DailyDirt: Safe Drinking Water
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The world is covered in water, but not all of it is actually safe to drink. Usually, the problem is that it's too energy intensive (and thereby costly) to purify it. It's a long-standing problem, but there's been some progress. Here are just few quick links on potable water supplies.- Banana peels have actually been proven to effectively filter out various harmful metals from water. They don't kill bacteria, though, and stuffing them into Brita bottles probably won't work, either. [url]
- Desalination should be a "last resort" for water purification, but it's been getting more widely used despite its costs. Desalination technology is improving, but it still uses a lot of energy. [url]
- Perhaps the real last resort, though, should be towing an iceberg to where you need fresh water. A 30 million ton iceberg could provide enough drinking water for about about 500,000 people -- for a year. [url]
- A bunch of companies are promoting water conservation with the slogan: "Wasting Water is Weird." Will quirky viral videos help people to conserve water? [url]
- To discover more related links on stuff we eat or drink, check out what's brewing on StumbleUpon. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: banana peels, conservation, desalination, iceberg, potable, water
Companies: bosch, kohler, lowe's, p&g
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl_(film)
"The film takes place in a dystopian 2033, after a comet has hit the Earth, altering the climate and turning it into a wasteland. There has been no rain for over 11 years. Water is extremely scarce, and what little is available is controlled by the Water & Power (W&P), led by Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). Water & Power are opposed by the almost mythical "Rippers," a mysterious group that no one can find. Tank Girl, a.k.a. Rebecca (Lori Petty), is a member of a small outlaw group that has set up their own water well in the basement of a house. Learning of the well, W&P attacks, killing most in the house and taking Rebecca and a young girl named Sam. Imprisoned, Rebecca is repeatedly brutalized by Kesslee, who wants to break her spirit. Between intellectual jousts with Kesslee, Rebecca befriends her neighbor cellmate, a mechanic who works on W&P's vehicles...."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ridiculous isn't it?
The entire population of the planet, with a few exeptions, is so incredibly hung up on the money system that people don't even question it anymore - this in spite of the absolutely staggering waste of other resources it causes and the vast social problems we have because of it. It's quite a trick - keep people arguing about irrelevant garbage and they won't drill down until they find the one common denominator when it comes to what is killing us all - money, trade and the profit motive, the root cause of virtually all suffering and difficulties we have today.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ridiculous isn't it?
No? All right then, how about $50 million? Isn't that just a little bit tempting? Think how effectively you could use that money to promote some of your OTHER causes.
Money is like a drug. Humans want pleasant lives NOW, while they still have a chance to enjoy them. People can be altruistic toward family, friends, and even the occasional stranger, but I'm not sure individuals of our species will ever become altruistic toward the world.
This human failing only matters now that we have a global technological culture. Until very recently, when resources became scarce, our kind would just move on, and keep moving until we found the stuff we needed.
Now that we are so numerous, I don't see how we can fail to use up everything. We just don't have instincts for preserving the whole world. Such an instinct would never have made sense in the past. The only way we might acquire such an instinct would be to have many or most of us die out, leaving behind the ones who cared about the world. But the ones left alive would probably not be the ones who cared about the world -- just the fighters, as usual.
The only way we might be able to stave off the stripping bare of the planet would be to modify our own brains to make us less selfish. When you think of the kind of conflicts such a policy would generate, it's chilling. And obviously, the selfish people would never submit.
No, I think we are going down. After the catastrophes have drastically reduced the population, maybe a new way for humans to cooperate will emerge.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Safe water should be one of many first priorities
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Water, Water Everywhere
Clean freshwater is a huge problem in some areas, but certainly not across the globe. It is a regional problem.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Water, Water Everywhere
Clean freshwater is a huge problem in some areas, but certainly not across the globe. It is a regional problem.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Grant gets desalination plant underway
“Abundant brackish groundwater is available, and technology exists to make that water drinkable.” But desalinating enough brackish groundwater to supply entire communities requires tremendous amounts of electricity, Baldwin said. “That’s too expensive for most small towns,” Baldwin said. “But if you have good wind resources like Colorado City does, then you may be able to make desalination affordable by using wind power.”
While another is turning to recycling their sewage...
Desperate to drink, West Texas turns to wastewater
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Beer is better for you
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Beer is really the answer :)
But, don't worry: there is german beer :) That's how we all survive here :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]