With all the talk of oil prices in the last year or so, there’s one interesting factoid that came to Stalker’s notice just recently. At the moment a barrel of oil trades at around $75, a barrel of water for human consumption costs $100.
Water has to be captured, stored and treated before it gets to a drinkable state – it is also a finite resource.
Three quarters of the world’s drinkable water is apparently used for growing food.
Here in Ireland you’d think we were landed with water coming out our ears, literally. But all one has to look at is the debacle about diverting water from the Shannon to Dublin, or at the protests about the siphoning of millions of litres a day from Lough Neagh for a power station. Of course the mushroom industry is heavily reliant on both oil and water.
Let’s hope the days when land grabs and wars are fought over the old H2O are far off still.
