Gold v Oil

mrposhman

timarr wrote: »

Fair point. Water may turn out to be more valuable than oil going forward.

timarr

I was talking to my dad about this recently actually. I suspect water will stop being seen as purely a utility and may be dealt like a commodity in the not too distant future where supply and demand can create a proper price for it.

It may also force the water companies to look after their water better instead of leaking as much as they currently do. If they can see a distinct opportunity cost of losing the resource then they will soon change.

wombat42_2

Water is getting scarcer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_water especially in China etc. Guru Jim Rogers is a water bull.

There are 1 or 2 water funds but some agriculture funds cover this ground as well.

timarr

There's a geographical element with regards to water as well. So Brazil and Canada have plenty (although the US would like some of Canada's) while some of China's main rivers run dry and there are desertification problems around Beijing, amongst other areas. It's certainly possible to generate water using desalination but that requires energy, bringing us back to oil. So there's a complicated equation involving water, energy, agriculture, economic growth and politics. Difficult to judge how it'll pan out.

AFAIK there's not a huge amount of choice for UK based water investments - the iShares IH20 had a lot of regulated utilities in it last time I looked. Not sure if there are any other funds in this area. As usual the US is much better provisioned in this regard.

timarr

gozomark

GucciMane wrote: »

Dont think that will happen. Water is not scarce, there is just a lack of clean water. Sea water can be converted to clean water through desalinisation. So if there was a lack of clean water more will just be produced.

its an energy intensive (ie expensive) process though