Water: Where will it come from in 2050?

[maikeru]

Water wars in Cyprus:

 

BBC News - Cyprus conflict closes leaders' eyes to water shortage

 

"The alarming thing, for those working to ease this new conflict, is that Cypriots don't even seem to realise that hostilities between them and nature have begun."

 

Interesting thing, since my area is entering another year of drought...and no one here seems to care. Instead, they celebrate the untimely and ever-earlier arrival of spring.

[Knothead]

I should probably read the entire thread before commenting, but what the hell.

 

It is my belief that by 2050, assuming we are still around at all, there will likely be fewer of us.

Beyond that, I believe that by then most survivors will have learned that wasting nearly one third of one's total household use of water to flush their turds and urine down a drain is stupid and unsustainable.

By then hopefully every structure built will have a rain collection system built into it and every existing structure will be retrofitted with one.

In the last 6 months, I've paid the minimum water bill. I've not use a drop of city water to drink, for irrigation, to offset the evaporation from my 18' above ground pool or to dispose of my bodily wastes. (actually it's not waste since I use it)

I accomplished this by investing in 10 plastic barrels for 15 dollars each, less than fifty dollars for some PVC fitting and such and by building a composting toilet for the garage for slightly more than 100 dollars and by investing in a Big Berkey water filter.

 

I hope to God that by 2050 people like me won't be considered crazy fanatical barbarians any longer and will in fact be admired for our vision.

[Knothead]

I'm sure that everyone here has already been made aware of this film, but I only came across it yesterday.

I'm sure that the suppositions and facts that the film puts forth have also already been hashed out and I'm not smart enough to debate all the particulars anyway. To me it sounded perfectly credible. But what do I know?

I don't think that's as important as the overlying message.

 

Perhaps it's not appropriate to link to it in this particular thread, but I think it is.

 

In light of the recent oil spills and disastrous floods and all the other environmental bad news that seem to abound. I found this film meaningful and timely.

 

The video footage is truly, at least to me, awesome. I think the photographer must have been flying an ultra-lite for a large part of it. It was as or more impressive even than the Nat Geo stuff I've seen.

 

The video is an hour and a half long and while certainly sobering, it left me with a feeling of hope at the end.

 

It was certainly worth the time it took to watch it and if perchance you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. If it's already been brought up here, then I humbly apologize.

 

YouTube - ‪HOME (English with subtitles)‬‎ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

[Michaelangelica]

Your video is blocked?!

 

 

here is another

A World Without Water

[Knothead]

Your video is blocked?!

 

 

Maybe if I do this.

 

homeproject - Google Search

 

It's the fourth link from the top.

 

Or this.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCIQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjqxENMKaeCU&ei=i8VeTLzyDoH48AbUt4m2DQ&usg=AFQjCNHfQIULWdixQIlQAxkBaw3uSoKOQg

[Eclipse Now]

Nuclear power can use a tiny fraction of its energy to pump seawater to deserts. There it goes through a Seawater Greenhouses to green the Sahara. Combined with biochar and bio-farming (what I call industrial scale permaculture systems thinking, like Polyface Farms) we can green the deserts and change local climates to increase rainwater.

[maikeru]

I should probably read the entire thread before commenting, but what the hell.

 

It is my belief that by 2050, assuming we are still around at all, there will likely be fewer of us.

Beyond that, I believe that by then most survivors will have learned that wasting nearly one third of one's total household use of water to flush their turds and urine down a drain is stupid and unsustainable.

By then hopefully every structure built will have a rain collection system built into it and every existing structure will be retrofitted with one.

In the last 6 months, I've paid the minimum water bill. I've not use a drop of city water to drink, for irrigation, to offset the evaporation from my 18' above ground pool or to dispose of my bodily wastes. (actually it's not waste since I use it)

I accomplished this by investing in 10 plastic barrels for 15 dollars each, less than fifty dollars for some PVC fitting and such and by building a composting toilet for the garage for slightly more than 100 dollars and by investing in a Big Berkey water filter.

 

I hope to God that by 2050 people like me won't be considered crazy fanatical barbarians any longer and will in fact be admired for our vision.

 

You're ahead of the curve. Until this year, it was technically illegal for people like me in my desert state to harvest rainwater.

 

I've discovered that as long as I keep my garden mulched heavily, it can survive even a week or a little longer in 100 F heat and brutal sun without watering. (But some plants may get sunburned, so at those times, they require shade. Don't learn like me and find your peach and nectarine trees half-bleached white in July.) And my garden includes water-hungry crops like squashes, watermelons, melons, and tomatoes growing in there. Despite what my neighbors said, I want to say that wood chips go a long way. :( I also mixed up the soil so that it has good water-retention properties. Every time I mulch the garden soil gets that much better.

 

I know I can do better on the garden. With proper planning and design, it could probably have been done more like a rain garden.

Edited August 9, 2010 by maikeru

[maikeru]

Nuclear power can use a tiny fraction of its energy to pump seawater to deserts. There it goes through a Seawater Greenhouses to green the Sahara. Combined with biochar and bio-farming (what I call industrial scale permaculture systems thinking, like Polyface Farms) we can green the deserts and change local climates to increase rainwater.

 

That Salatin fellow will corrupt you. :(

[Eclipse Now]

hey, he lets the grass grow high, cows eat grass, pooh, then 4 days later the chickens come through and eat the larvae growing out of the pooh, getting 15% of their energy requirements from cow-pooh larvae for free.

 

This also creates soil.

 

If we can think of more integrated systems of 'crop and cow' rotation like this, combined with a little biochar and sewerage nutrient recycling, there may just be hope to survive peak oil and peak phosphorus, let alone peak water!

 

Below is a Polyface farm mobile chook house moved to a fresh field.

 

[Knothead]

You're ahead of the curve. Until this year, it was technically illegal for people like me in my desert state to harvest rainwater.

 

I've always felt that I have a moral obligation to ignore stupid laws. :(

[Michaelangelica]

IN NUMBERS: Middle East water facts

10.7% Food-price inflation in Egypt during 2010.

 

25% Expected increase in Saudi water demand up to 2020.

 

2.9% Yemen population growth each year.

 

14 cubic kilometres of water loss from Dead Sea in the past 30 years (1980-2010).

 

240 cubic metres per person annual water use in Israel.

 

75 cubic metres per person annual water use in Palestinian West Bank.

 

Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional watercrisis.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/20/arab-nations-water-running-out?CMP=NECNETTXT766

 

$0.53 Cost per cubic metre of desalinated water.

 

120 Desalination plants throughout UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

 

[dduckwessel]

I hope water becomes as valuable as oil. Seeing how I live on Lake Erie, one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world, I will be rolling in dough! Woo Hoo!

 

Bill

 

I thought I heard that Lake Erie is seriously polluted?

[dduckwessel]

Question: Did marine-life slowly adapt to ever-increasing salt washing into the oceans or did marine-life develop solely as a result of the saltiness?

[belovelife]

IN NUMBERS: Middle East water facts

10.7% Food-price inflation in Egypt during 2010.

 

25% Expected increase in Saudi water demand up to 2020.

 

2.9% Yemen population growth each year.

 

14 cubic kilometres of water loss from Dead Sea in the past 30 years (1980-2010).

 

240 cubic metres per person annual water use in Israel.

 

75 cubic metres per person annual water use in Palestinian West Bank.

 

Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional watercrisis.

 

http://www.guardian....MP=NECNETTXT766

 

$0.53 Cost per cubic metre of desalinated water.

 

120 Desalination plants throughout UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

 

 

 

doesn't verticle farms make more sense?

[Rexy]

It would be worth while assessing groundwater for use.

Google 'Great ManMade River'. this is ideal! -if it is sustainable.

 

man_made_river_libya

[Moontanman]

Question: Did marine-life slowly adapt to ever-increasing salt washing into the oceans or did marine-life develop solely as a result of the saltiness?

 

Most of the evidence we have points to the oceans being more or less the same salinity as they are now from the very beginning. Salt was washed from the land with the first rains and continues to do so today. The mechanism for recycling the salts, principally sodium chloride, is not well understood, many of the dissolved minerals do recycle in known ways.

[JMJones0424]

I ran across this desalination method while looking up water recycling techniques used in this space station. Absolutely brilliant. Rather than high-pressure reverse osmosis with expensive, rapidly fouled filters and high energy costs due to pumping, enter "forward osmosis".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_osmosis

 

Essentially, sea water is run through at low pressure and water is drawn from the seawater to a draw solution with higher ion concentration through a semi-permeable membrane. The twist is that the salts in the draw solution are made from dissolving ammonia and carbon dioxide into water, and can be driven off by heating the draw solution to temperatures far lower than is required for water distillation, captured, and re-used in a portion of the now de-ionized water to be used as another batch of draw solution.

 

One area of current research in FO involves the direct removal of draw solutes by thermal means. This process is typically referred to as the "ammonia - carbon dioxide" FO process, as the draw solutes are salts formed from the mixing of ammonia and carbon dioxide gases in water. These salts can reach high concentrations, particularly as the ratio of ammonia to carbon dioxide is increased. An especially convenient property of these salts is that they readily dissociate into ammonia and carbon dioxide gases again, if a solution containing them is heated (to approx. 60°C, at 1 atm pressure). Once the concentrated draw solution is used to effect separation of water from the FO feed solution, the diluted draw solution is directed to a reboiled stripper (distillation column) and the solutes are completely removed and recycled for reuse in the FO system. An FO system of this type thereby effects membrane separation of water from the FO feed, using heat as its primary energy source. The quality of heat used by this process can be very low, at temperatures as low as 40°C. If FO of this type is used in a cogeneration environment (waste heat from a power plant, for example), its energy cost can be greatly reduced compared to RO.

 

_________________________

 

doesn't verticle farms make more sense?

 

Not at all, at least not to anyone that has any clue about the expense of artificial lighting. Verticle farming is a fad passed around by people that have absolutely no clue about light requirements for plants. Whatever economic problems verticle farming is supposed to solve can be more economically addressed by either improved conventional farming practices or conventional "horizontal" greenhouses outside of the city.