These days consumers have plenty of choice: do they boil their water before drinking it, or do they risk it as they have enough sick days? Seriously, I went for a nature walk yesterday and wound up watering the local flora as the bottle of water I drew from the tap was undrinkable
Repairing water leaks is obviously necessary but given the thousands of miles of pipes etc there will always be a significant level of leakage. We should mandate the water companies to build desalination plants. We are an island surrounded by salt water - desalination is the solution. It is expensive but like electric vehicles its time will come - global warming is not about to halt. We should be developing a new breed of desalination plants that are run on renewable - solar, wind or tidal energy. We could become a world leader in such technology.
1. How much is "significant" (state it as a % of water transported etc) ?? 2. Why "there will always be" ?? If tech governed, can you please explain what inherently makes it so ?? "We should mandate the water companies to build desalination plants. We are an island surrounded by salt water - desalination is the solution. It is expensive but like electric vehicles its time will come" Fair enough. How much extra on your existing annual water bill can we put you down for, in order to achieve the "solution ??
Desalinated water I have tried in Cyprus it is quite undrinkable, but ok for washing. People in Cyprus buy their drinking water.
1 Please tell me the amount of water transported so that I can do my calcs. 2 Because pipes are underground through miles of land and leaks have first to be identified then repaired BUT that was only an opinion of mine so if you disagree fine. I do not claim special expertise. Nothing extra on my existing annual water bill. This would be an investment for decades to come and could be paid out of the excess profits privatisation has given to the shareholders. If there are increasing droughts due to global warming do you have an alternative solution?
Most of our water is not for drinking - the desalinated water can be used for industrial, farming and commercial users.
https://www.thameswater.co.uk/about-us/performance/leakage-performance 24% is a lot. What costs do you think are acceptable in getting as close to zero as possible ?? What do you contend is an acceptable upper bound for the % loss ?? Do you believe that no current/emerging tech a current 5 yr time frame, can efficiently decrease the leakage % loss per annum ?? "Nothing extra on my existing annual water bill. This would be an investment for decades to come and could be paid out of the excess profits privatisation has given to the shareholders." 1. What do you believe the rough ROI is for such an endeavour ?? 2. What is the profit value X, at which a penny more becomes "excess" ?? "If there are increasing droughts due to global warming do you have an alternative solution?" Yes, I do. I have your home redesigned to minimise the amount of water drawn from the water network, and you will gladly pay the cost incurred in doing so. < think globally, act locally >
I'm not sure about costs but a mate of mine works for Thames Water and he's been going on for years about 3 billion litres a day lost to leaks nationally is a good guide that is not being addressed
I can remember this being brought up in the runup to the 2017 election, but this was ignored because the bloke bringing this up wasn't neoliberal enough...
Only 4% of water is used by households. Redesigning every home sounds like an enormous cost - do you have a figure for how much and what water will it save? Why would I gladly pay the cost? I use a minimum of water as it is - what redesigning would save me more? With global warming our water reserves are diminishing and our population is increasing. Reducing leaks and improving homes is a sticking plaster solution with diminishing returns, We need more water and are surrounded by trillions of tons of it - and with global warming sea levels are rising so using more would be helpful. We have to think ahead - and yes globally. Developing sustainable technology to use salt water seems an obvious win to me. Each of us has our own opinions of course - above are just mine - as I said earlier non-expert/ specialist but genuine.
If 24% is the national level, then that must be addressed. Would be interesting to do the data analytics on all the leakage incidents (assuming the water network companies are recording sufficient "dimensions" ) .
