Water

There are two major ways in which Focus Fusion can affect the planet’s looming water crisis.  First, as a source of cheap, virtually unlimited energy it makes hydropower obsolete, liberating many water systems currently trapped behind dams.  Second, it will reduce the cost of desalinization dramatically, thus alleviating global water shortages.  Of course, switching to fusion and working on these issues will require a complex transition process.

The Looming Water Crisis

Fred Pearce calls for a “Blue Revolution” and more rational use of water on this planet as he describes the worldwide water crisis in his book “When the Rivers Run Dry.”  Here’s the Publishers Weekly Starred Review of that book:

Veteran science writer Fred Pearce (Turning Up the Heat) makes a strong�and scary�case that a worldwide water shortage is the most fearful looming environmental crisis. With a drumbeat of facts both horrific (thousands of wells in India and Bangladesh are poisoned by fluoride and arsenic) and fascinating (it takes 20 tons of water to make one pound of coffee), the former New Scientist news editor documents a “kind of cataclysm” already affecting many of the world’s great rivers. The Rio Grande is drying up before it reaches the Gulf of Mexico; the Nile has been dammed to a trickle; reservoirs behind ill-conceived dams sacrifice millions of gallons of water to evaporation, while wetlands and floodplains downriver dry up as water flow dwindles. In India, villagers lacking access to clean water for irrigation and drinking are sinking tube wells hundreds of feet down, plundering underground supplies far faster than rainfall can replace them�the same fate facing the Ogallala aquifer of the American Midwest. The news, recounted with a scientist’s relentless accumulation of observable fact, is grim. Maps. (Mar.)
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hydropower and Dams

While hydropower is considered a renewable energy source, harnessing energy from water involves a lot of environmental damage to land, waterways and people.  Focus fusion would provide a ready source of energy for all human needs, there would be no more need for hydro-power (at least not for energy), which means that dams could be dismantled and more leverage given to better water policies.  Not convinced that hydropower is such a bad thing?  Here’s the Booklist review of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment by Jacques Leslie:

During the twentieth century, 45,000 large dams were built in 140 countries, complicated projects that are now being recognized as major environmental and humanitarian disasters. Add to that the fact that freshwater is the most precious and endangered resource on the planet, and journalist Leslie has chosen one hot topic. His extensive research and demanding journeys to controversial dam sites around the world result in solid documentation of the often-corrupt finances and politics of dam building and the cruelty and injustice of the displacement of (usually) indigenous communities and the submergence of their land. Leslie also offers lucid explanations of how dams cause aridity, erosion, extinction, and pollution. Indelible portraits of three dedicated individuals put a human face on the subject. Medha Patkar, India’s leading antidam activist, has put her life at risk to protest the forced displacement of tribal communities. Anthropologist Thayer Scudder is “the world’s leading dam resettlement expert.” Don Blackmore is devoted to rectifying dam-related problems in Australia. Leslie’s edgy, potent, and in-depth inquiry unveils the drastic, unintentional consequences of dams and exposes yet more evidence of the catastrophic results of allowing greed and politics to trump science and justice.” Donna Seaman Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved

Desalinization

Ultimately, focus fusion’s biggest contribution may be in desalinization.  If Focus fusion provides us with essentially unlimited energy, it can be used to run many desalinization plants, creating fresh water from the ocean.  Up until now, the high cost of energy has been a limiting factor in the use of desalinization.  From USGS:

Right now, the high cost of desalinization has kept it from being used more often, as it can cost over $1,000 per acre-foot to desalinate seawater as compared to about $200 per acre-foot for water from normal supply sources. Desalinization technology is improving and costs are falling, though, and Tampa Bay, FL is currently desalinizing water at a cost of only $650 per acre foot. As both the demand for fresh water and technology increase, you can expect to see more desalinization occurring, especially in areas, such as California and the Middle East.

Of course, there are other issues of pollution from desalinization.  but, keeping in mind that Focus fusion provides unlimited energy, it may be possible to alleviate these as well and come up with a system of clean, well-targeted strategic desalinization that would fit in with an over-all “blue revolution” global water management plan.  For example, the low cost of energy combined with a need to create markets for oil-based products would make water pipelines an affordable element of a regional desalinization plan.  This reduced water transport cost would also enable dispersing industry away from the desalinization plant, which is usually by the sea, thus freeing the location to be used for its primary recreation/wildlife/tourist uses.  I’m not sure what we’ll do with the extra salt, but surely a surplus of energy provides some solution to that. 

Interestingly, the desalinization plant pictured in the column uses heat to desalinate the water - a distillation process, which is a thermal method.  (More here).  In contrast, Focus fusion will use a desalination process that doesn’t use heat (more details on that to come.)  In fact, there are many desalination processes that don’t require heat.  These are called “membrane processes” (reverse osmosis, electrodialysis) as opposed to the “thermal processes.”