Water ; Oil of 21th Century ?

[Hotrod525]

hi every one, i was listening news today and they start talking about the fact my country ( Canada ) got more than half potable water in the world.. so i start asking my self if they will do war for water as they do it for oil ?

[MajorPwnag3]

That depends if the cost of creating desalination plants go down. Currently, most water is undrinkable because it is salt water, but you can evaporate the water and get rid of the salt. It's really expensive to do a lot of that, though, so the cost needs to go down before it's feasible on a large scale. This being said, remember that water is a renewable resource (you drink it, process it, and then expel it again) whereas oil does not come back after you're done with it (or at least not very fast). In some countries there are definitely water shortages, but those shortages will probably be remedied with desalination and foreign aid, whereas oil will soon be scarce in all countries. So yes, there may be wars for water, but it is quite unlikely these wars will be between developed countries given our current state of affairs. However, it would be kind of cool if there was a Mad Max style, post-apocalyptic future where bands of biker thugs pillaged villages of nomads to find water and oil.

[WNxKenwayy]

No. People bitch and complain because they can't have their gardens running 24/7, not because they are dehydrated from a lack of water supply.

[[R-MOD]Saobh]

Originally Posted by WNxKenwayy

No. People bitch and complain because they can't have their gardens running 24/7, not because they are dehydrated from a lack of water supply.

Thats only true if you live in one of our Western countries and to a lesser extent to other countries in the world.
But for much of the worlds population, access to drinkable water is a luxury.
But its not even about the problem of drinkability, its also about its usability.
The conflict between Israel and its neighbors has also to do with access to water supplies, as without water to plantations.
Or you can take the example of China controlling Tibet which is the source of much of the major rivers in South east Asia, what would happen if they diverted or simply polluted that water supply ? In what way would all those countries be affected ?

Water has always been a key strategic resource and will continue to grow in the next centuries as the worlds population will continue to grow, be thirsty and need to eat.
So until we can desalinize water at a cheap cost, conflicts will come of it.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

Furthermore, as desertification progresses, water will become more important. I'm not so sure about us having 50% of the world's potable water though, unless you count permafrost as containing potable water. And Russia and Antarctica has plenty of that.

[WNxKenwayy]

Originally Posted by Saobh

Thats only true if you live in one of our Western countries and to a lesser extent to other countries in the world.
But for much of the worlds population, access to drinkable water is a luxury.
But its not even about the problem of drinkability, its also about its usability.
The conflict between Israel and its neighbors has also to do with access to water supplies, as without water to plantations.
Or you can take the example of China controlling Tibet which is the source of much of the major rivers in South east Asia, what would happen if they diverted or simply polluted that water supply ? In what way would all those countries be affected ?

Water has always been a key strategic resource and will continue to grow in the next centuries as the worlds population will continue to grow, be thirsty and need to eat.
So until we can desalinize water at a cheap cost, conflicts will come of it.

Then that's their problem. So long as we and our allies have access to plenty of drinking water (which we do and will have no problem with for the foreseeable future) then tough nugget. Yes a lot of desert countries have problems with water, comes with the territory of living in a desert. If I will do is give them water or pay for them to get access to it, we simply encourage them no to change or develop which just creates an infinite drain on our economy.

[[R-COM]Outlawz]

Originally Posted by [R-MOD]Wasteland

Furthermore, as desertification progresses, water will become more important. I'm not so sure about us having 50% of the world's potable water though, unless you count permafrost as containing potable water. And Russia and Antarctica has plenty of that.

In geology, permafrost or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water (0 °C or 32 °F) for two or more years. Ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of the ground material. Most permafrost is located in high latitudes (e.g. North and South poles), but alpine permafrost exists at high altitudes.

I'm sure we can get water from soil

Didn't you mean something like eternal ice/snow there?

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

No. I meant permafrost. There's a lot of water locked up in our northern soil.

[[R-COM]Outlawz]

Yeah, and are you going to melt half of Canada, since I don't think, you can get those water reserves out so easy, unless you drill forever?

[SiN|ScarFace]

What about desalinization of sea water?