Freshwater - A Singular Resource

Singular, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, means "Being only one; individual, Deviating strongly from the norm." Yes, water, and in particular, freshwater is unlike any other resource.


Water is MORE than just another Commodity

Commodities
Source - tradecommodity.com.au

Water is a commodity in the sense that it is a material that can be bought and sold. 
Being basic to all life is what makes water a commodity with a difference.
Not only was water the medium for incubating life, water is also continuously required for sustaining and maintaining life.
We cannot, therefore, just think of buying and selling water - we must also factor in how humans, all other living species and nature's ecosystems are impacted by us moving water around.


Water is Distributed WORLDWIDE

Freshwater Distribution
Source - rusrev.org

Water is the most widely distributed substance on Earth. It is available everywhere. While the specific amount of water differs in different locations, there is no place on Earth with, literally, no water.
All other natural resources are also widely distributed, but each and everyone is not available everywhere even in the smallest of amounts. Some amount of freshwater is available everywhere on Earth.


Water has NO Substitute
There is no other substance, natural or synthetic, that can replace water. It is hoped that the world will migrate away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. No such transition is possible with water.


Water exists simultaneously in multiple forms: Vapor, liquid and solid

3 forms of water
Source - fcwa.org

No other resource exists in more than one form in the same location. Huge amounts of water are also bound into soil and other materials in every location.
Every other resource exists in a single form, usually as a liquid, in the same location.


We cannot MAKE new water

Periodic Table of Elements
Source - elementsdatabase.com

We humans cannot make any element of the periodic table or the basic compounds that combinations of these elements form in nature.

Water formation Equation
Source - scienceforums.net

Making water is a particularly tough proposition because of the amount of energy released. We simply have no way of containing this energy release.


We cannot DESTROY water
When we burn oil, no more oil remains, as the oil disintegrates into different chemical compounds.
Water, on the other hand, does not ever disintegrate into its components. Water gets polluted, changes color, acquires an odor or simply evaporates into the atmosphere or disappears into the ground.


Water is in Constant MOTION

Water Cycle
Source - kidzone.ws

Unlike every other natural resource, water is in constant motion. It is constantly moving between its three forms - from liquid to vapor, from vapor to liquid, from solid to liquid and every other possible transformation. Water is always moving in rivers and churning in lakes and oceans.
NO other natural resource exhibits this perpetual motion behavior. 


Water's Singularity
Water's perpetual motion, it's simultaneous existence in multiple forms, it's availability everywhere and its role as the basis for all life make it singularly unique.


We seem to want to treat water in ways similar to how we think and act with other resources. This may be our greatest error in dealing with water, and especially, finding ways to alleviate water scarcity everywhere on Earth.


We should, instead be looking at harnessing the unique characteristics of water to end water scarcity everywhere on Earth. 

We Have Never Run Out of Any Natural Resource! (2 of 2)

The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones. It ended after 2.5 million years when humans came up with a suitable replacement, known as "metals" and a new age, the Metal Age, began somewhere between 4500 and 2000 BCE. This transition of "ages" is an example of human ingenuity with "science" at its core.
What is Science?

Science
Source - asiasociety.org

Science, to me, is human understanding of something "that is." This something exists and we can explain how it has come about to be. 

Science
Source - dorchesteru3a.wordpress.com

In some cases, our understanding is so detailed that we can also create the "that is" through human action i.e. artificially. 

Applying science - the knowledge that allows us to test and break constraints imposed by nature - has led to our developing innovations like artificial light to eliminate darkness and new seeds to raise yields so that we can alleviate hunger.

Science has been repeatedly used by us to find a way to alleviate scarcity by developing new sources of scarce resources.

Natural Fertilizers (guano) to Chemical Manures
In 1898, Sir William Crookes, incoming president of the British Academy of Sciences, spoke of people dying in large numbers starting in the 1930s. He explained how farmed and re-farmed soil was loosing fertility and how this loss would cut food production unless a synthetic "chemical manure" was quickly available to replenish spent soil. This replenishment, he said, would produce enough food for the world's growing population.

The Haber-Bosch Process
Source - chemwiki.ucdavis.edu

This call motivated many to create chemical manures. Fritz Haber succeeded in discovering a process in 1909 that extracted nitrogen from the air we breathe, to create ammonia, the first synthetic fertilizer.
This discovery and invention of the Haber-Bosh process is in use all over the world today. If it were shut down everywhere in 2012, over 3 billion of the world's 7 billion people would starve to death regardless of their economic and social stature.

Natural to Synthetic Rubber
Malaysia and Indonesia provide much of the world's natural rubber supply. Japan conquered Malaysia and Indonesia in the early years of World War II and stopped exports of natural rubber. This led to a 90% drop in supply of natural rubber, a necessary military ingredient. 

Synthetic Rubber Manufacturing
Source - ame.org

This supply reduction motivated the US government to push and finance development of synthetic rubbers. 
Creation of synthetic rubber was not a new activity. As early as in 1879, Bouchard, a European scientist, had created a form of synthetic rubber. 
The push by the US brought urgency and resources for the creation of synthetic rubber in vast quantities. 
Synthetic rubber turned out to be better than natural rubber in some ways. Synthetic rubber's resistance to high temperatures is so much better than that of natural rubber that natural rubber uses have declined ever since.

Finding New Freshwater Supplies
Freshwater is a near universal solvent, but also exists within much of nature's creations. Our bodies are ~64% water. Water exists "dissolved" in soil, in the atmosphere and many other places. 
Can we use science, in particular, our understanding of 'water' and how it exists everywhere on Earth, to develop new sources of freshwater? 
There is only one way to get the answer! Especially today, the unsafe and audacious act, but the right one on freshwater, is to issue a call for ways to "increase" water supplies, say, by tapping the continuously replenished ocean of freshwater in the atmosphere.

We have Never Run Out of Any Natural Resource! (1 of 2)

I cannot think of any resource we have ever completely run out of! But the possibility that we may run out of a vital resource scares us to no end. Running out of freshwater is only the latest in a series of scares. Like we have done so many times before, we can rely on human ingenuity to find a way to forever alleviate a perceived or locally-experienced scarcity. One alternate way is to replace what's running out with something totally different.

Whale Oil to Kerosene

Whale Oil
Source - Wikipedia.org

In the mid-19th century, whale oil was the primary fuel for lighting. This "oil" was obtained from the blubber of whales and from the head cavities (not blubber) of the sperm whale. As much as 3 tons of sperm oil could be extracted from large sperm whales.

Whale Oil Lamp
Source - ioffer.com

The typical oil lamp we use today was the oil lamp used to burn whale oil.
As demand grew for whale oil, whale population reduced and whale oil price increased from $200 a barrel in 1983 to nearly $1,500 in 1885. This steep price increase encouraged many individuals to seek an alternative to whale oil. 

Kerosene Drums
Source - hiwtc.com

Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner is credited with developing the way to produce an alternative to whale oil in 1885. He developed the process to distill from bituminous tar, a widely abundant and cheap resource available more commonly than whales, a different kind of oil called Kerosene.
This is the same kerosene we use today to fuel or jet planes.
Scarcity had motivated an individual to innovate a way out of an earlier resource shortage!

Charcoal to Coal

Charcoal
Source - gallerytunsten.com

Charcoal is a fuel produced by heating wood (and other substances) in the absence of oxygen.
Charcoal became scarce in the 17th century when wood use jumped in Europe to meet shipbuilding needs and when forests began to be cleared to produce land for agriculture.
Charcoal prices increased till it was replaced by coal as a primary fuel for heating for a variety of domestic and industrial uses.
Coal is today, the most widely used fossil fuel.
Charcoal continues to be the fuel choice in underdeveloped countries where forests have been decimated by human demand for charcoal for domestic use.
Charcoal's replacement by coal is yet another example of how human ingenuity eradicated a shortage.

Replacement for Water?
Unfortunately, there is no substitute for water and freshwater. So human ingenuity must be applied in a different way. The next post (dated 21 Jan 2012) will address how our reliance on science can help

Water Is Full of Holes

Water is known as a Universal Solvent, because it dissolves most everything. It can do this because water is full of holes.


Some Liquids have Structure
There are simplistically speaking, two kinds of liquids:

- Unstructured liquids have their molecules held together by relatively weak non-directional Van Del Waals forces. These molecules fill space fairly well. Liquid detergents are an example of a widely used unstructured liquid.

Unstructured Liquid
Source - sites.bergen.org

Structured Liquid
Source - ifm.liu.se

- Structured liquids have their molecules held together by relatively stronger forces that exhibit an orientation or direction (polarity) as hydrogen bonds do in water. These molecules do not fill space well - there are voids throughout these liquids that other materials can fill very well.


Water, a Structured Liquid, has Voids
As is obvious from the illustrations, unstructured liquids have very few voids, while structured liquids have voids. The more (and larger voids) a liquid has, the more molecules (and kinds of molecules) of other materials the liquid can absorb i.e. the more universally solvent the liquid is. 
A large part of the volume of liquid water is made up of voids


Water has voids because of Hydrogen Bonds

Source - science.csustan.edu

Hydrogen bonds, it is assumed, shown as grey lines between the water molecules, create the voids in water. The  water molecule,  which  contains two  hydrogen atoms  and  one  oxygen atom  in  a  nonlinear arrangement, is ideally  suited  to  engage  in  hydrogen bonding