Six Things You Didn't Know We Were Running Out Of

Loughton_Monkey

tomterm8 wrote: »

The article misses the point that we are running out of time.

No problem. We can just borrow some.

Anyway, time is nothing much. Simply nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once.

Degenerate

Generali wrote: »

India:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/study-warns-india-of-water-shortage/206917/

China:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_crisis

USA:
http://www.alternet.org/water/82378/

I have no idea whether this is true or not BTW. It's interesting if a little scary.

I work in the water industry in a technical role with knowledge of the entire abstraction, treatment and transmission process. All stories of water scarcity are complete bullshi1t. It's only ever a question of politics and economics. When they talk of running out, they mean running out of the stuff that's cheaply treatable to an acceptable standard. We have the technology to turn the Sahara into green pastures if someone had the trillions to spend on the engineering, and the political will to build the number of nuclear power stations that would be needed to run it all.

vivatifosi

Degenerate wrote: »

We have the technology to turn the Sahara into green pastures if someone had the trillions to spend on the engineering, and the political will to build the number of nuclear power stations that would be needed to run it all.

Indeed, its ironic that Gaddafi got some things right, but the Great Manmade River project is pretty amazing and does supply Libya with water. Hopefully he won't bomb or sabotage it.

GDB2222

Degenerate wrote: »

I work in the water industry in a technical role with knowledge of the entire abstraction, treatment and transmission process. All stories of water scarcity are complete bullshi1t. It's only ever a question of politics and economics. When they talk of running out, they mean running out of the stuff that's cheaply treatable to an acceptable standard. We have the technology to turn the Sahara into green pastures if someone had the trillions to spend on the engineering, and the political will to build the number of nuclear power stations that would be needed to run it all.

If you are talking about reverse osmosis desalination plants, I agree with you. Potentially unlimited water. However, the plant costs are high, you need electricity to produce the water, and then more electricity to pump it inline. That's why, when you eat dates grown in the desert, they are grown using water from underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill and are being depleted at a rate that will use them up inside 100 years. Then as the water is depleted in the underground aquifers, sea water will start to move inland (underground) and make what's left in the aquifers brackish.

Bullfighter

Degenerate wrote: »

I work in the water industry in a technical role with knowledge of the entire abstraction, treatment and transmission process. All stories of water scarcity are complete bullshi1t. It's only ever a question of politics and economics. When they talk of running out, they mean running out of the stuff that's cheaply treatable to an acceptable standard. We have the technology to turn the Sahara into green pastures if someone had the trillions to spend on the engineering, and the political will to build the number of nuclear power stations that would be needed to run it all.

So what you are saying is that given infinite cheap energy this problem will go away...

Degenerate

Bullfighter wrote: »

So what you are saying is that given infinite cheap energy this problem will go away...

Yes. Everything comes down to energy. We already have the science to produce almost anything we want with enough energy. I believe I covered this with the "nuclear power stations" comment.

The implications of e=mc2 are staggering in the amount of energy potentially available to us. This is why in the early days of of nuclear power, it was heralded as the dawn of new age of cheap and plentiful energy - they weren't wrong. Development of nuclear power was stunted in it's infancy by ill-informed scare-mongering. Economic realities will force us to overcome these objections.

The risks can be acceptably contained. Chernobyl was an aberration caused by an insane reactor design (positive void coefficient, no secondary containment) implemented by a government with little regard for safety. Nuclear power in the Western world has an excellent safety record compared to other sources of energy.

Bullfighter

Degenerate wrote: »

Yes. Everything comes down to energy. We already have the science to produce almost anything we want with enough energy. I believe I covered this with the "nuclear power stations" comment.

The implications of e=mc2 are staggering in the amount of energy potentially available to us. This is why in the early days of of nuclear power, it was heralded as the dawn of new age of cheap and plentiful energy - they weren't wrong. Development of nuclear power was stunted in it's infancy by ill-informed scare-mongering. Economic realities will force us to overcome these objections.

The risks can be acceptably contained. Chernobyl was an aberration caused by an insane reactor design (positive void coefficient, no secondary containment) implemented by a government with little regard for safety. Nuclear power in the Western world has an excellent safety record compared to other sources of energy.

Oh I agree, there is the *potential* for near limitless, cheap energy from fission.

Does mankind have the combined will to develop and deploy such nuclear technologies in time to soften the blow of Peak Oil...

No.

Nuclear has been stunted (as you say) and so we are 1000's of reactors short. Plus those 1000's of new reactors will need TRILLIONS of dollars of investment to design and build, unprecedented political will to overrule the onerous planning rules and NIMBYs, massive electrical grid investment (both distribution and transmission), a complete overhaul of our hydrocarbon based transport infrastructure plus a further gargantuan investment in fast breeders.

Not gonna happen. We are 30 years too late.

Niksan

Bullfighter wrote: »

Plus those 1000's of new reactors will need TRILLIONS of dollars of investment to design and build,

That part shouldn't be a problem, we can just ask the FED.