Hi Derek
>Keith,
>
>Not to belittle your concern about water, its importance, and the likelihood
>of wars being fought over it, but I still tend to feel that energy in one
>form or another is of utmost importance.
Well, yes, but water is already a crisis, and energy isn't, really -
only the rather gross way it gets wasted, and the side-effects of
that, might be a crisis. Okay, IS a crisis. But not one that's
killing people. Or only very slowly and indirectly. So far.
The trouble is that many, or even most, of the places where there are
severe water-shortage problems are poor - Pakistan, Mexico, the
Sahel, and so on and on. Most of Pakistan's 141.5 million people
don't have access to potable water. These countries don't have a lot
of energy to spare, nor a lot of technological capacity either. Or at
least not where it's needed. That is not easily changed. It's not
just me that says the next wars will be over water, many people are
saying so. The UN says so. So does the World Bank.
A report published on March 22 to coincide with World Water Day
warned that two out of every three people will face water shortages
by 2025. It predicted that poor countries would suffer on a massive
scale. This would create 'water refugees' - millions of people forced
to leave their homes in search of clean water. There are already
hundreds of thousands of water refugees in Afghanistan, for instance,
their plight exacerbated by the civil war.
I don't think there are ready energy solutions to these problems.
To these problems, yes, maybe, if there's the will. Even the US is
talking of water shortages now: "Florida, Low on Drinking Water..."
"At a time when nearly every major city in Texas is desperate for
more water to meet runaway population growth..." "Newfoundland plans
to sell lake water to the United States..."
Australians are using 65 percent more water today than they did in
the 1980s. The Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000 found that
26 percent of surface water management areas are approaching or
beyond sustainable extraction limits and that 34 percent of
groundwater management units are approaching or beyond sustainable
extraction limits.
I don't think this is much of a solution: "World Bank and
multinational corporations seeking to privatize world's water
supply". Monsanto sees the growing crisis as a business opportunity.
"Monsanto, the genetically modified food giant, drew up plans to make
billions of dollars out of the world's water crisis, confidential
company documents reveal." (The Independent)
"From Africa to Asia and Australia, from Europe to the Middle East
and the Americas, too many people depend on too little -- and
increasingly limited -- water. Despite Herculean engineering schemes
constructed to water deserts and to store and deliver water where it
would otherwise not be available, demand for water will almost surely
continue to outstrip supply unless we dramatically alter our
behavior." ("Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource", Marq de
Villiers.)
Alter our behaviour... Last year Bill Gates went through 4.7 million
gallons of water -- nearly 60 times the consumption of a typical US
homeowner. His water bill was $24,828. Cheap, eh? So that puts US
average annual household consumption at 78,000 gallons. 35 tons.
Nearly three tons a month. How much of that goes down the toilet?
>I currently live in an environment
>where life is highly dependent upon technology and energy. This has led me
>to appreciate that man can probably live just about anywhere as long as he
>has the energy to bring his life support along and to keep it running. He
>can practically make water as long as he has the energy to do it.
About 4 billion people don't have the energy to do it. Man CAN live
just about anywhere, except at the Poles. Bushmen and Aborigines can
live where there's no surface water at all. But they're not greedy
and they don't waste anything.
>My case in point. I currently live in Saudi Arabia. Life in the past was
>mostly nocturnal and by a few camel herders. Now, thanks to technology and
>relatively cheap energy, life is fairly normal here. Of course, it has its
>price. My house has two humongous air-con units that run constantly in the
>summer when the temperature outside is at 130 F and more. For water, the
>compound has a deep well that brings up this stuff that only someone with a
>good imagination might call water. However, after running it through a
>reverse osmosis plant it rivals most of the stuff one might get out of the
>faucet in the States or Europe. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest producer
>of desalinated water. Basically, the main product of the petroleum fields is
>petroleum for export. They have this byproduct called natural gas that used
>to be just burned off (!). Now they are using it to run their electrical
>generator plants, to their way of thinking, getting something for nothing.
>The electrical plants have been designed as co-gen plants, and as I
>understand the process, the waste heat from the electrical generation is
>used in a process of evaporative desalination. So, they get gobs of water
>from the sea as a byproduct of electrical generation. Consequently, in one
>of the driest of spots on the globe, there is plenty of water.
It's also one of the wealthiest spots on the globe, in money and in energy.
>And guys, please don't flame me on the waste of energy, etc. I'm not saying
>that I think this is a great idea and the way it should be. I'm basically
>stating what I have observed. But still, the water goes around and around
>and is recycled in nature. The supply of water mostly becomes a problem by
>being impure or not being in the right place at the right time. Energy use
>can change that. Therefore, I tend to think that of the two the most
>fundamentally important is plentiful energy.
Plentiful energy is currently the preserve of the rich (who waste it,
mostly). For most of the world, successful water projects are very
local, and low-tech. But there's no need to argue about which is more
important, of course they're both important, and both problems are
symptoms of an over-riding cause - an unjust and inequitable economic
system. If you can call such insanity a "system" at all.
I think we agree, really, don't we Derek? :-)
Best wishes
Keith Addison
Journey to Forever
Handmade Projects
Tokyo
http://journeytoforever.org/
>Derek W. Hargis
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Keith Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 10:43 AM
>Subject: Re: [biofuel] Musings about toilet tissue
>
>
><Major Snip>
>
> > I'm rather alarmed by the fact that, in China at least, they're
> > increasingly using flush toilets, surely the most wasteful device
> > ever invented. And this at a time when water is increasingly being
> > seen as THE scarce resource (not oil), over which future wars are
> > likely to be fought (again, not oil). Along with the immense waste of
> > soil fertility and resulting pollution. Truly insane. This in a
> > country that's maintained its soil fertility and fed its growing
> > population for 40 centuries. And they're far from alone.
> >
> > There's some background here:
> > http://journeytoforever.org/compost_humanure.html
> > Humanure
> >
><Major Snip>
>
>
>Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
>http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
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