Essay Example on One of the biggest problems faced by humanity as of now is Water Scarcity

One of the biggest problems faced by humanity as of now is Water Scarcity Water Scarcity is the lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region While this is a relevant problem in the global context it is even more important to resolve this issue at the national level because India is an agriculturally dependent economy As of 2017 farmer suicides have occurred in large numbers in Maharashtra Andhra Pradesh Telangana Tamil Nadu Karnataka Madhya Pradesh Bihar Uttar Pradesh Chhattisgarh Orissa and Jharkhand The most significant factor behind these deaths is the dependency on monsoon If the monsoon fails there is no other source of water available in many areas of the country and there is nothing that can be done to prevent crop failure thus resulting bank debts and inability to perform responsibilities due to their families hence triggering a plethora of suicides Recently the drought in Tamil Nadu has been in the forefront with the Cauvery River Water dispute being brought to the Supreme Court While governments battle it out the thought that comes to mind is that thousands of farmers are giving up their lives while this legal banter is going on indefinitely Would it not be better to utilize the technology and science which has developed to solve this problem permanently Fresh Water accounts for only 2 5 of the total water available on the blue planet The rest of the water is Saline or Sea Water Desalination is the process that separates dissolved salts minerals and other impurities from water and makes it potable i e fit for drinking Would not the most obvious solution to the problem of water scarcity be to invest in Desalination plants However there is the problem of feasibility 

The leading process in terms of installed capacity and yearly growth which is adopted for desalination is Reverse Osmosis However due to the high energy input requirement of the process and the expensive infrastructure needed it has been set aside I feel that seawater desalination should be seriously considered and explored considering the fact that it offers high quality potable water consistently regardless of other climatic constraints and rising demand of water supply So the necessity is to deal with both the necessity for expensive infrastructure and the high energy input requirement Let us first take the problem of high energy input requirement As of now we can say that energy production is now able to keep pace with energy requirements due to wide development of non conventional and renewable sources of energy production such as solar wind hydroelectric etc In June 2002 the South Florida Water Management District commissioned a study to investigate the feasibility of co locating desalination plants within the premises of thermal electric power plants The study demonstrated that significant amounts of drinkable water were produced at a moderate cost This co location provides benefits which can be classified as environmentally compliant and cost effective While utilizing already developed infrastructure helps significantly cut down capital expenditure the osmosis concentrate could be disposed off along with wastewater used for thermal cooling in the power plant for treatment 

After I read this report I began to question why such co location had to be restricted to thermal power plants alone If extended to other renewable methods of producing energy I could see that desalination costs could be brought down still further Especially if they re located near dams the energy which is used to run turbines can be used to desalinate transported seawater and the fresh water produced can be treated and releases into freshwater bodies This also solves the issue of desalination contributing to global warming when convention energy sources are used to power the process Also Solar and Wind Energy are now available at the same price range as fossil fuel and more importantly fossil fuel prices are only going to be getting higher with decreasing availability as opposed to renewable energy sources Solar powered desalination plants are going to play a very important role in the future in mitigating water scarcity Also desalination plants can be constructed in areas with large number of wind farms so that generated wind energy can be effectively harnessed and efficiently utilized Now bringing all of this to the Indian context India is a peninsula i e it is surrounded by water on the majority of its border It is flanked by the Bay of Bengal on the East the Indian Ocean to the South and 

The Arabian Sea to the West which provides us with immense potential that has to be tapped If we zoom in even closer and consider just Tamil Nadu we have the largest wind energy production capacity in India of 7648 31 MW My idea is of co locating desalination plants and wind farms which is a very feasible prospect If this comes to fruition it will be an immense boost to farmers and permanently resolve the issue of water scarcity and drought issues in Tamil Nadu This idea could potentially improve the lives of millions of people if worked upon and implemented properly While I do realize that there are a lot more constraints whether economic technological or environmental which have to be worked upon this idea has such significance that it should not be passed on The greatest innovation is one which brings the maximum impact to the lives of people and helps improve the quality of their living If it is developed further and put to practice my idea could potentially remove the hanging sword of water scarcity which is hanging above our heads and this constraint would cease to exist Hence I feel it would not be wrong to say that my idea of utilizing renewable energy resources to desalinate seawater is the greatest innovative idea of 2017 and that I Sriya Ravi am the greatest innovator of the year 2017