XKCD: It's more than a comic

What-If #91: Faucet Power

The answer to the question of whether you could generate enough electricity to run your home by using the "free" municipal water from your faucet to power a turbine is that you'd do better to bottle it and sell it for $1.50 a pop.

Of course, I pay for my water, so it's not even applicable to me. Also, I love the Take Thats at idiots on YouTube who put out "free power" videos.

We should start a cheap bottled water distribution industry and undercut the big brands.

edited 8th Apr '14 6:45:37 PM by Fighteer

Wait, there are actually places in the world where you have to pay for electricity but not for tap water?

First of all, quite entertaining and a nice little scenario.

Secondly, I too am surprised that there are some places where water is "free". I kind of assumed you pay it everywhere you pay for utilities.

Now this has me interested in the price of water in the places where you guys live.

I get my water for free because I live in student housing. (I also don't pay for electricity.) I looked up water prices in Finland, and it seems the average is something like €4 per cubic metre. (That's 1 000 litres, or apparently something like 264 gallons.)

According to the UN the quality of tap water in Finland is the best in the world, so even if it turns out our prices are a bit steep I'll comfort myself with the knowledge that there's literally no country on Earth where you get better drinking water than you do in Finland.

Yep, my rental agreement has me paying for electricity but not water, too.

What happens in a lot of places is that municipal taxes pay for everyone's water in aggregate. You don't get charged for your individual usage. This, of course, creates a situation where some people may seek to abuse the privilege and consume ridiculous amounts of water at the expense of their neighbors.

My understanding is that our water mines (aquifers, ie: why digging wells works) are drying up because we act like it's unlimited. Basically the same situation as oil. At some point in the next few decades we'll flat out run out of water and we're pretty much doomed in terms of large scale irrigation and whatnot.

Not exactly. The water isn't "disappearing"; it's getting moved from one place to another. We bring it up, use it, it evaporates, comes down as rain, rinse, repeat. You know, elementary school stuff.

The Earth's surface is 71% water. It's not finding it that's the problem, it's getting it to the places where it's needed and cleaning it so it's suitable for use.

Problem is that when it gets to the ocean it becomes incredibly difficult to use. And most paths lead to the ocean. The only natural process that desalinates water is evaporation/rainfall, but that's fairly limited year-to-year. What we use is mostly the stockpile of groundwater that's been pooling up for billions of years, and when we run out we'll have a fraction of what we're used to using. The "the Earth is covered with water" point is technically true, but more misleading than helpful. That's why there's not much focus on this issue.

Alternately we could spend a ridiculous amount of energy manually desalinating everything.

edited 9th Apr '14 7:21:21 AM by Clarste

It's at least an option. /shrug

One way or another, we'll have to figure out a solution.

I don't think the east coast has a problem with its aquifers

The new one for the day.

I laughed out loud at the alt-text.

if it comes down to it, we can always go on and build a ton of desalination plants. It'd make water expensive but it's an option.

Expensive water changes the nature of water completely. I mean, it's one thing to take shorter showers or whatever, but the effects will be felt most in agriculture, ie: food. We're talking mass starvation (well, moreso than usual), unless we change our infrastructure significantly.

And of course pumping all that energy into desalination also has ripple effects in the energy market, whose troubles are much more well known.

edited 9th Apr '14 8:58:09 AM by Clarste

I've reached a threshold of environmental disasters that I can reasonably concern myself with. Water policy is so far beyond my individual control, except in as much as I don't take half-hour showers or water my lawn in a drought, that I can't do anything more than I'm already doing in the form of voting for people who will hopefully take pro-conservation positions.

If climate change doesn't kill us, water shortages will do the trick, and if that doesn't, our food will...

Sorry, it's just that there's a point beyond which additional cries of "We're doomed" stop having any emotional impact.

edited 9th Apr '14 8:59:43 AM by Fighteer

Fair enough.

easiest solution to every "green" issue out there- fewer people. we all have one kid for a generation or two and the issues will be solved.

And then our economies collapse due to deflationary pressure. We're already in secular stagnation in many advanced countries; what you are talking about would effectively end the First World.

edited 9th Apr '14 9:12:10 AM by Fighteer

Man, how come we never have any good news about the environment?

So... the nature of modern society and the costs to maintain it means that no matter what we do, our way of life is doomed?

Also, good luck forcing people to stick to the hypothetical "one child per couple" policy.

Easiest? I'm not so sure.

Unless we suddenly invent cold fusion or something similar, I suppose.

edited 9th Apr '14 9:21:29 AM by Clarste

Well. Alright then.

Might as well keep on keeping on, then. I don't know if there are solutions to these problems but I know that I personally can't do anything to fix them short of minor everyday things.

I should add that we already have ZPG or near enough in First World countries, among the middle-class and higher. Almost all population growth in places like the U.S. and Europe is coming from immigration and/or birth rates among the poor. Japan, with incredibly strict immigration policies, is in negative population growth.

The problem with ZPG and NPG is that they increasingly weight demographics towards the elderly, increasing the burden on social services while reducing the workforce. You can't have sustained economic growth without a supply of new labor.

Technology can address some of these problems, of course. We know how we can go about adopting sustainable living models without sacrificing our quality of life; we simply lack the political and social will to do it.

edited 9th Apr '14 9:24:46 AM by Fighteer