If you enjoyed a cup of coffee this morning, it might interest you to
know it took 140 liters of water to produce that cup. Such a simple but
profound equation.
It is strange, strange, strange that when it comes to the
most important subject on the planet, the basis of all life - water -
governments, international agencies, economists, scientists and
businesses have consistently underestimated the growth in global demand,
and the growing stress on supply.
It's the biggest story in the world, yet mostly what we
talk about is money: debt, growth, superannuation, savings,
stockmarkets, gross national product, housing prices, wages.
Australia's future growth is predicated on the
expectation that China and India will continue to emerge as economic
behemoths. But the explosion in energy use on which Australia's current
boom is based is accelerating the water debt in both China and India.
The link between energy and water is rarely discussed,
yet is of huge consequence. The problem was encapsulated in Steven Salomon's book, Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization (2010). He later updated the dilemma in the Journal of Energy Security:
''Pumping, conveying, and treating water is extremely
energy-intensive. Water is very heavy - 20 per cent more than oil - and
massive volumes are required to sustain modern society . . . each day
every person living in an industrialized nation personally consumes
about [US]1000 gallons [3785 liters] embedded in the food we eat . . .
''
Think of that cup of coffee and its 140 liters. Or a single steak, which requires almost 10,000 liters of water to produce.
Solomon continues: ''While the 13-fold increase in energy
use in the 20th century is often heralded as the signature factor in
the unprecedented prosperity of a world population that has quadrupled
to over 6 billion, it has been accompanied and also leveraged by a
nine-fold increase in freshwater use
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