I'm reading "Blue Gold" and basically, we're screwed

[Jack_Dawson]

in terms of the world's water supply. Most major aquifiers are already depleted and the rest will dry up in 25 years or less, and major rivers like the Colorado are so overly dammed and diverted that they don't even reach their former destinations, like the Gulf of California. It takes 101,000 gallons of water to make one car.

[cprise]

1. Desalinization plants will have to be built

I don't think it will be that bad.

[patricia92243]

2. I wonder who would make them - NOTthe USA of course (sarcasm)

[sam sarrha]

4. and powered by nuclear plants.

[CrispyQ]

5. Won't that eventually alter the salinity of the oceans?

Wouldn't a better solution be to address over population? And conservation? I live in Colorado where we are experiencing the worst drought in 500 years. The acres & acres of business park lawn that our precious water is being wasted on makes me so angry! Residential lawns, too. I never see anyone on their lawns. All I hear is griping about taking care of them.

I think clean, safe drinking water is going to become a key global issue very soon. Actually, it's already an issue in many places, but until it becomes an issue in the states, it won't get much critical attention.

[Jack_Dawson]

7. The book says the earth has a finite amount of water...

In other words, there was the same amount of water on earth during the Dinosaurs. Problem is, our population is exploding and the earth's water supply simply cannot sustain this level of growth.

[Sarvis]

14. er...

Not to be contrary, but there are many chemical reactions, including some common ones, that yield water (H2O) as one of the outputs.

Just something that popped to mind when I saw that. Not saying the book is wrong, but out of context at least that comment struck me as odd. :)

[treepig]

18. ahh, don't be so timid

go ahead and say the book is absolutely wrong, after all, besides your chemical reactions water is also coming from afar:

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast27aug99_2.htm

[cprise]

10. No it won't change ocean salinity overall

After all, we have been pumping used freshwater into the oceans.

You are right: Over-population and conservation are the real issues at hand. Desalinization is an active mechanism for correcting the problem. Our basic approach to the environment should be passive.

[NickB79]

13. The problem is: what do you do with all the salt?

Do you let it accumulate in massive white mountains, or do you dump it back into the ocean? If you let it sit, it might, after many years, begin to alter the ocean's salinity. If you dump it back in, you would have to load it onto cargo ships that could then distribute it across large areas of deep ocean to prevent local salinity spikes that could kill sealife. This would require a lot of money and energy to accomplish, on top of the energy required to power the desalinization plants themselves.

[Warpy]

6. Desalinization plants require a lot of energy

Oops, guess what else will be in increasingly short supply in 25 years?

[lectrobyte]

3. look on the bright side, after peak oil, we will probably make

a lot less cars, so there should be plenty of water.

[sam sarrha]

8. the nuclear plants will use a LOT more... have to go to solar and

serious conservation. Bush canceled a solar project that would produce about 80% of the daytime energy with 3 or 4 collection sites 10 miles square across the south west

[kestrel91316]

12. We can't possible (gasp).....CONSERVE!!!!!! Horrors.......

that would mean we would have to do something totally unamerican like (another gasp) MAKE PERSONAL SACRIFICES and GIVE UP LUXURIES!!!!!!!!!(loud screams, shrieks, cursing, wailing)

[sam sarrha]

9. what are they going to do with all the salt...??? think about it.. it will

kill all the sea life along the coast if they dump it back in... a serious problem in the Persian Gulf.

[gate of the sun]

11. well in case some of you haven't noticed

there is a drought out there in the west. The Colorado is drying up. Not enough in them waters outside the hoover dam to keep those folks in Los Angelos going not for long anyway. It's hard to dam a stream and make much of it.

[NNadir]

15. There is a new technical journal dedicated to desalination.

International Journal of Nuclear Desalination.

Although I strongly support nuclear power as an improvement in safety and sustainability when compared with existing options for existing energy demands, I think desalination technologies are environmentally dubious. Our ocean habitats are already seriously stretched and it would break my heart to extend the salt desert out into the sea in order to water San Diego golf courses. I also think it would be unconcionable to deplete our precious Uranium and Thorium resources, which will be in serious demand in future generations, for the purpose of growing rice in California or filling mosquito hatcheries (abandoned swimming pools) in Phoenix.

Probably the best option short term (which are already being employed on a grand scale in California) is to recycle sewage water and limit growth in the Southwestern deserts.

Of course the best long term option for all environmental problems, water included, is to control our population growth; or better yet reverse it. I think it's time for cultures world wide to do all the things that encourage family planning, all of which are associated with political liberalism. These things include: Raise the status of women; provide for child health; eliminate poverty; raise the status of - or even celebrate - gay people (who, let's face it, breed less than we heterosexuals do); make family planning services and medications as cheap as is possible, provide for broad education and do as much as we can to promote secularism. Unless we will reduce the population by attrition, it will happen by tragedy. The latter option is really too horrible to contemplate as life itself might not survive mass human rage.

The social implications of population reduction by attrition are not all easy. It will involve the current generation working until a later age, perhaps right up to death - eliminating retirement, and, I think, paradoxically, a need to ration health care in such a way as to waste fewer resources on heroic (and sometimes cruel) efforts to save the doomed, but I believe that we have a responsibility to the future, and should accept these things.

This is, I guess, an OT rant, but so be it.

[GAspnes]

16. that's okay

rants are good, now and then.

And thank you for spelling "desalination" correctly.

(we now return you to our main topic)

[NNadir]

17. This is why our Lord (late in the eighth day, about 3:21 in the afternoon)

created the spell checker.