Gnorts, Vorts,
This article in the NY Times (you have to be registered but it's worth it) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28water.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th is all about the growing water crisis in China because of their enormous economic expansion. The general water table is dropping by three feet a year. Extraction for industrial expansion is part of the reason but it is also their self sufficiency in grain, which demands "winter wheat" crops which are sucking the country dry. In Jed's e-book http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf he suggests that the bulk of agriculture in the future will be in enclosed multi level "factories" which will be massively more efficient in use of water etc. I cannot see any other way that this current China crisis can be averted without a new abundant energy source. Near the end of the NYT article they say that the Chinese are considering massively expanding urbanisation because such areas use less water than agricultural areas? Seems mad to me, particularly if it leads to the Chinese having to buy their grain on the world market, which just might be a problem for the rest of us...
