California Colloquium on Water - William M. Alley

"Tracking the Nation's Ground Water Reserves"
Abstract: During the past 50 years, groundwater depletion has spread from isolated pockets to large areas in many countries throughout the world. A growing awareness of groundwater as a critical natural resource leads to some basic questions. How much groundwater do we have left? Are we running out? Where are groundwater resources most stressed? Where are they most available for future supply? This presentation discusses how the issues associated with groundwater depletion have evolved, what we know about the Nation's groundwater reserves today, and approaches to improve upon that knowledge base at the regional and national scale.

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[ficken3]

Increasing desalination efficiency is not easily done. You are limited by laws of thermodynamics. Water must be heated to a certain temperature to kill bacteria, and it must be turned into steam to eliminate most of the salt. I do believe California should be forced to use desalination and leave the landlocked states the Colorado river water, but I am biased being from one of those states.

[Chainslaw4]

@frnnk But it will get harder to get fresh water. Yes, there is plenty of water around, but in the case of 99% of it (98% seawater, 2% ice caps), to get it drinkable takes an enormous amount of energy, whether through desalination, melting, or using a still. Groundwater is valuable because it takes minimal energy to get at it and it's easily made drinkable.

[frnnk]

I believe that this borders on fearmongering. If we believe freshwater is running out, we may as well believe that fresh oxygen is running out as well. We all acknowledge that modern understanding of technological evolution: If we have a problem, we can infinitely invent our way to the solution. Therefore, just as we've increased solar power efficiency, desalinization technology shall aslo be. Watch this at your own risk.