China to reach limits of available water by 2030

[Doctor Cynic]

Source: Reuters

BEIJING — China will have exploited all available water supplies to the limit by 2030, the government has warned, ordering officials to prepare for worse to come as global warming and economic expansion drain lakes and rivers.

As well, a state newspaper warned on Friday that drought next year could hit crops and stoke already heady inflation.

China's surface and underground water supplies are under strain from feverish economic growth and a population passing 1.3 billion. And scarcity will worsen with global warming, the central government warned in a directive.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071214.wchinawater1214/BNStory/International/home/

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By that time they will have no choice but to
a) build massive desalinization and water recycling plants, assuming there's enough energy to power them
b) somehow pressure Russia to allow them to build massive aqueducts from Siberia...this won't end well

[tekisui]

1. When the Oil Wars are finally over.

The Water Wars will follow.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Hmm Sand Dunes?

[Double T]

2. The Chinese invasion of the Great Lakes is inevitable.

Wonder what it will be like to be occupied?

[lvx35]

3. Shit. This indicates to me a nuclear powered future...

Russia has begun building floating nuclear power plants. The £100 million ($204.9 million, 2 billion ???) vessel, the Lomonosov, to be completed in 2010, is the first of seven plants that Moscow says will bring vital energy resources to remote Russian regions. While producing only a small fraction of the power of a standard Russian land-based plant, it can supply power to a city of 200,000, or function as a desalination plant. The Russian atomic energy agency said that at least 12 countries were also interested in buying floating nuclear plants.<26>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

[Doctor Cynic]

4. one problem

Uranium production is expected to peak by that same time. Though on the bright side, a long term goal of Chinese lunar missions is to mine the moon's surface for isotopes of hydrogen, and send them back to earth for fuel cells. Damn that's forward thinking.

[lvx35]

5. Thanks. Do you happen to have any resources on that handy?

I'm going to do a search now for "peak uranium", but if you have any links at hand, I would appreciate them! :)

[lvx35]

6. Here we go, from Wikipedia:

Caltech physics professor David Goodstein has stated <14> that
“ ... you would have to build 10,000 of the largest power plants that are feasible by engineering standards in order to replace the 10 terawatts of fossil fuel we're burning today ... that's a staggering amount and if you did that, the known reserves of uranium would last for 10 to 20 years at that burn rate. So, it's at best a bridging technology ... You can use the rest of the uranium to breed plutonium 239 then we'd have at least 100 times as much fuel to use. But that means you're making plutonium, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do in the dangerous world that we live in.

So at best, we've got 10,000 atomic bomb factories. Creepy.

[nealmhughes]

8. Actually, there are over 100 floating nuclear power plants: they are called submarines and air craft

carriers! I recall once after a hurricane or are they typhoons in the East? hit a Hawaiian island, a US submarine backfed their shorepower cables and powered the island until the power plant there was back in working order.

One could easily take the existing propulsion turbines out and replace them with electrical generators and the thing would be a floating power plant.

I had not read about a U238 shortage until now.

I quit getting Nuclear News over 10 years ago!

[dysfunctional press]

7. or c) grow gills and return to the sea.

nt

[truthisfreedom]

9. They'll be heading north.

No doubt about it.