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Jan. 30, 2005 Water may be the most critical natural resource in the world today. The situation is desperate in the Middle East, with several countries already entirely dependent on desalination of seawater as a means to survival. Even in California, where the population threatens to outgrow the available conventional sources of water, forward-looking people are thinking of the inexhaustible waters of the sea. Construction of desalting plants is under way, as technological advances bring down the costs of desalination. This is something I have been dreaming about for years, but who am I? How would large-scale desalination projects be financed? According to a recent estimate, the combined cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will reach or top $300,000,000,000. Currently, the cost of desalinizing sea water at some of the facilities in California is about $2000 per acre foot, including capital outlay. If it takes two feet of water per year to grow wheat, the sum of $300,000,000,000 would pay for the desalination of enough water to irrigate 7,500,000 acres, or almost 12,000 square miles, of desert for a period of ten years. In a maximally sunny clime, like that of Arizona or Libya, 12,000 square miles of land might yield as much as 24,000,000 tons of wheat a year, from which perhaps 16,000,000 tons of bread might be baked, enough to provide 88,000,000 people with a pound of bread a day for ten years. That would be the figure if the new wheat lands were not already receiving any rain whatsoever. If, like Arizona, they were already receiving 8 to 12 inches of rain annually, the figure of 88,000,000 would climb to well over 100,000,000, perhaps even to 150,000,000. The foregoiug figures would be true if today's state-of-the-art technology were to remain in place over the ten years proposed. But if generous sums of money were spent on research, the figure of $2000 per acre foot might be reduced considerably. Apparently, some facilities in the US are already producing fresh water for as little as $700 an acre foot. One can only surmise that properly managed facilities in many foreign countries might produce it even more cheaply, given the lower wages that prevail there. If major technological breathroughs should be made in desalination techniques through such a program of investment and research, they could pave the way for real advances in dealing with world hunger. I myself have seen vast tracts of potentially arable land in Asia, Africa, North America and South America, just waiting for the magic touch of water. But it would require a complete reorientation of out thinking. With Isaiah, we would have to beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks, on the world scene. But I don't think that that is the scenario written for Bush by his masters over at the Project for a New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. If you don't believe me, visit their websites. Their agenda is more like conquest and warfare. The average Anerican is deceived into thinking that the US already does provide masses of foreign aid. According to the NYT, the average American believes that 24.0% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, but in reality the figure is more like 0.15%, less than one one- hundreth of the imagined figure. So he concludes that he's done his Christian duty and can now get on to the real issues in life, like basketball games, rock-and-roll and comedy shows. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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