R.C.Macaulay wrote:
The world populace is yet to become fully aware of the vital importance of water over energy.
Do you mean that water is a higher priority than energy? Perhaps it is. But for nonpolluting sources of energy such as fission and solar, energy IS water. You might say it converts to water, with desalination.
In the revised version of my book, chapter 8, I updated the info on desalination with the latest developments from Israel. The Ashkelon plant there produces 1/6 of their drinking water or 5% of all water "including water used in industry and irrigation." In other words, if they built 20 fission powered desalination plants on this scale, 6 million people living on 20 million square kilometers of land with little rainfall would have all the water they need for a European / American lifestyle, with little pollution. This plant is not large, as you can from on-line photos.
Desalination technology has improved in recent years, more than I thought it would.
There are also many underutilized methods of conserving water. In Los Angeles, water conservation and recycling has been improved tremendously in the past 20 years. The Israelis have pioneered subsurface irrigation which reduces consumption by about 2/3rds. As Nick Palmer pointed out, I hope that in the distant future, most agricultural be done in enclosed factories, but before we reach that happy state, we can take many intermediate steps to improve agriculture and reduce water consumption.
- Jed
