this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
114 points (97.5% liked)
Fuck AI
1435 readers
233 users here now
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You do understand that the more expensive it gets, the less people can afford it, right? That's basically the same as running out. Sure, you can desalinate the whole ocean if you want to spend the resources on it. No one is suggesting that there will one day literally be no more fresh water within the foreseeable future. That doesn't really matter to the farmers in developing countries that can't afford to irrigate their fields and thus can't feed the people there.
And then there's the fact that desalination is a huge environmental disaster.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-pours-more-toxic-brine-ocean-previously-thought
You know, all these arguments avoid answering the question about how much more expensive water could be. And I suspect the general answer is: not much. Mass producing fresh water is well understood process. It's also a potential source of sodium for sodium-ion batteries, cheaper alternative to lithium-ion.
I'm fully aware of that - what's missing there is proper regulation by local governments, preventing excess salinity of water dumped back to the ocean