Scientists Discover Huge Freshwater Reserves Beneath the Ocean

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have discovered huge freshwater reserves beneath the seabed on continental shelves off the coast of Australia, North America, China and South Africa. 'The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we've extracted from the Earth's sub-surface in the past century since 1900. Fresh water on our planet is increasingly under stress and strain so the discovery of significant new stores off the coast is very exciting. It means that more options can be considered to help reduce the impact of droughts and continental water shortages' says Dr Vincent Post of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) and the School of the Environment at Flinders University."

Comments

Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Water

[mentil]

Presumably this water will need to be accessed via drilling and pumping the water. Imagine the horrors if there were a water spill, contaminating all that ocean water with its freshness!

Re:Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Water

[stjobe]

You jest, but a change in salinity could have a big impact.

Indeed it could, just read up a bit about thermohaline circulation and you'll see why some people are worried not just about sea-level rise from melting polar ice.

Re:Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Water

[Vitriol Angst]

Yeah, I worry about the same thing. Pumping up water from that depth has to be a bit of a challenge and use energy (though there are temperature gradients they could borrow to assist). Still, you also have the problem that after you remove a lot of fresh water -- that creates a new chamber that sea water could flood and contaminate.

And what happens when you cause a landslide or underwater quake if you displace a LOT OF water? We've had sink-holes and land drop from removal of groundwater -- if the chamber is 100 times larger and the pressure 1000 times more, well, how bad does it get before the problem shows up?

I'm not paranoid of the future, but our system currently is unable to change course if a profit is involved. We as a society in the USA can no longer expect that if something were to cause massive damage -- you for instance "fracking" natural gas MIGHT poison fresh water and cause small earthquakes (and well, it does in fact do that) -- but you wouldn't have the news really report it and you wouldn't have the FDA shut them down because someone would just secure a nice consulting job for when they left government service and Congress would get some campaign donations and do nothing and the media wouldn't report that because they'd get some advertising dollars featuring Deer sipping from ponds over a pump.

Did I mention a broken system that cannot correct errors? I'm waiting for someone to pay me to blog happy things about Deer sipping from ponds over a pump -- I've seen them myself and people who don't like Frakking / Deep See fresh water are Hippie Commie tree huggers who hurt our economy!

Re: The problem with all this...

[tysonedwards]

While there is a whole universe out there waiting to be colonized, it would take tens of thousands of years at current technological levels to simply reach another other world beyond our solar system, let alone being able to return with the resources that we find should said resources even exist. As a reminder, we haven't sent a person beyond a Low Earth Orbit in decades.

Re:This is excellent water

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just about to join up. My recruiter said only officers and above have to clean toilets. Is that true?