The SE now running short on water.

ILW

Hosepipe bans being introduced now.

When will governments actually realise that encouraging increasing the population every year is not sustainable in the long term?

chewmylegoff

I think you'll find this is more to do with fluctuations in rainfall and poor infrastructure than population. My parents had a hosepipe ban for 6 or 7 years in a row when I was a kid, they haven't had one for a number of years now and the population certainly hasn't shrunk.

olly300

ILW wrote: »

Hosepipe bans being introduced now.

Within a 5 mile radius of where I live for the past 2 months every week there have been large water mains bursting. One was in a place, where they dug the road up 3 years back to deal with the drains to prevent flooding.

The local reservoir was also drained a few weeks back.

Also when there is a leak it can take days before you see anyone doing anything. When you phone them up to report it they are like "Yes we know we have had 30 calls already".

This indicates one of the major problems is how some water companies have not been spending money on infrastructure.

Though they don't have a problem trying to force everyone to have a water meter. Though due to some of the residents where I live being wealthly it will make f*** all difference to the amount of water they use. It will just increase the returns for the water company's shareholders.

Generali

If you make something 'free at the point of use' then people will use it wastefully.

I was happy to leave the tap running when I brushed my teeth or spen hours wallowing in a bath, letting some of the water out so I could put more hot in. I don't do that now I pay by the pint!

If something is getting scarcer, it's price should rise to reduce consumption: it's not like anyone's going to die of thirst because a glass of water costs a fraction of a penny rather than a different fraction of a penny.

BekahC

the comments starting to come out already re the hosepipe ban, are quite predicable (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17340844 for instance).

People are not realising that the water industry is a strictly regulated business, and yes prices have increased but a fair few of companies increases are below inflation. A huge amount of work has been done to reach the leakage targets set by OFWAT. The companies will be in the spotlight for this but people need to look in to the further details of the ban to see that the water companies try to not stop peoples usage so much.

Personally I do not understand why people would want to use a hosepipe anyway up to 1000ls of water an hour, use a bucket to wash car, or waterbutt and watering can!

ready for the flaming...

FTBFun

Generali wrote: »

If you make something 'free at the point of use' then people will use it wastefully.

I was happy to leave the tap running when I brushed my teeth or spen hours wallowing in a bath, letting some of the water out so I could put more hot in. I don't do that now I pay by the pint!

If something is getting scarcer, it's price should rise to reduce consumption: it's not like anyone's going to die of thirst because a glass of water costs a fraction of a penny rather than a different fraction of a penny.

I know this is a big issue over in that part of the world, but we're pretty complacent here. I have a dual-flush toilet in my flat but that's only because it was renovated before I bought it, for instance. Maybe we have to consider due to climate change etc that we need to adapt in the same way?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

FTBFun wrote: »

I know this is a big issue over in that part of the world, but we're pretty complacent here. I have a dual-flush toilet in my flat but that's only because it was renovated before I bought it, for instance. Maybe we have to consider due to climate change etc that we need to adapt in the same way?

I lived in the middle east for many years. Some of the driest places on earth. There is no water shortage there, and the price of water is a cheap as here.

Desalination plants provide an endless supply of water, and it can be economically piped anywhere within a few hundred miles of a coastline.

We're an island nation surrounded by unlimited quantities of water, and the off the shelf technology exists today to make it all usable.

A._Badger

FTBFun wrote: »

I know this is a big issue over in that part of the world, but we're pretty complacent here. I have a dual-flush toilet in my flat but that's only because it was renovated before I bought it, for instance. Maybe we have to consider due to climate change etc that we need to adapt in the same way?

That would be the 'climate change' that has meant no warming for the past 17 years, would it?

Rainfall varies. It always has. What doesn't is the continuing drift of population to the South East and the bungled privatisation of our water supplies.

JWF

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I lived in the middle east for many years. Some of the driest places on earth. There is no water shortage there, and the price of water is a cheap as here.

Desalination plants provide an endless supply of water, and it can be economically piped anywhere within a few hundred miles of a coastline.

We're an island nation surrounded by unlimited quantities of water, and the off the shelf technology exists today to make it all usable.

Desalination is an option if you have loads of cheap energy to run the plants. If you don't it is a very expensive way of making water, regardless of whether the technology is off the shelf or not.

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I lived in the middle east for many years. Some of the driest places on earth. There is no water shortage there, and the price of water is a cheap as here.

Desalination plants provide an endless supply of water, and it can be economically piped anywhere within a few hundred miles of a coastline.

We're an island nation surrounded by unlimited quantities of water, and the off the shelf technology exists today to make it all usable.

AIUI, that relies on very cheap oil. One of the great sights is those circular Saudi farms seen from the air.

It's not a practical proposition for the UK although it may become so if a cheap energy source can be found.

The simpler solution would be to use a bit less water by pricing it by the pint. A new law has been introduced in NSW so that landlords can only pass on water usage bills if landlords introduce simple water saving methods. It cost my landlord a one off $200 or so to do a 4 bed/2 bath house with separate laundry so it wasn't expensive.

That way people in rental accommodation have an incentive and ability to save water too.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

JWF wrote: »

Desalination is an option if you have loads of cheap energy to run the plants. If you don't it is a very expensive way of making water, regardless of whether the technology is off the shelf or not.

No, that used to be the case, but desalination costs have been plummeting over the last decade.

A January 17, 2008, article in the Wall Street Journal stated, "In November, Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources Corp. won a key regulatory approval to build the US$300 million water-desalination plant in Carlsbad, north of San Diego. The facility would produce 50,000,000 US gallons (190,000,000 l; 42,000,000 imp gal) of drinking water per day, enough to supply about 100,000 homes ...

Improved technology has cut the cost of desalination in half in the past decade, making it more competitive ... Poseidon plans to sell the water for about US $950 per acre-foot [1,200 cubic metres (42,000 cu ft)]. That compares with an average US$700 an acre-foot [1200 m³] that local agencies now pay for water." [25] $1,000 per acre-foot works out to $3.06 for 1,000 gallons, or $.81 for 1 cubic meter

There has also been a lot of progress in building desalination plants into new nuclear power stations. A ready supply of energy 24/7.

In a December 26, 2007, opinion column in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nolan Hertel, a professor of nuclear and radiological engineering at Georgia Tech, wrote, "... nuclear reactors can be used ... to produce large amounts of potable water. The process is already in use in a number of places around the world, from India to Japan and Russia. Eight nuclear reactors coupled to desalination plants are operating in Japan alone ... nuclear desalination plants could be a source of large amounts of potable water transported by pipelines hundreds of miles inland..."[9]