Water for the World

We had a very interesting presentation today, which is to provide water for people around the world. Should water be accessible to everyone? Should clean water be accessible to everyone? I think yes. I believe that everyone has the rights to basic necessities like water, food and shelter. 


As the world economy grow, the gap between the rich and poor gets wider and wider. The ability to satisfy people who has high purchasing power will have a limit. As there are only that amount of luxury in the world, and that same amount of time a person can spend, a person who has a total networth of 1 billion dollars and 5 billion dollars will probably differ by an insignificant degree in lifestyle. However a person on the lower spectrum, a person who lives for $1 a day and a person who lives for $10 a day differs a lot. And that is only a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars people have in excess, either lying in bank or making more money. 


Here is an inspiring video on a person who ask for donations as birthday presents, so instead of buying him a gift, you give him money for his birthday so that he can bring people water:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphhfy4qCfc

There are other technologies which countries such as Singapore use for getting water. One such is the Seawater desalination plant, which uses reverse osmosis. In short, it uses sea water as raw material, and the product is drinkable water. Although developing countries would not have the resources to build a water desalination plant now, such technologies should be accessible to them so that they are able to provide clean water for the masses. Developing countries should not make the mistakes that developed countries made, such as pollution and wastage or resources through trial and error, so the incentive for them is to share technologies. Water can also be used to drive turbines for produce electricity, such as those in those power plant that tap on hydroelectricity. However, i feel that Africa is a continent that should preserve it's natural habitat, and avoid too much urbanization and lose it touch with nature.

Another interesting thing from water is that Salt Water can actually fuel car or produce electricity. When a broadcast engineer focus a beam radio wave to salt water, it made the salt water burn and thus creating an alternative source of energy. As salt water is abundant, people could save precious resources such as coal and petrol, which are non-renewable fossil fuel for other uses. Right now, we are using very primitive method of using these fossil fuel, and we are just burning them to release energy. As a speaker Juan, from TED suggest, we should look at them not as chemical energy but as bioenergy. By combining fossil fuel with other organic compound, we are able to better utilize and produce energy.