Well I'm sure you've all heard and said "if we run out of lakes etc we can get water from the ocean!" the problems is of course money because it costs a lot to heat the water and get the salt removed. Well I say either a)Leave a barrel of water of water out in the desert or iraq or some other really hot place. Or b)Use a ton of solar panels. This is still just a very small/insignificent/almost pointless idea because it would still cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. Well if you got any efficient ways of desillination and destilling water that may or may not be "better" than mine tell me! (to me the desert water-heating idea seems like it would cost less)

well then Iraq would want some other reason to charge us money neways

i do not think that we will ever run out of fresh water because of the water cycle.... which is the movement and transition of water through things like condensation, precipitation, transpiration, and evaporation.

basicly; Water evaporates from the earth goes in air up to clouds rains (or snows) back down to earth into lakes etc.......

so i dont think that we will ever run out of water...

With heat rising, and more storms coming about, we should get more rain. Plus, hurricanes usually bring floods. Though they're not a good thing for home-owners, it would solve many water issues. Though, it may bring many water issues. Lol.

This post has been edited by truefusion: May 23 2006, 11:27 PM

Well here in the UK we have run out of water in the south east (supposedly), but every reservoir I have seen has been full. A desalination plant would work and remember, the reason they are so expensive is the amount of electricity they use. Spending more at the start on solar panels would dramatically drive down the running costs and save money in the long run.

See? someone agrees with at least one of my ideas. But I do think you would need a lot of solar panels to generate enough energy to go through the whole process.

Getting water from seas and oceans is one of the things we really need to look into, especially here in England

As mentioned briefly above, In the South / South East regions of the country, there has been a drought order passed, meaning that the use of hose pipes is banned, sports centres are unable to pump water through swimming pools, golf courses are unable to sprinkle water over the fairways and greens etc, water is desperately needed.

We're not short of sea water in England though. We have the British Channel, The North Sea and we're also close to the Celtic Sea. The problem with the sea water, is that it contains the salt and sewage, so it's nowhere near fresh!

Even though the sea water isn't really fresh, I fell we should get our water from these. I know it would cost a lot of money, but I'm sure once things started settling down, more efficient ways of filtering would be thought up and it wouldn't cost as much money to do.

I'm not sure whether solar panels would help out enough with the water crisis, although in my opinion, we really should use these to store energy.

I guess we'll find out what happens with the energy sooner or later. If levels are indeed lowering (as the government etc say) then there is a possibility that we may run-out.

This post has been edited by sportytalk: May 24 2006, 07:28 PM

Well, in a litteral sense, the world isn't running out of water. It's just that the world's water supply is being shared by an increasing amount of people. With earth's population on the rise, it could well reach a day when there just isn't enough for everyone.

I think the 'cheapest' solution would be us being more aware of how we use our water and not wasting it. With the weather behaving so erratically, it won't be long before we have to start buying fresh water from countries that have it, or privatising water (as with the on-going debate in South America).

Yeah it is true that half or more of all sewage and water recycling plants dump that water (which is only 95% cleaned) in the ocean. But if they boil it, some of that might get cleaned out. Also just like with anything like sportywalk said, more efficient things can be produced. Just look at cars now. Ethonol as well as hybrids are very popular.
@dreus = the only way to lose water from the earth is to send up a shuttle, and for it to like crash in space. Then the water would be in space. But if we were on a major water crisis we could always get ice from space or something. That would probably be the farthest of last resorts and i'm fairly confident it won't be needed.

the world cannot run out of water unless they pump water into space lol. Howerver nasty it might sound you are drinking your urine or sumone elses. It's so well extracted there is only the water left. So there is always the same amount of water in the world. And on your question of destilling salt water, there is a very simple and cost effective way. Make huge Buckets and fill it with rainwater. Rain water does come from the oceon.