Russia has moved to classify key demographic statistics following a dramatic collapse in its birth rate, which has plunged to levels not seen since the late 18th or early 19th century, according to a leading Russian demographer.
For decades, Russia has been experiencing a plunging birth rate and population decline, which appears to have worsened amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine—with high casualty rates and men fleeing the country to avoid being conscripted to fight.
Projections estimate that Russia’s population will fall to about 132 million in the next two decades. The United Nations has predicted that in a worst-case scenario, by the start of the next century, Russia’s population could almost halve to 83 million.
I remember hearing that food engineering was going to solve the planet’s hunger problem. People are still starving, and the rich are becoming richer. Now I’m hearing about “water treatment technology”. Really? Rivers and lakes are drying up. There are unprecedented forest fires, floods, tornadoes, etc. Drinkable water will be more expensive?? WTF? What’s next?? We’re going to have to pay for breathable air?
“people are still starving” is an argument so bad as “there is still cancer” and “there are still traffic accidents”. Those issues are not boolean, the are quantifiable and are going down at a very optimistic rate.
According to this…: https://www.chunkerowaterplant.com/news/water-desalination-cost-per-gallon The cost of desalination per gallon of seawater is “approximately $0.005 to $0.01”
I would assume people would figure it’s cheaper to pay that cost than to fight wars over it. Most of the planet is covered in water. Like with food, these resource shortages are largely political. The hardest part is removing these power hungry parasites from power. Immense suffering is endured all because of these few billionaire pieces of radioactive shit.
That’s ignoring the environmental impact. You get brine on the other end that is basically wet salt iirc and if you release it in bulk you will fuck up the nearby environment
With sodium ion batteries becoming practical, I heard that this could actually become a side business for desalination plants to supply battery makers, but I don’t know how viable it is. Regardless, managing brine is still far less of an issue than fighting war over lack of water.
Plus you have high energy costs for desalination. Solar energy might help, but the desalination process is slow and needs to run 24 hrs a day to produce enough water efficiently.
So nuclear?
You’re building a straw man that is unrelated to the issue at hand. Sure rich hoarding and political issues are bad but we will not run out of water. Period.
Context will tell you that we’re talking about losing access to water. If people won’t procreate because they don’t have water, it makes no difference if it’s because we are literally all out of water or if someone else is hoarding it all. In both cases, there’s no access to water.
Yeah every new technological solution has its associated ecological cost. Some are better than others. Guess which ones are the most profitable.
There’s something called the Kuznets environmental curve that explains this pretty intuitively. It’s an optimistic forecast that I only buy when I’m in a good mood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve