There have been a lot of people talking about how fresh water is going away and in the next few decades we are going to see massive shortages. I haven't lived where water shortages have been a real thing so admittedly I have kind of ignored the topic even though it, at least on the surface, promises to be a big deal.
There is a piece of news that I have found though that makes the expectation of a waterless apocalypse a little less likely. Israel is located in an area that is... a desert. There just isn't a lot of fresh water around. However, like they do with pretty much anything they have scienced the crap out of it and have succeeded at doing something that I figured would happen eventually, but wasn't thinking it was so close. They have perfected desalination.
It turns out that over the past few years they have figured out how to get all the pesky salt out of the sea water that they have plenty of and use it to do all the things they need to. And cheaply to boot. Isreal uses desalination plants to provide 55% of the water the country uses and at $0.58 per 1000 liters (264 gallons) it is cheap enough that the average Israeli water bill is about $30 a month. Not bad at all.
They are already exporting the technology and are building several plants in southern California. Pretty soon we will be able to produce as much water as we could ever want to and at a price that works. It will require building some infrastructure (desalination plants and pipelines) but the issue of water doesn't have to be a big deal anymore. And that is a big deal.
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