6 Important Things You Didn't Know We're Running Out Of

When talking about shortages of water it isn't just drinking water that's the problem, it's water for agriculture, industry, etc.

 

Desalination is pretty expensive since it requires a lot of energy, probably will become prohibitively expensive for most nations if the price of oil keeps increasing.

Hopefully progressing desalination technology will be able to stem some of these wars before they occur, but it will still probably be expensive if you want to desalinated water to be brought inland.

 

If we don't wipe ourselves out, we'll probably destroy a lot of our current civilization and soceity and shrink the population down to a much smaller size. We'd essentially start all over again but with more technology.

 

Fitting Dilbert strip today...

 

really?? the one resource we can't live without for very long at all....and you don't think we'll spend any time on that? you don't see a profit motive for someone to do that??

 

I was reading an article on the massive amounts of water electricity production using for steam and cooling.

 

This guy swears it's yummy.

 

didn't expect MadMax to be so dismissive of the potential chaos from an energy shortage...

 

The water issue is not so much for quenching people's thirst, but for growing the food that we eat.

You can probably purify enough for people to drink, but can you do that for the huge number of acre feet it takes to grow citrus in CA or corn in Nebraska or cotton in TX?

That said, SoCal and AZ cities, along with a good chunk of the West are in trouble... particularly with climate change, decreased snow pack, less water in streams, shorter flow seasons, etc.

 

...and I don't really know what phosphorous is used for, or what medical isotopes are, but the other four on the list were a pretty integral part of my kids' pool party last month. (#3 was restricted to the parents -- as far as I know).

 

Helium is the second most abundant element in this universe and water covers 2/3 of this planet. Oh the irony.

 

Wiki is your friend:

Phosphorus compounds are used in explosives, nerve agents, friction matches, fireworks, pesticides, toothpastes, and detergents.

Phosphorus, being an essential plant nutrient, finds its major use as a constituent of fertilizers for agriculture and farm production in the form of concentrated phosphoric acids, which can consist of 70% to 75% P2O5. Global demand for fertilizers led to large increase in phosphate production in the second half of the 20th century.

Phosphorus is also an important component in steel production.

Red phosphorus is essential for manufacturing matchbook strikers, flares,[13] safety matches, pharmaceutical grade and street methamphetamine, and is used in cap gun caps.

Phosphorus is a key element in all known forms of life.

An average adult human contains about 0.7 kg of phosphorus, about 85-90% of which is present in bones and teeth.

A well-fed adult in the industrialized world consumes and excretes about 1-3 g of phosphorus per day.

Phosphorus is an essential macromineral for plants.

 

thanks.

you must be a lot of fun at birthday parties.

fwiw -- we did have matches at the party. Is that 5 of 6 now? We didn't have explosives, nerve agents, pesticides or methamphetamines. Maybe next year? Assuming they're still available.

 

Which is why ownership of guns makes as much sense.

 

Desal has been around for decades. For some reason people think it is new technology.

I used to cover the water industry and desal basically ensures that we will always have enough water to drink if you have access to the oceans and are willing to pay for more expensive water.

That being said, the poor countries are running out of clean and accessible water. The global water shortage will not wipe out the USA. It might affect California's agriculture industry and our domestic supply of lettuce and strawberries but not to the point where people are dying of thirst.