Dr. Singh. Yes. I think for us especially as academia when
    we seek out, let's say, Federal or State-level funding, when
    that funding specifically mandates convergence type of research
    or the--you know, talking to various stakeholders in terms of
    the probability of getting funded, then that pushes, you know,
    multiple people to the table, and that has been helpful in our
    case.
        Mr. Lucas. I can't help but, Dr. Singh, touch for a moment
    on the topic of fracking and injection wells, which is a very
    sensitive subject in our great State of Oklahoma. In my home
    area typically the oil and gas products come out in the
    particular area I'm at, and it varies of course in the 10-, 12-
    , 13,000-foot range. And historically, fracking has gone on in
    my home area at least since the early 1970s, not as aggressive
    as the hydraulic fracking, the improved technology, but
    fracking's gone on. We've never had earthquakes or that sort of
    stuff. The injection well process that's come along in recent
    years where again typically in my area the material comes out
    at 12-, 13,000 feet, but it goes back into an injection well at
    5,000 feet or so. We seem to have a different kind of a
    lubricating zone there so to speak under the earth.
        Wouldn't you agree that the Oklahoma Corporation
    Commission, the entity with primary jurisdiction in our State,
    has been very aggressive in how they've responded to these
    issues about the seismic issues that have come from it, how
    they put limitations on certain areas and this, that, and the
    other?
        Dr. Singh. Yes, and I think a lot of that comes from a lack
    of scientific understanding as to exactly what goes on. I think
    it's a problem that can be managed. A similar analog would be
    to say all fossil fuels are bad and stop consuming them
    tomorrow, which means we would come to a standstill as a
    country, so----
        Mr. Lucas. Exactly. Therefore, it's fair to say that the
    Oklahoma Corporation Commission is trying to respond in a way
    until technology can catch up, until we can do the things we
    need to do to be able to address this process. Thank you,
    Doctor, for being here today.
        And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Lucas. Who's next?
        I recognize Mr. Casten for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Casten. Thank you, Mr. Lamb. Thank you to the panel.
    The--Dr. Webber, you had mentioned in your written testimony
    about creating sort of an Energy Information Administration for
    water. I'm an energy geek. I love EIA. I think it's a great
    idea. I should mention by way of background in my prior life, I
    ran a number of clean energy companies where we went into
    industrials, tightened up their energy envelope and, among
    other things, ended up running all of the energy and water
    assets at Kodak Park in Rochester, a 50-million-gallon-a-day
    water intake permit and it was kind of a cool job for the 12-
    year-old boy inside me.
        I mention that because energy metering is pretty robust
    because at every point in the energy system people pay for
    things. There are revenue meters. Buyers and sellers want
    accuracy. Water metering is terrible. The internal metering is
    shoddy. They're not calibrated very often. It doesn't--often
    doesn't exist. And it's basically a problem that the water's
    too cheap that it's not worth the time to meter. If we were to
    create a Water Information Administration, I'd like your sense,
    number one, of realistically how many meters do we need to put
    in? Because to my mind, it's a metering problem first. And,
    number two, as you look at water data, where are you skeptical
    given the meter gaps? Because in my experience you got to put
    plus or minus 20, 30 percent error bars on a lot of the water
    data you see.
        Dr. Webber. That's a great question, great context. I think
    the water metering world lags behind the energy metering world,
    and the water data world lags behind the energy data world.
    Energy typically is more expensive. It's also more central to
    other economic and national security aspects. But, frankly, if
    we go back 50 years, the energy data was pretty bad, too. It
    wasn't until the 1970s and the energy crises that we created
    the EIA to start tracking it more closely because there was a
    sense of urgency and importance to it. And then once we started
    tracking data with more fidelity in place in times, we tracked
    it daily, weekly, with prices, total consumption by fuel and by
    location, by industry and sector, then we could spot
    opportunities for efficiency and savings. When we get to that
    level of data I think for water we can spot other
    opportunities, but when water's too cheap or we don't feel a
    sense of urgency, it's hard to do that.
        I think in the specifics of the question of metering, we
    have about 100 million households. We probably need a smart
    water meter for every household, so maybe 100 million smart
    water meters. Plus we need them throughout the distribution
    networks because 10 to 40 percent of treated municipal water is
    lost from when it leaves the plant to arrives at the home,
    which means we also need meters throughout these distribution
    networks to track those losses so we can get repairs done
    quickly and avoid all that lost water and all the energy
    embedded in it.
        So there's a lot of opportunity for data, data platforms,
    smarter meters, better meters. Right now, the meters are not
    very smart or they're read by hand or they have these errors or
    they're not metered at all in some cities in the United States,
    so this is a big opportunity, and the EIA lays the blueprint
    for how to do it if you had a WIA (Water Information
    Administration), for example.
        Mr. Casten. Related--and anyone on the panel who's got a
    thought on this--you've layered on top of that that we have
    fairly good--subject to everything we just said, fairly good
    data for surface water, and some reasonable concern about
    falling snow melt I think on a per-decade basis, where since
    1967, we're losing about 11 percent of our snowpack every
    year--up every decade rather. The data on groundwater is a lot
    worse and, you know, there's been places in northern California
    I'm aware of where the water coming out of aquifers is now
    exceeding the salinity levels that they can land apply, which,
    I mean, this is Beyond Thunderdome kind of territory. How
    confident are you that we have good data on the water--the sort
    of the prehistoric water if you will? And what should we be
    doing as a government to make sure we have a good handle on
    that?
        Dr. Webber. Yes, the fossil water some people call it. So
    we have much better view of the surface water. We can see, we
    can measure it. The below-groundwater we don't see as well. We
    don't have great metering systems in most places, so we wait
    until the well goes dry or the well goes salty, and we know
    there's a problem. And NASA is a big partner for this because
    they can measure water content of aquifers from space more
    readily than we can from the ground ironically, so there's
    partnerships with the national labs and NASA and the agencies.
        I think ramping up on just a water tracking system would be
    useful because then everyone can make decisions and planners
    can make better informed decisions about where to put their
    capital based on where the water problems are.
        Mr. Casten. OK. And last question with the little bit of
    time we've got left for Ms. Zerrenner if I'm saying your name
    right there. You had mentioned how much water the--you know,
    the nuclear and fossil fuel industry uses, and I used to tell
    people all the time if you want to understand the problems with
    our energy system, draw a power plant. And everybody draws a
    cooling tower. However, that's really specific to the open-loop
    systems. Do you have any estimate of how much of our fossil
    nuclear sector is closed-loop and what we might be able to do
    to encourage more closed-loop water systems on the fossil side?
        Ms. Zerrenner. Yes, I--Michael may know the exact numbers.
    I don't know the exact numbers, but we're seeing more and more
    movement in that direction. So it's a--we see an average of the
    amount used by coal and nuclear and natural gas because of the
    differences and the different types of cooling. You have also--
    besides closed-loop and open-loop you also have dry cooling and
    wet cooling. And the dry cooling uses--so they use a lot more
    water--they use a lot less water, but they also are less
    efficient, so you have some tradeoffs there. So you're creating
    some issues around that. But really we want to see more energy
    efficiency, which uses no water. If we make our systems more
    efficient, they are also more resilient.
        We saw other issues like during Hurricane Harvey where the
    wind turbines continued to turn in the Gulf of Mexico but the
    grid was down, so they didn't have anything to connect to. So
    thinking in terms of microgrid systems and making those more
    efficient as well, there's--there are lots of moving pieces to
    this. I--but I don't have the exact number----
        Mr. Casten. OK.
        Ms. Zerrenner [continuing]. Of the system.
        Mr. Casten. Well, and I'm out of time, but just make a plug
    for cogeneration while we're out here because so much of that--
    that's what we did in Rochester, and the fact that George
    Eastman built a power plant in 1880 that's twice as efficient
    as the U.S. power grid today is a lesson I think we can all
    learn from.
        Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Lamb. I recognize Mr. Biggs for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I thank all the members of
    the panel for being here today.
        Dr. Bonner, I was interested in your paragraph in your
    written statement and then your testimony with regard to Palo
    Verde nuclear generating station in Tonopah, and you were just
    there recently?
        Dr. Bonner. Yes, it was in the last month, yes.
        Mr. Biggs. Yes, so you were there during the good weather
    time, so----
        Dr. Bonner. It was nice.
        Mr. Biggs [continuing]. Good for you. I hope you get out
    there in the summer and experience what real heat's about.
        So you mentioned in your statement that there's competing
    demand for the water, and we're talking effluent I assume?
        Dr. Bonner. Yes.
        Mr. Biggs. OK. And so I think I know what they are but
    maybe you want to elaborate on what some of those competing
    demands because Tonopah's--most people don't know this--where
    the Palo Verde generating station is is in a remote part of
    Maricopa County. Maricopa County has got--Arizona has got 7
    million people in it, and Maricopa County has 5 million people
    in Maricopa County. It's an odd State. We only have 15
    counties. And where you went is really remote. There's no water
    supply, as you mentioned. But what are the competing demands
    for effluent in basically an urban area that has 5 million
    people in it?
        Dr. Bonner. Right. I think part of the water is to go back
    to the town for its own purposes, but I think the copper
    industry also uses a lot of water as well in that area. And
    other industries, it's a very--it's a growing area. There's a
    lot of like retirement homes and stuff being put up there, too,
    people moving there, and that demand is just causing more needs
    on the water. And I think the--a lot of the contracts that were
    negotiated for that water when the plant was built were 30
    years ago. And I think the municipalities are under the
    impression that they gave it away too cheaply, especially now
    with how the local area is growing, and they're trying to get
    more out of it.
        Mr. Biggs. Yes. You didn't mention golf courses, but
    there's a lot of golf courses in the valley, so----
        Dr. Bonner. Yes, it's part of the retirement part----
        Mr. Biggs. Yes. So as we take a look at that and the
    demands, you indicated that you are working on ways to mitigate
    the--either the cooling cost or what exactly--I'm not sure what
    you were working on, but I assume that you're trying to find a
    way to lower costs either by reduction in the use of the
    effluent or some other cooling mechanism, so----
        Dr. Bonner. Right.
        Mr. Biggs [continuing]. Can you elaborate on that for us?
        Dr. Bonner. Sure. So Palo Verde, which is, what, cooling
    towers, right, so all the water or at least 95 percent of it
    goes to evaporation and the rest of it goes to evaporation
    ponds. So our concept would--in order to get rid of water be
    some sort of dry cooling technologies. And we were at an air
    condenser--air-cooled condenser users group a few months ago.
    That's where we sort of made the first connection. They saw
    some of our concepts that we developed on the ARPA-E ARID
    program where we can use salts to essentially store heat at
    night, and then during peak demand when it's hot at three
    o'clock in the afternoon, you can dissipate the heat to that
    basically nighttime temperature but dissipate it during the
    day. And by doing that, you can use no water but you can also
    get temperatures that are similar to what you get in a wet
    cooling tower, so you don't have the efficiency issues that Ms.
    Zerrenner was talking about. If you try especially in somewhere
    like Arizona to dissipate directly to air, usually you're
    talking about at least a 15-percent decrease in power
    efficiency. And I suspect in Arizona even to reach that you're
    talking about a very, very large air-cooled condenser system
    using traditional technologies that would be not even close to
    cost-competitive to what they currently do.
        Mr. Biggs. So I guess that leads me to--the logical next
    question is, what would it cost to retrofit to something that's
    air-cooled? I'm not asking for a bid. I'm just--you know, a
    ballpark.
        Dr. Bonner. Right. I think it's--when I was there talking
    with them and we were in the room with some other air-cooled
    condenser companies, I think you're talking about at least 10
    times more expensive than a wet cooling tower in terms of
    capital cost, so it's substantial.
        Mr. Biggs. But does it offset over time with the usage
    costs with the rising cost of effluent?
        Dr. Bonner. It probably would, yes. It would offset over
    time. But I think the----
        Mr. Biggs. That's the salesman in you saying that, right?
        Dr. Bonner. Yes, a little bit. Yes. Well, the paybacks are
    longer than what you would--than what the stakeholders want to
    see.
        Mr. Biggs. Right. OK. Thank you very much. I'll yield back.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. I recognize Mr. McNerney for 5
    minutes.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chair. I thank the
    witnesses. It's very interesting. I've got a lot of questions,
    and they're not really mean questions either, so I look forward
    to your answers.
        Dr. Bonner, as water becomes scarcer in the west and
    southwest, I really liked hearing about the alternative cooling
    techniques for the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation statement. How
    would that work? I mean, how would the technology you're
    talking about reduce water consumption at a nuclear plant?
        Dr. Bonner. Right. So, again, our--overall for dry cooling
    you're dissipating heat to air, so it doesn't use any water at
    all, right? It--you're not going to be taking any fresh water
    and evaporating it, so it's similar to how most things--most
    air conditioners would be cooled or most electronics would be
    cooled. The heat eventually sinks to air.
        Mr. McNerney. So it's--you're--basically what the prior
    question was is----
        Dr. Bonner. It's a very similar----
        Mr. McNerney. OK.
        Dr. Bonner [continuing]. Answer to that, yes.
        Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Dr. Webber, your testimony
    recommended a scale-up effort of the R&D in the field of water-
    energy nexus. I've proposed a piece of legislation last
    Congress that put a lot of effort into that issue. Could you
    elaborate on what you envision for a scaled-up effort?
        Dr. Webber. Yes, thank you for your support of R&D, and I
    think there's an opportunity for more. If you look at the scale
    of the problem for the energy sector, which is a multitrillion-
    dollar sector around the world, the few billions of dollars a
    year we spend on Federal R&D seems very small by comparison.
    And if you look at water, it's even more stark because we spend
    less than $1 billion a year on water research. And that
    includes a lot of the environmental water quality issues. So I
    think there's an opportunity for many more investments to be
    made in better water treatment systems, the membranes that Dr.
    Tidwell mentioned earlier, better pumps that were called out
    earlier for the desalination systems, the variable speed drive
    pumps. There could be all sorts of work under the chemistry.
    There's a variety of things that we can do to look at the water
    side and reducing the energy intensity of water but also, as
    Dr. Bonner mentioned, looking at the water intensity of energy
    in kind of a new materials or heat exchanger designs or cooling
    systems for the power sector, as well as looking at new
    techniques to reduce the water intensity of oil and gas
    production.
        There's a lot of opportunity for R&D. It's something that
    industry has stepped away from over the last few decades. The
    industry looks really more at applied R&D rather than basic R&D
    or fundamental science, so there's room for the Federal
    Government to fill that gap, and industry has been calling for
    it, along with academics and national labs. So I think just the
    level of funding and the sense of urgency around it has room
    for stepping up.
        Mr. McNerney. Great. I was kind of intrigued by your
    statement that water is cheaper to store than energy. So do you
    see a practical way of using that to store--to store energy or
    to use energy-water more efficiently?
        Dr. Webber. Yes, so there are a couple of examples. I'll
    take the water heating example. There's a lot of electricity
    that goes into water heating. A lot of our water heaters are on
    around-the-clock whether we need them or not, and so we could
    turn off water heaters if we need to save power. And turning
    off the water heaters is the same as discharging power from a
    battery. It has the same effect on the grid. In France they
    have a peak demand that's 1/10 of what the United States has.
    They have a peak demand of 100 gigawatts of electrical power.
    In the United States we have 1,000 gigawatts. In France they
    can turn off 3 gigawatts worth of electric water heaters to
    save 3 gigawatts or 3 nuclear power plants' worth of power for
    the grid. That's about the same as having a lot of batteries
    doing the same thing, but it's a lot cheaper to turn off a
    water heater than, say, turn on a battery.
        We could do the same thing in the United States where we
    use water systems in a flexible way, turn them on and off, ramp
    them up and down to achieve the same benefits for the grid that
    a battery might do, but it's a lot cheaper to turn something on
    and off than build, buy, install, and operate a battery.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, I was thinking more in terms of desal
    or, you know, you can use electricity to desal and store that--
    --
        Dr. Webber. Yes.
        Mr. McNerney [continuing]. And use it rather than--so
    that's a really good match for renewables, which are
    intermittent.
        Dr. Webber. Absolutely. So you can ramp desalination up and
    down, you can ramp water treatment or wastewater treatment up
    and down and ramp them up and down to match when the renewables
    are available. In that case, the water system can help speed up
    the adoption of those renewables.
        Mr. McNerney. Mr. Chairman, I don't know how much time I
    have, so I'm going to continue to talk until you stop me, but I
    don't think I'm running out of time yet.
        Chairman Lamb. Go for it.
        Mr. McNerney. All right, thanks.
        Dr. Singh, you mentioned the hydraulic fracturing is
    essentially the cleanest, but the problem in my mind is that
    just a small amount of natural gas fugitive emissions cause
    natural gas to be dirty compared to other forms of fossil fuel.
    Can you address that?
        Dr. Singh. Yes, that's correct. So natural gas, of all
    fossil fuels, is probably the cleanest when you burn it.
        Mr. McNerney. When you burn it.
        Dr. Singh. Any form of carbon that's burned or any form of
    carbon essentially leads to carbon dioxide and so does natural
    gas. I mean, so do we when we breathe in and out. The problem
    is methane, so methane is about 20 times as potent as a
    greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide is, and that's why a lot of
    methane flaring takes place because instead of venting it into
    the air. So there are a lot of technologies in which--in terms
    of which--and can be captured rather than wasted into the
    environment, so that's--that can be minimized by capture rather
    than simply venting or, you know, leakage.
        Mr. McNerney. Right. But I've heard that if only 2 percent
    of natural gas that's captured is leaked through----
        Dr. Singh. Right.
        Mr. McNerney [continuing]. Pipeage or fracking leakage or
    whatever, that it's--it's undone all the good that's created by
    the efficiency of burning gas. Is that an accurate number?
        Dr. Singh. I would have to look at the numbers, but it
    probably is an accurate sentiment in the sense that you don't
    want to leak a lot of natural gas. Natural gas is not difficult
    to contain. I mean, it--and you don't want to leak any fossil
    fuel into the environment, but you're right in the sense that 2
    percent of natural gas would be 40 percent of carbon dioxide
    being leaked into the air.
        Mr. McNerney. So how would you--I mean, how difficult is it
    to stop any leakage in the entire system?
        Dr. Singh. I think technologies do exist, right, so we
    don't see big natural gas leakages in houses where we heat and
    cook and eat----
        Mr. McNerney. Yes.
        Dr. Singh [continuing]. So the technology exists, and I
    think the industry has been fairly diligent in terms of
    preventing natural gas leakage, not necessarily by the most,
    you know, useful means. The one way that's done right now is
    just simply by flaring it and converting it into carbon dioxide
    and dumping that.
        Mr. McNerney. Right.
        Dr. Singh. So I don't see any technological challenges in
    terms of preventing that. There are technological challenges in
    terms of capturing it at the source and not burning it and
    using it for something else, but then there are chemists who
    are working on converting it at the source into other value-
    adding chemicals such as methanol or--and people are even
    thinking of going all the way down to ethylene and then it
    becomes a precursor for the petrochemical industry.
        Chairman Lamb. Thank you. I'll now recognize Ms. Fletcher
    for 5 minutes.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, I haven't yielded yet, but I'll yield
    back, Mr. Chairman.
        Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. And I'll
    actually follow up on that question because I am interested in
    some of the technology surrounding the conversion of methane.
    Can you finish maybe answering that question, or follow up
    about what you see as the most promising technologies for
    capturing methane, and how you think that that can address the
    concerns about methane emissions?
        Dr. Singh. OK. So I'm a mechanical engineer. I'm going to
    talk on the behalf of a chemist. This is actually technology
    coming out of a very brilliant chemist called Harry Gray at
    Caltech. He is I think well up into his 70s or early 80s, I
    don't know, and he's been working on catalytic conversion. So
    the idea between catalytic conversion is it's much less energy-
    intensive than anything else. And he's been able to synthesize
    these new catalysts, which he creates in a plasma furnace. He
    tried to explain it to me, and I understood about 10 percent of
    it. But the idea is not only to convert methane, the idea is to
    convert methane, the idea is to convert carbon dioxide and get
    to the point where you're simply pulling these things out of
    the air and converting them into value-added hydrocarbons up
    the chain using electrocatalysis.
        Mrs. Fletcher. And what phase of sort of research and
    development is this, this concept that he's developing right
    now?
        Dr. Singh. I think he is maybe a few years from a desktop-
    type prototype, so the idea behind these technologies is that
    they are very modular, and you could implement them at a lab
    scale, at a bench scale, on a skid path that gets rolled out to
    a pad and be deployed. So they're not--the science has been
    proven. The technology is being developed. And they're fairly
    simple beyond--once you have the catalyst figured out, the rest
    of the technology is fairly simple.
        Mrs. Fletcher. OK. Thank you. And I have a general
    question, kind of flowing from this for the panel. I know we
    have such limited time, but one of the things I was wondering
    about is how some of this technology and research is being
    developed, and how industry has innovated or is working with
    some of the researchers to address some of these challenges.
        Dr. Bonner. Yes, so as I'm representing industry, we work
    with universities quite often on a lot of the grants and
    funding that we've gotten.
        Chairman Lamb. Could you turn your mic on, Dr. Bonner?
        Dr. Bonner. I think I have, so sorry. Yes. So representing
    industry, you know, we do work with universities quite often on
    a lot of the projects. With ARPA-E, for example, we were
    working with Lehigh University and University of Missouri to
    address various fundamental aspects of the technology. And I
    would say probably more than half of the technologies and
    programs we work on do involve university support.
        Mrs. Fletcher. And, Dr. Webber, did you have a comment
    here, too?
        Dr. Webber. Yes, I was going to say that oftentimes our
    best advances from a society occur when there is collaboration
    across the different sectors, so we have industrial, academic,
    and government collaboration around projects, and that often
    happens, as Dr. Bonner mentioned.
        I think another aspect is to try to take these good ideas,
    develop, and commercialize them, and there's different ways to
    do that. Creating more effective tech transfer offices at the
    national labs, which has been underway for decades, and also
    improving those systems for universities to get technologies
    out of the lab and into the field is useful.
        The larger companies in the energy sector and water sector
    are really good at commercialization and scale-up. They tend to
    be less good at the innovation, so they tend to collaborate
    with universities or acquire companies who are innovative to
    get there. So there's room for that, and the more we
    collaborate, the better it goes is the short story on that.
        Mrs. Fletcher. Great, thank you. And, Ms. Zerrenner, this
    perhaps ties into some of your testimony that I was able to
    look at before I was here. In your written testimony you talked
    about coordination between the energy and water sectors, and
    said that we really need to update policies there. And so can
    you share your thoughts on how we can better kind of break down
    these silos between the energy and water sectors, encourage
    better planning between them, and work on some of these
    commercialization projects as well?
        Ms. Zerrenner. Sure. So a good example we have where the
    coordination really works is in San Antonio where the
    municipally owned water and electric utilities plan alongside
    each other. They attend each other's planning meetings. They
    know that each is each other's biggest customer, and then they
    recognize that and follow through with that. So, for example,
    we have at a wastewater treatment facility in San Antonio
    biogas capture and that uses that to power the wastewater, so
    that's on a very local level.
        But in the Federal system, understanding--and I mentioned
    this in the oral testimony. Understanding where the funding
    streams are across the Federal Government would be very
    helpful.
        Mrs. Fletcher. Yes.
        Ms. Zerrenner. At this point I don't--I haven't seen
    anything, and I--when I was in the stakeholder process with DOE
    on the energy-water nexus roundtables I talked about this as
    well, is that I haven't seen any across-the-government
    assessment or review of the different funding streams where
    they go into each, so it's--you're looking at it as a
    comprehensive view. So the whole idea of the energy-water nexus
    is it's a system, so if we're not looking at it as a system,
    we're not addressing the systemic challenges, so the funding
    streams is really important because that also ties in then to
    the work programs. So also you want to know where all the
    programs are within the Federal Government, but you also want
    to know where the funding streams are.
        And I understand that Committee process. You're going to
    have your Appropriations Subcommittee for water is going to be
    separate than Energy, but wherever those coordination--cross-
    coordinations can happen, I think that's really key. And some
    places where we don't tend to think of plugging in like USDA
    (United States Department of Agriculture), they have a big part
    to play in the energy-water nexus space. They needed to be
    plugged into this, not just DOE, not just EPA, so we have USDA,
    USGS (United States Geological Survey). That's another really
    important player in this space. There are a lot of places where
    this happens, and sometimes they could be really small. We're
    talking also about health impacts when we're talking about
    energy and water, so there may be some HHS (Department of
    Health and Human Services) issues that need to come up, and
    looking at a comprehensive across-the-government view, you may
    also find places where there are gaps that you need to fill. So
    I think that's a really critical piece.
        Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you. And I yield back my time.
        Chairman Lamb. Before bringing this hearing to a close, I
    do want to thank each of our witnesses for coming all this way
    and appearing before us today. We really appreciate it.
        The record will remain open for 2 weeks for any additional
    statements from the Members and any additional questions the
    Committee may ask of the witnesses.
        The witnesses are now excused, and the hearing is
    adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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