4 ms·

Wars about control of water will be centered around areas with fresh water availability. The middle east doesnt have any. If you have cheap desalinization capa

Wars about control of water will be centered around areas with fresh water availability. The middle east doesnt have any. If you have cheap desalinization capability, why would there be wars over water?

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Wars about control of water will be centered around areas with fresh water availability. The middle east doesnt have any. More likely, they'll be centered around points of availability in areas of relative scarcity. There is, in fact freshwater in the Middle East, just not a lot. Which makes what is there a potential source of contention.
- Misdicorl 8y ago
  Fair point. Do climate models have the fidelity to predict desertification? My intuition would be that the entire middle east will be devoid of water at 2 degrees hotter.
  - SuoDuanDao 8y ago
    As always, the question is 'with how much certainty'? At low enough certainty I could predict what parts of the world will get dryer or wetter on the back of an envelope, but there are a lot of unknowables like human activity that would have to be included to make a quite reliable prediction.
stcredzero 8y ago
If you have cheap desalinization capability, why would there be wars over water? "Cheap" desalinization is like "bargain" chip fab. It's still an inherently expensive proposition.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  I agree that cheap and expensive need context. According to the first link I found about large scale desalination, it can be done for a wholesale price of around $0.58/cubic meter.[1] For comparison, my local water authority (in a part of the US that is not particularly dry) charges about $0.94/cubic meter. Without knowing exactly what the difference is between wholesale and retail rates, I feel reasonably confident that desalination technology is currently sufficient to avoid civilization collapse and/or war. [1]https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534996/megascale-desalination/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534996/megascale-desalina...
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    I feel reasonably confident that desalination technology is currently sufficient to avoid civilization collapse and/or war. Yes. But the experience up until now, is that desalinization is so much more expensive than other water sources, to the point that such plants often get mothballed when the other sources become available again. https://www.circleofblue.org/2016/asia/water-scarce-regions-desalination-plants-risky-investments/ https://www.circleofblue.org/2016/asia/water-scarce-regions-...
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    > Without knowing exactly what the difference is between wholesale and retail rates, I feel reasonably confident that desalination technology is currently sufficient to avoid civilization collapse and/or war. The problem is you're gonna need energy to operate these plants and you can't scale stuff up infinitely as the brine will kill off marine life and eventually, the water sources will become so salty that they can not be used for desalination any more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/sep/29/peak-salt-is-the-desalination-dream-over-for-the-gulf-states https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals... Which means, once Peak Salt hits, there will be problems. Oh, and desalinating water for drinking purposes is one thing - using it for agricultural demands is a whole different beast. Egypt, for example, already had problems in 2010, and the issue won't get smaller over the decades. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/09/egypt.water.shortage/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/09/egypt.water.s...

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Wars about control of water will be centered around areas with fresh water availability. The middle east doesnt have any. More likely, they'll be centered around points of availability in areas of relative scarcity. There is, in fact freshwater in the Middle East, just not a lot. Which makes what is there a potential source of contention.

Misdicorl 8y ago
Fair point. Do climate models have the fidelity to predict desertification? My intuition would be that the entire middle east will be devoid of water at 2 degrees hotter.
- SuoDuanDao 8y ago
  As always, the question is 'with how much certainty'? At low enough certainty I could predict what parts of the world will get dryer or wetter on the back of an envelope, but there are a lot of unknowables like human activity that would have to be included to make a quite reliable prediction.

stcredzero 8y ago

If you have cheap desalinization capability, why would there be wars over water? "Cheap" desalinization is like "bargain" chip fab. It's still an inherently expensive proposition.

perl4ever 8y ago
I agree that cheap and expensive need context. According to the first link I found about large scale desalination, it can be done for a wholesale price of around $0.58/cubic meter.[1] For comparison, my local water authority (in a part of the US that is not particularly dry) charges about $0.94/cubic meter. Without knowing exactly what the difference is between wholesale and retail rates, I feel reasonably confident that desalination technology is currently sufficient to avoid civilization collapse and/or war. [1]https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534996/megascale-desalination/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534996/megascale-desalina...
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I feel reasonably confident that desalination technology is currently sufficient to avoid civilization collapse and/or war. Yes. But the experience up until now, is that desalinization is so much more expensive than other water sources, to the point that such plants often get mothballed when the other sources become available again. https://www.circleofblue.org/2016/asia/water-scarce-regions-desalination-plants-risky-investments/ https://www.circleofblue.org/2016/asia/water-scarce-regions-...
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > Without knowing exactly what the difference is between wholesale and retail rates, I feel reasonably confident that desalination technology is currently sufficient to avoid civilization collapse and/or war. The problem is you're gonna need energy to operate these plants and you can't scale stuff up infinitely as the brine will kill off marine life and eventually, the water sources will become so salty that they can not be used for desalination any more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/sep/29/peak-salt-is-the-desalination-dream-over-for-the-gulf-states https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals... Which means, once Peak Salt hits, there will be problems. Oh, and desalinating water for drinking purposes is one thing - using it for agricultural demands is a whole different beast. Egypt, for example, already had problems in 2010, and the issue won't get smaller over the decades. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/09/egypt.water.shortage/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/09/egypt.water.s...