Soon to be Worldwide Water Shortage??

Originally posted by sardion2000
Should we develop a cheap, easy, and man portable way to desalinate and decontaminate water, all in one package, and is reusable with just a modest power consumption, then this issue will be mostly moot as those who would be effected the most (the poor), will have (hopefully) cheap access to this technology.

Quite the technical challenge ain't it?

Not really. It's quite simple actually. You and I can easily build a simple, solar-powered one. Check it:



That shouldn't be to difficult to build. It's not ultra-efficient, but it certainly is cheap and simple.



Anyway, for a high-tech solution, the Japs have developed this desalination technology that exploits the temperature difference between ocean layers. The system also generates electricity!


Source: Xenesys Inc. - Ocean Thermal Energy Desalination (OTED)

Related Internet Link:
Xenesys Inc. - Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)

Originally posted by Beachcoma


Not really. It's quite simple actually. You and I can easily build a simple, solar-powered one. Check it:

That shouldn't be to difficult to build. It's not ultra-efficient, but it certainly is cheap and simple.

hi Beachcoma,
i can appreciate your optimism and such...
but, your diagram left out an essential element for recovering potable H2O

in this day & age, one will need a security enclosure
&/or security cameras to monitor the device
&/or trusted family, neighbors or partners, to guard the water recovery devices from theft, or even sabotage with poisons or bacterias.

The High-Tech processors you cite, look expensive, and would therefore
be established and run and secured/monitored under the guidance of controlling government agencies.
? hasn't the USA supplied de-salinization plants to middle-eastern countries already?

~~~~~

side-stepping the U2U channel;
map links to your coordinates show your location is 'landbound',
((S.W of KualaLumpur & E.S.E. of Kelang ?BigFoot country?))
unless, like my coordinates: 33 44 04 north & -78 52 31 west
the 1,500 ft. 'Finger Lake' bordering my backyard, is not depicted.
~else wise~ where does the nome-de-plume Beachcoma come from?

The solar stills are simple and cheap enough to build, and it is currently in use in many poor regions of the world.



In fact, it doesn't even have to be as advanced as the one in the picture above. You can make one yourself using nothing more than a shovel, a cup or some other container to hold the distilled water, a tube and some plastic sheets.

Desert Survival: Collect Water in a Solar Still

These solar stills should work well enough for individuals or small families. Of course, it can still be sabotaged by unscrupulous individuals, but I think the chances of that are pretty slim. It's probably more likely that others would copy-cat the design for themselves instead. That's not a problem, in my opinion. This is something that should be available to all.

As for the hi-tech distiller from Japan, I'd imagine it is quite expensive, but in the long run it should be quite cost effective, since it can also produce electricity.

I don't know about the US supplying the Saudis with de-salinization plants, but I do know that fresh water is something the Saudis do NOT have in abundance. It only makes sense that they are very interested in this technology.

Xenesys Inc. News Release

July, 2004 Saudi Commerce & Economic Review (Saudi Arabia)
Japanese Energy Recycle Technology, DTEC comes to Saudi Arabia

[...]

In order to promote the business of DTEC system in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Xenesys Inc has founded a joint venture company named "Xenesys Arabia" together with nine Saudi Arabian individuals as mentioned below;

Mr. Abdullatif Hamad Mohamed Al Jabr
Mr. Mohamed Ahmed Yousif Zainal Ali Reza
H.E. Tawfiq Ibrahim Mohamed Tawifiq
Mr. Abdullah Hashim Abdullah Shatta
Mr. Mashari Faisal Abdulrahan Al Muamar
Eng. Mubarak Abdullah Al Khafra
Mr. Fouad Abbas Yousif Kattan
Eng. Hassan Riad Abdukader Jamjoom
Mr. Rayyan Bakri Saleh Shatta

Nine Saudi Arabians hold 60% of shares of Xenesys Arabia, while 40% is owned by Xenesys Inc. Xenesys Arabia can supply DTEC system as well as power/fresh water generated by DTEC system.

Edit: St Udio -
I got the name Beachcoma from my favourite electronica act, Hybrid. The song Beachcoma from their year 2000 album Wide Angle was playing when I registered at ATS. And yes, my position is landlocked, but it's only a 40 minute drive to the nearest good beach, Port Dickson. We've got pretty good highways here, as you may have noticed from satellite photos. Our road builders are contracted by India to build their highways

[edit on 19-3-2006 by Beachcoma]

[edit on 19-3-2006 by Beachcoma]

Updates:

Climate-History Study Suggests Droughts Will Be More Common in Southwest

A new study comparing the most recent drought in the southwestern United States with other dry periods going back five centuries confirms worries that water shortages will become more common and severe in the area.

First drought order in years comes into force

LONDON (Reuters) - The first drought order in England and Wales since 1995 came into force on Saturday, hitting 650,000 people around Sutton, ironically as much of the country faces yet another wet weekend.

"We are currently experiencing one of the driest periods in the south-east of England for almost 100 years. Water resources are scarce with the lowest levels ever being recorded at some of our boreholes," the company said.

China suffers an annual water shortage of 40 bln cubic meters

The total water shortage over the country is nearly 40 billion cubic meters in normal years. Over 400 cities are short of water supply, and 110 cities are suffering from a water crisis. China faces unfavorable water conditions. Jiao Yong, vice minister of water resources, said when launching a large-sized activity on May 18 in which a group of journalists will travel nationwide to cover water conditions and promote the concept of water conservation.[/url]

This is fast becoming an issue of great significance.

It makes what we do to our existing water supply so criminal.

Maybe these warnings will wake us from our ignorant stupor, and we might actually do something about it.

[edit on 27-5-2006 by loam]

Thanx woldwatcher. Were you aware of the more or less global drought from say about '70 or '71 through '77. It was significant in Canada, France, Aus, and sub-Sarahan Africa and the UK. Global warming was considered alarmist heresey at that time... or that's my recollection of that time.

This time, or this cycle seems things could be much worse... the demand for fresh water since then is growing beyond the function of the planet to provide for all us humans and our consumptive activties... I'm very fortunate to live in Canada where water is soooo, taken for granted it's embarrassing. Practically criminal, when seeing what the rest of the world has to swallow as "water"... Bechtel - bad.

Our lake level in Northern Ontario is about two feet above where is was in the mid-'70s... so I have my fingers crossed. Last time I was down in Lake Mead... well, they ain't so fortunate, pretty arid. I hope for a cool damp summer everywhere...

Thanx,

Victor K.

no I wasn't V. thanks

but from what I've been reading, I thought Canada was also having major water issues too. I read in a market report very recently that Canadian farmers were facing significant problems, not only just because of trade restrictions but because of drought too.

skipshipman: I agree with your entire post.

beachcoma: nice work. In fact, this sort of device will also work whith human urine (not pleasant but true). If you're trapped in the desert, that sheet of plastic and cup to catch the condensed water vapor can save your life. Nice contribution.

I wrote a thread here which has some good points. Please participate in it because I remain unconvinced that supercarriers can't be used for desal. Orangtom comments in the thread about the maintenance requirements of the reactors, but I know ex-military people who say that's not true, and that the technology used in modern US nuclear carriers can be used to provide tons of freshwater, pumped to shore via pipes. Also I've heard the they have portable nuclear reactors which can be airdropped anywhere in the world. Drop it near any coastline and it'll desalinize enough water to keep millions of people alive at least. Why is this technology not used for peaceful purposes? Why is the military so stingy with machniery that could save humans? ..I guess it's a stupid question.

Offshore Supercarrier Desalinization?

...anyway, I see most people here discussing the scarcity of water via natural means (droughts, global warming, etc) but this is a conspiracy forum is it not? In my opinion, the reason there will be water shortages is because it's so simple to CAUSE them. If you reduce the availability of an item (via volitional desertification), and you control the item (politics controls water on Earth), then you can easily create a situation where the item becomes scarce, right? You'd become rich beyond imagination if you could be a "water baron".

Think about Los Angeles, which exists on a thin thread of water, and which, if that thread is cut, will become very, very thirsty. Politics created LA and once the civility fails (or somebody volitionally affects the water supply) then you have a water crisis.

IMO, the temptation to create a shortage of water, and even to wreck the globe so as to create a scarcity of it (and therefore become like gods, if you control it) would be irresistable for hegemonic types.

Good thread!

It's a longtime I haven't posted on this site, but anyway here goes,......... Water Shortage will be if it indeed happens, may bring about the Water Wars or the Wars for scarce resources. As you know in every crisis there are always a few enterprising individuals there are always opportunity for profit

I'm digging ponds. 5 small ones across my 10 acres. Dozer estimate was $1250.

I suggest you do the same.

I've also purchased a 550 gallon stainless water tank.

I suggest you do the same.

I also own a half dozen glass 5 gallon carboys

I suggest you do the same.

I can't.... I can't afford... wa wa wa... my family is poor, I don't own any land... There is no place to buy glass jars around me... wa wa wa....

No, you can. And if you don't... you'll die. Believe in the I.

Rasta,

Sri Oracle

Here's an excellent article on a lesser known location that is feeling serious water issues....and not in the way you think...

Temperature Rising: Feeling a bit warm? You may just have to live with it

KING COUNTY, WASH.--From a chopper buzzing the forested foothills of the Cascade mountains just outside Seattle, County Executive Ron Sims describes this as "a good year." The craggy canvas below is a gorgeous bottle green. The lakelike reservoirs are nearly full. Crisp-white snow caps much of the Cascade Range. It's everything one would expect in this cool, water-rich corner of the world. But residents here worry that the "good years" are becoming increasingly rare. According to scientists at the University of Washington, the Pacific Northwest has gotten warmer by 1.5 degrees since 1900, about a half-degree higher than the global average. That might not seem like much, but the effects are being noticed here, particularly in the amount of snow in the Cascades. Since 1949, snowpack in the lower mountain range, a primary source of water for the area, has declined 50 percent, raising the odd specter of water shortages in the rainy Pacific Northwest.

The culprit is unusually warm weather, which is melting snowpack and changing the precipitation cycle. More water is falling as rain--and being lost as runoff--and less is falling as mountain snow, a natural banking system that holds the precipitation until the spring, when it melts to fill reservoirs for the dry summer season. "Our water system is based on snowmelt," Sims says. "But we're continually losing huge volumes."

The problem snapped into focus over the past two years, when the state was hit by a severe drought--the kind of extreme weather fluctuation that scientists expect will become more common as temperatures climb. The governor declared a statewide emergency. Ski resorts closed. Rivers and reservoirs fell to dangerous lows. For Sims, the water crisis was a worrisome sign of things to come. "How are we going to meet the needs of people and fish," he asks, "when the snowmelt is going away?"

More...

Worldwatcher:

i can't explain to you, why the dry, but i can explain to you where all the suposed "green mass" goes to!

it have been burned!

in the iberic peninsula exists a weird phenomena for decades, each time we reach the high spring and summer, insane people starts to burn all the forest zones they can find, not only in a lonly person event, but also in a organized web of pyromaniacs. the best clue we have so far is that some big corporations wants to build on that zones, and they cant because they are natural protected zones, etc....so thet resolve that resuming the sectors to ashes! especialy in the last 3 years in the summers was a perfect insanity never seen before, and in the case of portugal,(im portuguese), we are almoust without green zones. it was all burned out. it's a shame!

[edit on 1-6-2006 by Umbra Sideralis]

Yet another story indirectly about water (and so much more... )...

Villages doomed by China's cancer rivers


A new phrase has become current in China as the country comes to terms with the environmental devastation caused by its explosive economic growth: "cancer villages".

Not long ago they were farming settlements in the vast countryside. Now they are dominated by factories and blighted by the disease crippling their inhabitants.

Government figures show that 300 million people regularly drink polluted water and the effects are clear in the cancer village of Xiditou, near the port city of Tianjin, south-east of Beijing.

The Tianjin health authority admits that its cancer rate is 30 times the national average, a figure blamed on water and air contaminated by a rash of chemical factories.

More...

...and still no massive uprising???

Goes to show how thoroughly screwed these people are by their government.

Wait! Which country am I taking about??? ...oh, yeah, that's right.... China.

*coughs*

I think...

EDIT:

See also, Pollution killing river they said was too big to poison


[edit on 1-6-2006 by loam]

Widening tropics 'will drive deserts into Europe'

The world's tropical zones are growing, threatening to drive the world's great deserts into southern Europe and other heavily populated areas, alarming new research suggests.

The study - based on satellite measurements over the past quarter of a century - shows that the tropics have widened by 140 miles since 1979. Scientists suspect that global warming is to blame.

Up to now the most startling evidence that the world is heating up has come from the poles where ice sheets have disintegrated, sea ice shrunk, and glaciers started racing towards the sea. But new research published in the journal Science suggests that equally dramatic changes are under way in the hottest parts of the planet.

More...

More fun for the future...

Drinkable water shortage is a problem, but more in some places than others.

The Portuguese rivers have the problem of starting in Spain, so when they reach Portugal they may have been reduced in a big way after passing many dams.

But where I live (Almada) we have lots of good water coming from underground in all this area of Almada and specially Seixal, a place where the ships used to go to get fresh water for drinking and pebbles (seixos, from the name Seixal comes) for ballast.

In Portugal we are still in an "official" drought since November/December 2004.

The situation is not that bad, but all the country is considered to be in a drought, altouhg a weak one.

But the amount of water in the soil that the plants can use is below 50% of the normal in all the country.

The fact that there are more people in the world consuming water is not the real problem, humans consume little amounts of water when compared with some industries.

Also, in the poorer countries they usually do not have to wash the car, they do not use washing machines for the laundry or the dishes, etc.

PS: 2005 was not the worst year in the last 300 years, it was the worst since 1931, we should never believe all that the media says.

Warning of regular water bans in South

The prospect of water bans, standpipes and drought orders becoming commonplace in some parts of Britain will be raised this week in a hard-hitting report that calls for urgent action to confront the crisis.

In a stark conclusion from five months of expert hearings, the Lords' science and technology committee will say that the government and the water regulator must dramatically raise their game if they are to head off increasingly serious shortages, particularly in the south of England.

The committee report, to be published on Tuesday, will increase pressure for concerted action by government, the regulator Ofwat and water companies which have recently reported hefty profits.

More...

More lovely info for this thread....

[edit on 4-6-2006 by loam]

And another....

Desert cities are living on borrowed time, UN warns

The 500 million people who live in the world's desert regions can expect to find life increasingly unbearable as already high temperatures soar and the available water is used up or turns salty, according to the United Nations.

Desert cities in the US and Middle East, such as Phoenix and Riyadh, may be living on borrowed time as water tables drop and supplies become undrinkable, says a report coinciding with today's world environment day.

Twentieth-century modernist dreams of greening deserts by diverting rivers and mining underground water are wholly unrealistic, it warns.

More...

more news relating to water shortages and the inevitable consequences are coming to the forefront.

Spain`s water reserves still shrinking
MADRID, Spain (UPI) -- Spain`s water reserves at a 10-year low amid an ongoing drought, said the country`s Environmental Ministry, El Mundo reported online Tuesday.

The country`s reserves stand at about 56 percent of capacity, said officials Tuesday. Water levels at reservoirs have dropped for the fifth consecutive week, EFE news agency reported.

Spain is undergoing its worst drought in nearly a century.

and in England

British Lawmakers Say Water Prices Must Rise in Face of Drought
June 6 (Bloomberg) -- British water prices must increase to fund investment in pipes and reservoirs as the government and companies such as Thames Water Plc try to cope with the country's worst rainfall shortage in more than 70 years.

and in China

Beijing warned of 2008 water shortage
Beijing residents are being warned to start taking action to save water or face a massive shortage of 1.1 billion cubic meters by 2008.
The estimate of the shortage was based on the city's current water consumption and efficiency levels, said Ma Weifang with the city's sustainable development promotion committee.

The city's annual per capita reserve stands at about 300 cubic meters, while an acute shortage is generally deemed to be 1,000 cubic meters or less.

But the situation could still be salvaged if all conservation measures were implemented and use of recycled water increased, Ma said.

and in Nigeria

Water shortage hits Jigawa
Water shortage has hit Dutse, the capital of Jigawa State and other parts of the state. Nigerian Tribune gathered that residents were expressing fear over possible outbreak of water-borne diseases.

Reports from the state showed that the people could not remember the last time they had water from taps in Dutse and other major towns in the state.


Nigerian Tribune findings revealed that most of the open wells and hand pumps were dry. People in the affected areas now depend on stagnant water that came with the recent rainfall.

It would seem that climate change and population stress on old existing systems is accelerating the water shortage situation faster than I have been anticipating.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
...faster than I have been anticipating.

I quite agree! This could make oil as relevant an issue as ice-cream.

Crisis looms as Lake Victoria shrinks at an alarming rate

At first scientists dismissed concerns about declining water levels in Lake Victoria as normal and assured worried fishermen that all was well.

But five years later, it is clear this is no ordinary phenomenon as the experts had said.

What started as a small problem has sparked an international environmental crisis.

Africa's largest fresh water lake is shrinking at an alarming rate, posing a threat to the livelihoods of some 30 million people.

More...

I think that article speaks for itself.