I’m probably stating the obvious here when I say that water is essential to life.

The human body can survive up to a month without food, but you would barely make it a week without water.

In order to maintain basic health, a person must consume 2.5 quarts of water per day.

Although that might sound daunting, you’re probably already meeting the quota — not through the water you drink but from the foods you eat.

Tomatoes are 95% water. Pineapples are 80% water. And there are plenty of other foods like these.

In addition to food products, 70% of this planet is covered in water — there’s actually more water than land.

So why, then, is the World Health Organization in a state of alarm about water access?

Its estimates show that by 2025, half of the world’s population will be “living in water-stressed areas.”

There are a few issues in play here…

To start, 97% of the water on this planet has salt in it.

The remaining 3% of freshwater sources are becoming increasingly contaminated. Pollution plays a role, along with poor infrastructure and sanitation.

Hundreds of millions of people are regularly exposed to chemically polluted water.

It’s easy to assume that water access issues are isolated to underdeveloped countries — the “third world.”

Unfortunately, that’s far from true.

For the past four years, California has been experiencing its worst drought in recorded history.

In January of this year, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency.

So now we’re seeing mansions surrounded by arid land. Residents of one of the wealthiest regions in the world are required to limit water use —in some places, up to a 50% reduction — in accordance with the first-ever state-mandated cutbacks.

We’re also seeing once-fertile regions turn into vast wastelands. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that more than 12 million trees have died because of the drought, directly contributing to the increased number (and intensity) of wildfires in the landscape.

That’s an image of what used to be a successful almond tree farm in California’s Central Valley, an area once considered one of the richest food-producing regions in the world.

Almonds account for 10% of California’s agriculture economy.

In just four years, what was once the thriving Lake Oroville has been reduced to a mere stream.

It is not uncommon to see lakes like this operating at less than 10% of their normal capacity.

Other lakes have dried up entirely.

The drought is significantly affecting agriculture, as farmers are forced to find other sources of water or leave entire fields unplanted. Ranchers, whose livelihoods depend on cattle, are forced to sell those cattle because of barren grazing lands.

Unemployment rates in California’s agricultural regions have reached 40%.

Tourism, too, is impacted, as lack of snowfall forces ski resorts to close early. As wells run dry, increasing numbers of households are unable to wash their dishes or flush their toilets.

The drought in California isn’t just weather-related. It’s not isolated to higher temperatures and reduced rainfall. It’s been exacerbated by other conditions: old infrastructure, population increase, degradation of the ecosystem.

Legislators and activists in California have turning their focus to preserving groundwater. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act declared the goal of achieving long-term groundwater sustainability within 20 years.

It’s an admirable plan. The only problem is…

California Doesn’t Have 20 Years

It’s hard to imagine a state like California, with more than 800 miles of coastline, suffering from a lack of water.

But it has been suffering.

More than half a million acres of farmland are now useless. Thousands of jobs have been lost, as well as billions of dollars from the state economy.

Like we mentioned earlier, the majority of Earth’s water supply — 97% — is salty.

California’s neighbor, the Pacific Ocean, holds 187 quintillion gallons of water.

But California can’t use it.

It can’t be used for drinking water, much less agriculture.

We do possess the technology to desalinate ocean water. In typically arid locations, desalination has been at the core of water supply.

In Saudi Arabia, the largest desalination plant in the world produces 273 million gallons of drinking water every day.

In Israel, about a quarter of the nation’s water supply comes from desalination.

So why aren’t we seeing desalination plants in California?

A few reasons…

From Niche Market to Mainstream

Desalination is expensive. Commonly used methods of desalination typically cost twice as much — sometimes more — than other methods of obtaining water.

It’s also not completely durable. Certain pollutants in water often damage the membrane used in the traditional reverse osmosis technique.

Desalination is also incredibly energy intensive.

That, compounded with environmental concerns, has kept reverse osmosis desalination out of mainstream conversations about water sourcing…

Until now.

A handful of start-ups are currently working on a different water purifying technique, called forward osmosis, that can turn even the most polluted waters into a pure, drinkable substance.

They can do it for half the price using a fraction of the energy.

With forward osmosis, we could even produce drinking water from this:

Forward osmosis companies like Oasys Water are already working with the lucrative niche of hydraulic fracturing.

The “fracking” process produces millions of gallons of wastewater that is contaminated with undisclosed chemicals and radioactive materials. It’s essentially unusable unless it is treated through an intensive, high-pressure boiling and distilling system.

Oasys was able to turn that wastewater into “fresh” water that actually exceeding drinking standards set by the EPA, using 30% less energy.

“In 2013, Oasys partnered with oil and gas equipment supplier National Oilwell Varco to sell a forward osmosis system that can turn up to 4,000 barrels of wastewater into fresh water each day.”

The prize market for forward osmosis will be the desalination of seawater.

Researchers at MIT estimate that “you can get 1,000 liters of water for less than $1 using reverse osmosis… it’s very difficult at this stage to beat that.”

But Oasys has.

Without getting into complicated scientific jargon, let’s do a quick rundown of how osmosis works and the difference between the “forward” and “reverse” techniques:

Osmosis involves the passage of a solvent (in this case, water) from a low-concentration solution to a high-concentration solution.

By passing through a semi-permeable membrane, the solvent (water) is able to pass, but not the substances dissolved in it. Therefore, the two solutions become separated.

Osmosis is a natural process occurring around you at all times — plants use it to absorb nutrients and water from the soil.

Because of its inherent qualities, forward osmosis will always be more efficient than the reverse.

Instead of pushing the solution against a filtering membrane (which requires a significant amount of energy), the forward technique simply draws the solution through.

“Zero Water Waste”

Despite the reduction in energy usage, environmentalists have still pointed out one fairly obvious drawback to desalination.

When salt water is separated, we are left with drinkable water in one hand, but in the other, we have a solution that now contains double the concentration of salt.

Typically, the second (extra salty) solution is dumped back into the sea. Eventually, our oceans are just going to become doubly salty.

This is where Oasys stands out.

The company is already undergoing pilot operations in China to draw all the water, separating it entirely from the salt. Instead of resulting in two solutions, the process would result in one solution of pure water and the remaining dry salt.

Potentially all of China could be heading towards zero water waste.

More importantly, though, this technique will have immediate application in California and other drought-ridden locations.

“It would open up an entirely new capability… If you look at California today, it could be a significant game changer for the Central Valley. India, China, the Middle East all have significant sources of brackish water. If you could clean that up, you could bring a significant localized freshwater resource.”

— Jim Matheson, CEO Oasys Water

As freshwater conditions currently stand, we will not have enough food or water to sustain our growing population.

Already today, millions of people lack access to clean water.

Based on the conditions in California, it’s clear that not even the developed world is prepared to handle emergency drought situations.

The experience of Californians makes it clear that freshwater is not an infinite resource.

Extreme and rapid changes in climate activity will pose even further challenges to our resources.

It is scary but true that our land could completely dry up while trillions of gallons of water lap at the shore unless we support efforts that are beginning to reduce the cost, energy, and environmental impact of turning seawater into drinking water.

Developers of more efficient osmosis techniques have the opportunity to not only preserve the health of this planet but also enter into the multibillion-dollar seawater desalination market — a market we expect to grow as demand for fresh water inevitably increases.

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