3/4 of Earth is water...how can we be short of water?

Question

Surely with all the technological advances in the world today, there must be a way to purify and channel water from the ocean?

If its too expensive then surely the top powers in the world can invest in this project to ensure a steady supply? I mean they fund wars and other major projects...isnt this as important?

Answer 1

Water purification requires energy: to transport the water from its sources, to purify the water and finaly to distribute it allocatively to where there is more need of it. What we are short of is not water. What we are short of is harnessable energy.

Answer 2

What is needed is not just water, but potable (drinkable) water.

There are technologies to purify water such as desalination, reverse osmosis using membrane technology, and others.

There is a cost associated with purifying water. So if this cost is higher than just buying water from a supplier, then it doesn't make economic sense to do so. It may interest you to know that in some countries, a litre of drinkable bottled water is as expensive as a litre of petrol.

However, if potable water become scarce, its price will go up and then the prospect to look for alternative supply becomes not only attractive but a necessity.

It had been forecasted that the supply of potable water is insufficient to meet demand in the future. Therefore, some companies are already seizing this opportunity to become a technological leader in water treatment technology.

Answer 3

Yes, its true that 78% or so of the water that covers the earth is SALT WATER- which means its pretty much undrinkable. Only roughly 3% of the total water supply on this planet is fresh water and is drinkable.

Throw in poisonous chemicals from manufacturing plants, nuclear waste, and too much fecial mater from humans and the number drops pretty quick.

The water cycle that we drink starts like this: You have an ocean- any ocean will do. Water evaporates, forms clouds, wind blows the clouds to the mountains, the clouds are then squeezed from the wind on one side, the mountains on the other- this forms drops of rain. The rain falls from the sky, is absorbed into the ground- sometimes thousands of feet undergroud- into huge pools. Wells are then drilled- usually deeper than 10 feet to prevent contamination from bacteria that occur on the surface of the earth- the water is then pumped out. The water is then drank/showered/pooped with, then the effluent (also known as "Black Water" with poop, or "Grey Water" with soap and body washing runoff) is treated in a water waste treatment plant. First, the effluent is filtered to remove large particles- such as womens tampons, rocks, dirt, pollywogs, dead goldfish, tires, bicycles from the water. The water is then put into huge holding tanks where bacteria is used to treat the poopy water- the bacteria essentially eats the poop, and the water is then treated with chlorine. The particles of poop are then either used in landfill or used as ferterlizer for farmers. The water- which is drinkable again- is then flushed into a stream, a river or the ocean where the whole cycle starts over again. This water cycle takes about 16 years to do.

If you have an aquarium, the same process takes place on a much smaller scale. Fish poop, it gets sucked down between the rock and sand into the undergravel filter, bacteria break it down, and the cycle is repeated.

Answer 4

It isn't just a question of how expensive it is to perform the project, it is the after. How expensive is it going to become for the average person to get a drink of water? Because inevitably after a project such as that these governments are gong to ensure that they can pay for this project, & who better than the taxpayer /home owner to be taxed in some fashion to cover this. Then there is the possibility of us having to purchase the water than having it supplied to us freely.

Answer 5

Supply and demand. Low water supply, high demand, equals high prices, that's why bottled water costs a buck and a half. If the people in charge just made water accessable to all then water would be cheap, and there would be less money poured into the economy. It's all about money, isn't everything?

Answer 6

In fact we won't be short of water in that sense. However, we are heading to the situation where easy access to water resources is becoming a problem. Water level goes down. Its there , but access to it becomes difficult. Similarly, select sources of water may undergo some changes & result in drying of rivers. A particular lake dries up & so on.

Answer 7

Yeah you are right the only thing is that our governments are bent on doing other things with our resources other than focus only on water. You may wish to know that the closest beach(ocean) to my town is about 900miles and there are others that is much more far.

Answer 8

Well there is no shortage of water, just usable drinking water. Most of the water you are refering to is salt water, which cannot be used for drinking. You would think that it would be as simple as that nowadays, but like you said they are busy spending money going to war.

Answer 9

REMEMBER THIS....".BADS NEWS SELLS NEWSPAPERS" it is always a terror tactic to sell the news. AAAARGGHHHH ....WHAT NO WATER???? I am going to die !!!...but in reality ,yes there is plenty of water.....but now we have to "conserve" hahahaha...glaciers are melting , ice caps are going away ..and AMERICA has 1.6 TRILLION barrels of oil in OIL SHALE in colorado....60 times the reserves of SAUDI ARABIA.....and our 2nd largest supplier is MEXICO AND we take in 12 million mexicans to live in our great country yet they are sooo broke the average wage is $5 a day( in mexico) and we pay them $78 dollars a barrel for oil.....so, SEE WHAT I MEAN>>??? DISGUSTING isn't it?? It's all about the money and selling newspapers.........

Answer 10

why the ocean? if we could make sure that all urine was filtered, there would be a closed system of water availability. you need to think out of the box.