Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DESAL
IT WORKS
(SO WHY
THE HATE?)
PLUS
The
Take The Water
Challenge Wars
Where we’ve
Could you live on fought and killed
just 180 litres a day? for the wet stuff
The
Don’t Big Dry
Burn Coal What happens to
Drink through a city when its
it instead! glacier dies?
THE FUTURE
OF WATERNew technology will make water
Cleaner • Fresher • Cheaper
HEOS is a family of wireless music players
that allow you to fill every room with music
and control it all effortlessly from your Apple
or Android device.
Plug in, co
onne
ect to WiF
Fi and
d pla
ay. Easy.
www.heos.com.au
ANY ROOM OR EVERY ROOM
MULTIROOM
PORTABLE PLAYER
OF THE YEAR
HEOS 1
I S S U E # 1 0 0, M A R C H 2 0 1 7
EDITORIAL
One Hundred,
Editor Anthony Fordham afordham@nextmedia.com.au
Contributors Brooke Borel, Tom Clynes, Clay Dillow, Nicole Dyer,
Daniel Engber, Tom Foster, William Gurstelle, Lindsay Handmer, Mike Haney,
Joseph Hooper, Corinne Iozzio, Gregory Mone, Adam Piore, P.W. Singer, Erik
Not Out
Sofge, Kalee Thompson, James Vlahos, Jacob Ward, Daniel Wilks
DESIGN
Group Art Director Malcolm Campbell
Art Director Danny McGonigle
ADVERTISING
Divisional Manager For most magazines, reaching the 100th issue is a major
Jim Preece jpreece@nextmedia.com.au
ph: 02 9901 6150 achievement. But in our case, it’s nothing compared to the
vast back-issue list in the US mothership’s archives.
National Advertising Sales Manager
Lewis Preece lpreece@nextmedia.com.au
ph: 02 9901 6175
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 3
CONTENTS
MARCH 2017
60 desalination
There isn’t enough natural fresh water for
everyone. Desalination is a solution. We
visit Dubai, where it just has to work...
04 POPULAR SCIENCE
6
For daily updates: www.popsci.com.au
8
20 Goods
Your guide to everything
28 Charted
Important stuff for futurists
Features
Made for you, by you
36
82 Lab Rats
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 05
GOODS
1
Desk Jockeys
Be an adult:
Drink from a glass.
The MIU Colour 1
550-ml is made of
borosilicate, which,
thanks to a makeup
that’s about 5 per
cent boric oxide,
is durable and
stain resistant.
2
All-Day Toters
Most double-
walled bottles use
hefty endcaps to
close the chamber 2
between the steel
walls. Hydro Flask
seals with a glass plug
during the vacuuming
process, lightening the
vessels considerably. 3
3
Trail Trekkers
When climbing, it can
be hard to breathe,
let alone pull water
from a hydration
pack’s straw. The 4
Geigerrig Rig 700M
is pressurised: Bite a
valve to get H2O from
its generous two
litre reservoir.
4
Gym Rats
Swag canteens are
great—if you’re into
lukewarm water
mid-workout. The
Camelbak Podium
PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCES
Chill sport bottle’s 5
cell-foam insulation
keeps water cold
twice as long as
that freebie.
S
D
O
O
5
G
Light Packers
The HydraPak Stash
collapses from 180
millimetres tall to the
size of a hockey puck.
The 750-ml bottle’s
flexible centre stands
up to repeated
twisting between
the hard-shell top
and bottom.
M I RAC L E
I N IC E
THE FUTURE
Is Clear
Transparent ice takes
time. You either carve
the clear centre of
a huge block or use
insulation to slowly
solidify so the water
comes out clear.
2000S
Going Soft
Slick silicone has a low
coefficient of friction
and a pliable nature.
Both let you create
otherwise impossible-
to-release shapes
with ease (mostly).
1980S
Topping It
Modern plastics don’t
crack as easily as
the old stuff, but the
genius award goes to
lidded trays: You can
stack them before
the water sets.
1960S
Plastics
Injection-moulded
polymers changed
every industry. Trays
graduated from
skin-chilling metal to
twistable polypropyl-
ene and polyethylene.
1930S
DIY Cubes
With the advent of
refrigeration, you
PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCES
MID-19TH CENTURY
Early Ancestors
Antique solid water
came as giant blocks
to chill your insulated
icebox. For a frosty
sarsaparilla, you’d chip
the ol’ block with a
sharp pick. Murderous!
2
4
3
5
1 2 3 4 5
Sift Store Pump Filter Reuse
Rain has a pesky From the downpipe, Nestled inside the Before it flows to Drain lines from
habit of knocking runoff enters the tank, the Grundfos fixtures, enough H2O showers, sinks, and
loose all kinds of 750-litre Poly-Mart SBA-3-45-AW passes through the washing machines
crud you don’t want Rainwater Harvest- Automatic Pump Viqua 12GPM (no toilets!) flow into
flowing into your ing Tank, where a includes a floating Integrated Rainwater the Aqua2Use
tank. As a first line filter basket catches extractor buoy that Purification System greywater diversion
of defence, the Leaf any left-behind pushes cleaner, to feed about device (GWDD). A
Eater Advanced floaters. If enough more-oxygenated five simultaneous series of increasingly
pre-filter attaches drops fall to fill the surface water into showers. A carbon fine membrane
to your gutter’s drum, a pipe up top the home first. An filter removes some filters cleanse water
downpipe to keep sends overflow into integrated controller odours and flavours, of soap, some oils,
large debris out of your regular storm unit automatically while a UV disinfector dead skin, and hair,
the water supply. Its drains. At capacity, stops the pump stops disease-causing readying it to run
0.955 mm screen the barrel weighs when the tank is organisms from through your lawn- or
is fine enough to more than 900kg, empty, switching reproducing. The garden-irrigation
sift out everything so it needs to sit on your water supply resulting liquid meets setup. Warning: It’s
from mosquitoes concrete or another back to the regular, most indoor water- safe for plants to
to leaves. solid surface. public works. quality codes. drink, but not for you.
www.buywacom.com.au
G O O D, B E T T E R, B E S T
U N DE R
P R E S S UR E
DECADES AGO, OUR SHOWERHEADS
blasted away suds with boom-time abandon.
Then, in the ’90s, efficiency standards cut water
flow by half or more—to nine litres per minute.
Faced with ever-tightening laws, engineers are
getting crafty about turning drips into deluges.
1
/2
ROLLS OF TOILET
PAPER SAVED PER
PERSON PER WEEK
Assuming a healthy
45
PER CENT DROP IN
WATER USAGE WITH
EFFICIENT FLUSHES
Dual nozzles turn
digestive system, three litres of water
opting to clean up into a vortex to wash
using the Neorest’s away number ones.
three bidet hoses will Sit more than 30
use just 15 litres per seconds, and presence
person per week. It and IR sensors infer a
takes 70 litres to number two, signaling
make half a roll of TP. a 3.5 litre flush.
4
WEEKS ONE OFFICE
WENT NOT CLEAN-
ING THE TOILET
0.5
LITRES (EST.) OF
WATER IN A BOTTLE
OF GLEN 20
Flushing sprays
To stop buildup, pre-
and post-squat mists bacteria and viruses,
of acidic, electrolysed but the Neorest keeps
water rinse the bowl. them on lock—so you’ll
Then, zirconium in have to disinfect the
the glaze—activated room less often. When
by an underlid UV you leave, sensors tell
light—breaks down the lid to close and the
any stuck-on gunk. toilet to flush.
PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCES
PESTICIDES
Insecticides and herbicides
can wash into rivers and lakes CHLORINE
and seep into groundwater. Water-treatment facilities
The pesticide atrazine has add chlorine as a disinfectant,
been linked to hormonal and it’s safe at low levels. But
imbalances in lab animals but some disinfectants produce
probably isn’t carcinogenic. byproducts that have been
linked to miscarriages. See
also: chloramine, a mix of
chlorine and ammonia, to
make the nasties extra dead.
FLUORIDE ARSENIC
As rocks erode, they naturally Arsenic occurs naturally in
release fluoride into soil, air, rocks and soil, and it’s linked
and most water sources. to increased risk of cancer.
Because it can prevent tooth A water-treatment plant
decay by rebuilding enamel, should remove the poison, but
many communities add private bore owners must
extra to the drinking supply. periodically test for it.
LEAD
Old, corroded metal pipe-
lines can deposit this potent
HYDROGEN neurotoxin into drinking
water, as they did in Flint,
SULFIDE Michigan and, well, Rome.
Naturally occurring and Children who ingest lead can
harmless, this chemical is still develop permanent learning
a pain in the butt. Or out of disabilities and/or experience
the butt? It smells barbarian raids and collapse
like rotten eggs, stains of late-period empire.
clothes, and corrodes pipes.
Like your butt.
ALGAE
Agricultural runoff or warm
water can stimulate fish-
PHARMA killing “algal blooms.” But for
us, algae in drinking water is
Everything from amoxicillin to just a nuisance: a musty,
Zyrtec makes its way, via fishy taste that persists even
your pee, into the rivers and after the treatment plant.
lakes that supply our water.
However, pharmaceuticals
only contaminate surface
water at extremely low levels.
S A LT S
Salts are a normal part of
water, though a strong salty
flavour can indicate a waste-
water leak. And a high
COPPER concentration of sodium- or
magnesium-sulfate salts
You’ll notice a medicinal might have a...laxative effect.
taste—or even greenish
hair—with just 1.3 milligrams
of copper per litre of water.
But the metal, which leaches
from old pipes, is safe for
humans at those levels. Just
don’t put it in your fish’s tank.
WILD RIDE
IN OUR PART OF THE WORLD, CLEAN WATER FLOWS
stressed out: straight from a tap. In others, people trek for miles to reach a pota-
ble source. How do we measure the availability of this essential
gauging global resource? Compare the amount of water a region uses to the size
of its water supply. This ratio of supply to demand, known as water
water worries stress, often shifts over time. As populations grow or move around,
so too will demand. And as climate change redraws temperature and
1
Southwestern
United States
As climate change
pushes water supply
down, the bushfire-
plagued Southwest
grows even more
parched. A growing
1
population in the
region will drive up
demand—and stress.
2
Coastal Peru
Shifting precipitation
patterns will slightly
increase rainfall—and
thus water supply—in
Peru. But those same
weather patterns
could increase Chile’s
water stress.
18 POPULAR SCIENCE
CHARTED KEY
rainfall patterns, supply will change as well. The nonprofit World
Resources Institute mapped how water stress will fluctuate around
the globe between now and 2040. Its estimate combines factors such
Drying Getting
as drought, flooding risk, groundwater levels, and access to water up wetter
that’s safe for humans to drink. WRI predicts that, while some regions
will remain stable—and a few can look forward to stress relief—
many will face increasing demand and decreasing supply.
3
Germany
3 The water supply will
remain consistent,
but demand will likely
decrease thanks to
4 liquid-conserving
agricultural practices,
water-efficient
industrial tech—and a
shrinking population.
5
4
Middle East
Of the top 16
countries that face
increasing water
stress, 13 are in the
Middle East. Trends
show this already arid
area will get drier, and
shortages could
exacerbate armed
conflict in the region.
5
Northwestern
India
Agricultural irrigation
accounts for up to
80 per cent of global
water use, and
northwestern India is
the biggest user. This
practice will put
increasing pressure on
groundwater stores.
1 2
4 6
1 2 3 4 5 6
Kangaroo Rat Dromedary Water-holding Thorny Devil Tortoise Sand Gazelle
The kangaroo rat Camel Frog The spikes of Central In the Mojave and Sand gazelles in the
never has to drink Camels don’t actually During hot, dry Australia’s thorny Sonoran deserts, sweltering Arabian
water—it just gets it store water in their periods, this devil do more than several tortoise Desert have evolved
from the seeds it eats. humps, so they have to Australian frog ward off predators. species survive off the strange ability to
To survive in the dry conserve it. At night, secretes a waterproof The lizard’s absorbent their urine. During shrink their oxygen-
climes of the after the chilly Saharan mucus cocoon that skin and spines suck times of plenty, their demanding organs
American West, its air cools the camel’s prevents moisture up dew from cool bladders swell to hold when dry spells hit.
kidneys generate nasal cavity, mist in its from escaping its night air, rain, puddles, around 470 ml of aqua Downsizing their
super-concentrated breath condenses body. Meanwhile, the and any other vitae—uh, literal aqua hearts and livers by
urine, and it doesn’t inside its nose, where it frog hibernates moisture it can get its vitae, not the powerful 20 and 45 per cent,
pant or sweat. Some gets reabsorbed. The underground, waiting dry little claws on. medieval liquor. The respectively, allows
species can even camel’s extra-twisty for another rainy Thin grooves in tortoise can later them to breathe less.
lower their metabolic nasal passages save up season. It can survive its skin help trap the reabsorb water from Taking fewer breaths
rates so they lose to 60 per cent of the for two years or more water, then route its urine to endure means less water
less moisture moisture it would have on the liquid stored it to the lizard’s a year or longer lost to respiratory
through breathing. lost during exhalation. in its bladder. mouth for a tipple. without a drink. evaporation.
757
The number of
bottles it would take
100
The number of bottles
it reportedly took
to substitute all of a some Flint families to
standard American’s make Thanksgiving
daily water usage, dinner in 2016. One
including showering needed 24 bottles just
and tooth brushing. to thaw the turkey.
Flint, MI
750
lead’s side effects—weakness,
developmental delays, and
seizures—concerned residents
have turned to bottled water. Lots
of it. Here’s a glimpse of what it’s
like to live life in the midst of a
water crisis, bottle by bottle.
The number of water
bottles that Flint’s
Durant-Tuuri-Mott
BREAK IT DOWN Elementary School
uses daily—that’s
MAP BY JUAN PABLO BRAVO
Flint:
a little more than one
bottle per student.
SOURCE: IN 2011, A CONGRESSIONAL REPORT RELEASED THE TOP 100 CHEMICALS USED IN FRACKING—MINUS SECRET, PROPRIETARY COMPOUNDS
1
Out with the Old
Your urine is more than 90 per cent water (and your poop is
about three-quarters). Each time you flush, the sewer system
ferries your waste—along with 6 to 26(!) litres of perfectly
good H2O used to swirl it down your porcelain throne—to
a treatment plant designed to make it taste delicious.
the water
(re)cycle
T H E WAT E R YOU US E TO S HO OT YOU R P O O
6
out of the building is better quality than what billions of
people will drink in their lifetimes. But still we have his
aversion to recycled pee. If a litre of water has touched the
sewer it gets dumped, no exceptions. Yet the technology to Homeward Bound
process and purify sewer water exists, doing what nature After sitting pretty in the reservoir for who knows how long,
the water gets yet another round of filtration before it’s
does anyway. That’s right. Your precious no-sewer water safe to drink again. Then a disinfectant like chlorine kills
has been through something’s digestive system already. microbes. The result whooshes out through your tap, into a
This just lets us take control of the recycling process. glass, and down your gullet—and so the cycle begins anew.
24 POPULAR SCIENCE
3
Taking a Closer Look
“Activated sludge” sounds nasty, but this mushy mix of
bacteria actually helps break down organic contaminants.
A good stir swirls and sloshes the sludge through giant vats.
When it settles, it leaves behind purified liquid that can then be
disinfected for use in irrigation or other industrial applications.
But you wouldn’t want to drink the stuff (at least not yet).
4
One Last Pass
After another round of filtration for good measure, the good
stuff makes its way through strawlike fibres. Pressure forces
H20 through pores so small that only individual molecules
can fit, ensuring that only pure dihydrogen monoxide crosses
over the membrane. This process, called reverse osmosis,
makes former bog juice pristine and drinkable.
5Back to Nature
Just to keep the squeamish chemistry naifs happy, the
now-pristine liquid goes back into natural reservoirs to mix
with droplets from rain and rivers. It can stay there indefinitely,
gathering minerals from rocks and soil, and going through
natural filtration processes until it’s called back into action.
378 Litres of wastewater, in millions, recycled
in Orange County, California, each day.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 25
10L 180L
food drink?
WHEN YOU EAT, YOU USE UP
every drop of water your food
170L 55L
required to grow. And depend-
ing on your choices—roasted
broccoli versus a juicy steak—a
meal might consume a few litres
of water, or a few hundred. Some
plants sip gingerly from the soil,
while others gulp; and animals
not only drink water, but ingest it
indirectly through the feed they
eat. In a thirsty world, we should
choose our foods wisely. To
help, Popular Science calculated
how much water goes into 100 Apples Wheat Flour
Apple trees are picky growers: They don’t thrive Wheat usually grows in spring and autumn, so
calories’ worth of these staples. in too-wet soil, but they do require irrigation in farmers needn’t water it during the blistering
too-dry soil. Yet, on the litrers-per-100-calories days of summer. Wheat also has a deep and
scale, they use nearly as much water as chicken. efficient root system, and in ideal circumstances,
That’s because the fruit provides less energy. doesn’t even require additional irrigation.
0.089L 1,000L
CHARTED
Crickets Steak
Crickets are efficient little bugs. Sixty per cent Cattle are natural water guzzlers, drinking
protein by weight, they require less than 10 litres nearly 130 litres a day. What’s worse, a 550-kg
of water per kilogram of protein. Even steer can eat nearly 10 kg of feed while the sun
better, they reach adulthood in just six weeks. shines, which incurs an H2O penalty of
The challenge is convincing people to eat them. thousands of additional litres.
Desalination
With so much ocean
nearby, why does LA
16
import water at all?
Because desalination
guzzles a lot more
energy and money
than relatively passive
aqueducts. A fancy
desalination plant
opened in Carlsbad in
2015, but it supplies
Southern California a
relatively low volume.
minimum number of days
water requires to travel the length
of the California Aqueduct
Thirst Fainting
WATER LOST 2% of WATER LOST 4% of
body weight. For a body weight. For a
77-kilo person, that’s 77-kilo person, that’s 3
1.5 kilos. You might kilos. This is roughly
lose this much sweat equivalent to riding a
by kickboxing for an bike for three hours in
hour in a hot room, extreme heat without
without a drink. rehydrating, or going
EFFECTS When thirst without water for two
kicks in, your body entire days.
clings to all remaining EFFECTS Your blood is
moisture. Your kidneys so concentrated that
send less water to the resulting decrease
your bladder, in blood flow makes
darkening your urine. your skin shrivel. Your
As you sweat less, blood pressure drops,
your body tempera- making you prone to
ture rises. Your blood fainting. You’ve
becomes thicker and basically stopped
sluggish. To maintain sweating, and
oxygen levels, your without this coolant,
heart rate increases. you start to overheat.
CHARTED
ingredient in the chemistry that helps your brain think, your blood flow, and your muscles move.
But what happens after you sweat through a spin class, spend a day at the beach, or simply ignore
your thirst? Dehydration is different for everybody—it depends on how much you’re exercising,
the temperature around you, and how much you typically sweat—but it can get dangerous quickly.
3 4
STAGE STAGE
seiko.com.au
1
ANATOMY 2
water from
thick air. literally.
MORE THAN 660 MILLION 5
HOW DOES 1 2 3 4 5
IT WORK? A three-bladed The second fan directs A filter prevents As the air cools, liquid A hand-operated
vertical turbine on top relatively warm air insects and debris beads up on the sides pump—no electricity
of the device spins in from the surface into from entering the pipe of the condensation required—raises the
the wind, driving a the condensation so they don’t chamber, which locals liquid, which is even
second fan in the PVC chamber, buried contaminate the can make from any cleaner than tap
body of the machine. 2 m underground. harvested water. available materials. water, to the surface.
Ming Dynasty vs. Canadian Settlers Union vs. Los Angeles Bureau of
Peasants vs. Mill Owner Confederacy Water Works vs. Farmers
By 1642, foreign invaders and A mill owner built a dam in After the fall of Vicksburg, In 1913, LA’s aqueduct began
rebellious peasants had nearly Lindsay, Ontario, flooding farms Mississippi—a major turning diverting water from Owens
overrun the rulers of the Ming and breeding malaria-carrying point in the Civil War— the Valley farmers, parching their
dynasty. To stop peasants from mozzies. So settlers armed with retreating Confederate troops crops. Led by Wilfred and Mark
capturing Kaifeng, a capital axes and pitchforks attacked the drove cattle, hogs, and sheep into Watterson, a group of farmers
along the Yellow River, a Ming dam, nearly destroying it. The freshwater ponds and bombed the aqueduct in several
general smashed the river’s government stepped in, built a shot them, poisoning the water places over three years, until
dikes. The ensuing flood wiped smaller less malarial dam, and supply so pursuing Union authorities arrested the brothers
out the rebels—and the city. reclaimed farms for settlers. troops couldn’t drink from it. for fraud and embezzlement.
local wastewater system and and even blew up a 250-kilowatt pipeline that crosses the Missouri
released sewage into parks, one, cutting power to Bhojpur River, threatening their
rivers, and property. His goal: (population: 6,000) and nearby sovereignty and the security of DAM TREAT Y
revenge for not getting a job with areas. The damage took six their water supply. Despite
the local council. Authorities gave months to repair. The war waged victory under Obama, the protest
him a new gig: prisoner. on for four more years. must now carry on under Trump. MASSACRE WAR
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 33
IN PROFILE / H E L E N DA H L K E
THE WATER
BANKER
OUTSIDE THE WINDOW OF HELEN DAHLKE’S OFFICE, AT THE
University of California at Davis, the clouds hang low, their field covered with a foot (30 cm) of water,”
edges seeming to brush against the building. It’s raining she says, pausing to let that visual sink in. “So
imagine 100 million soccer fields of water.”
intensely, an unusual event in a parched state suffering from
Dahlke and others now want to bank those
a five-year drought. “It looks like the end of the world,” says soccer fields by diverting them to many of the
Dahlkehappily.Asahydrologistandprofessorwhostudieshow state’s 1.6 million hectares of dormant winter
water flows over and through rock, soil, fields, and farms, she farmland and orchards—using the exact same
irrigation pipes and sprinkler systems that
knows H2O like few others. For the past two years, Dahlke has
already feed them in summer—saving the
been doing what water conservationists might find abhorrent: water, in effect, to pump back up on a sunny day.
standing in the rain, in knee-high rubber boots, opening Following one of her deliberate floods,
sprinklersonadormantfarmororchard,andlettingthemspray. Dahlke deploys ground-penetrating radar,
remote sensors, and field chemistry kits to
She’sgoodatit.Shecansprayabout170millionlitresin42days.
measure such things as how much water
reaches the aquifer, how well plants and trees
She admits: “I was always fascinated by water handle the deluge, and how much fertiliser
as a child. I always liked to play with it.” leaches into the groundwater. She also
Dahlke’s sprinkler-play could change the measures whether yields are affected. Her
way California thinks about its weather and three-year pilot study, begun in 2014 and the
how we all save water. Her floods aim to find largest of its kind, aims to calm farmers fearful
out if humans can target and replenish drought- of crop damage, and health officials fretting
depleted aquifers—the deep permeable rock over potential groundwater contamination.
that holds our farming and drinking water—by So far, among the many things Dahlke
harnessing the winter rainy season. has found: 90 per cent of her floodwaters
It’s a particularly poignant question this reach the groundwater table; in the right soil,
SINCE 193O year, when winter storms sent as much as alfalfa can handle the equivalent of 7924
CALIFORNIA 1.3 trillion litres into California reservoirs. mm of rain; and pecan trees, which, she says,
HAS LOST Officials had to literally open floodgates and “naturally grow in riparian [riverbank] soils,
100 MILLION send the excess downriver, and eventually are well-adapted to having wet feet in winter.”
AC R E - F E E T into the sea. That’s like burning money. And Next for Dahlke: almond orchards, where
( 1 2 3 , 0 0 0 G I GA L I T R E S ) we’ve been burning it for a very long time. she and her team will monitor root growth and
O F G R O U N D WAT E R Since the 1930s, California has lost 100 tree hydration. “I just hope we don’t kill any
T H AT ’ S 1 0 0 M I L L I O N million acre-feet (123,00 gigalitres) of trees,” she says. At least she’ll be having fun
SOCCER FIELDS groundwater, according to Dahlke, who has soaking the place. “When it’s raining, there’s
COV E R E D I N helped solve water problems in Ethiopia, so much happening,” she explains. “It’s a
A FOOT South Africa, and Sweden. A native of natural system. And it’s just fascinating.”
(3O.48 CM) Leipzig, Germany, she was amazed to learn Thanks to her fascination, we might soon
O F WAT E . this figure. “One acre-foot of water is a soccer be saving rainy days for dry.
34 POPULAR SCIENCE
by Mary Beth Griggs / photograph by Cody Pickens P O P S C I .CO M . AU 35
When the glaciers vanished, the citizens of La Paz, Bolivia
woke to dry taps, civil unrest—and a Water General’s reign.
36 POPULAR SCIENCE B Y L E S L I E K A U F M A N / P H O T O G R A P H S B Y C H R I S T I N A H O L M E S / 36
HIGH
AND
DRY
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 37
THE EARLY-MORNING SUNSHINE,
T.
sharp and unfiltered at this high Andean
altitude, flashes off the Water General’s
sunglasses. He poses next to a 9,000-litre
tank that his troops placed behind this market
of stalls in La Paz, Bolivia. The women who
sell here—short, stout, and dressed in the
multitiered skirts favoured by many non-
Europeans—line up with garlands of yellow
flowers. The Water General bends so they
may sprinkle petals on his head. A crowd of
media, assigned to the event, duly take note.
Suddenly a man breaks through the crowd.
He screams at the general and the Water
Minister, Alexandra Moreira, standing at his
side. “It is not enough. You are disrespecting the
people!” the man yells. As the general’s troops
drag the man out by his arms, he adds, “It’s the
truth!” Moreira, in her skinny jeans and a navy-
print blouse and suddenly looking far too young
for such a weighty position, winces.
At nearly 12,000 feet (3650m), La Paz sits in
a zone—the high tropics—suffering the effects
of climate change quicker than the rest of us.
The glaciers that once fed the city are in retreat;
the seasonal rains that should replenish the
reservoirs are increasingly unreliable. In early
November, the federal government declared
a state of emergency. Overnight, officials
cut water to 94 of the city’s neighbourhoods,
leaving about half of its roughly 800,000
residents caught completely off-guard.
On television, the government promised to
turn the taps back on in a day or so. But when
the water did not return as promised, hundreds
of people protested. They commandeered
the cisternas, the tanker trucks brought in
to distribute the dwindling water supplies
street by street. In one instance, angry citizens
38 POPULAR SCIENCE
A Drop in
Their Buckets
Many residents
get water from
tanker trucks
that troops
drive through
the city daily.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 39
The General in
His Labyrinth
Brig. General
Mario Enrique
Peinado Salas
commands 113 wa-
ter trucks from
his one-room HQ.
questioned local water officials for several hours reservoir sediment. Still, piss water is better than
at a rowdy meeting, refusing to let them leave. no water, which is what you get in the higher-
That’s when the federal government sent in the
Water General, aka Brigadier General Mario “IT’S NOT ENOUGH!” THE MAN elevation poorer neighbourhoods, where the
water pressure is just too low.
Enrique Peinado Salas, to suppress unrest and
enforce a rationing system.
SHOUTS AT THE GENERAL, AS To survive, most everyone must buy at least
some bottled water, a once unthinkable luxury
But the drought, decades in the making,
isn’t so easily solved. As temperatures rise,
SOLDIERS DRAG HIM OFF. “YOU for the poorest people in South America. And
they must also rely on the Water General.
rivers and lake beds that once nourished fields
and crops dry up. Countless farmers and other
ARE DISRESPECTING THE PEOPLE.” Every morning, his troops drive to a
dwindling reservoir to fill their fleet of
rural people who relied on the land fled into the 113 cisternas, each the size of a fuel tanker.
cities. There, a woeful lack of infrastructure—a They dispatch it litre by litre to communal
dearth of water-treatment facilities in La Paz, tanks that have popped up on street corners
aging reservoirs, leaky pipes—failed to keep and in plazas. When they arrive, crowds
pace with the demand. emerge from every doorway, every alley,
La Paz has now entered a post-water world, lugging blue, yellow, and white garbage cans,
where strict rationing is a way of life for many. until they run out again. The crisis has cut most and keep coming until the trucks are drained.
For months, some of the city’s neighbourhoods Bolivians’ meagre daily use (half the Western It doesn’t take much of a leap to imagine a
received water only once every three days for a average) by two thirds. To cope, people go scene from an Isabel Allende or Gabriel García
few hours. (In mid-January, it increased to every without things like laundry and bathing. Márquez novel where citizens wake to find
other day.) When water does flow, people rush Evenwhenwaterflows,ittoooftenresembles their land parched, a mustachioed general
to fill anything handy—bathtubs, buckets, trash a failed urine sample; it’s streaked with angry holding their water captive. The surreal and
cans—so they can drink and cook and flush orange particles, thanks to pipe gunk and real have always co-mingled in Latin America.
40 POPULAR SCIENCE
Glacial
Response
For 11 years, of-
ficials ignored
hydrologist
Edson Ramirez’s
findings and
dire warnings.
But while government ineptitude has its place They’d better get moving, Sharp says.
in this story, losing water overnight can no “These aren’t problems that you are going to
longer be dismissed as a bizarre plotline unique
to South American magical realism. THE SAME FORCES CAUSING solve over a cup of coffee at Starbucks.”
Nor can you solve it quickly or elegantly
In fact, a world where generals deliver
water—or fight for it—is probably not all that
LA PAZ’S DROUGHT ARE TAKING once you’re in the midst of it. For weeks
after rationing began, Moreira remained in
far off for the rest of us. The same forces
causing La Paz’s drought are taking their
THEIR TOLL ON THE PLANET, semiseclusion; obviously now is not a relaxed
moment to be Water Minister.
toll on the planet, including in the American
Southwest, Central Europe, and China. The
INCLUDING IN AMERICA. Her foray to the quiet Sunday market with
the Water General is a kind of soft relaunch
great glaciers of the Himalayas—the planet’s for her public-relations efforts.
largest body of ice outside the polar caps and “We are working on the problem,” she
Greenland—are slowly disappearing. With promises. She also has good news.
them, an important water source for one-sixth The city, she says, has launched four
of the world’s population is drying up. projects to fix its water woes, including an
The lesson from Bolivia is that it is not additional dam and reservoir to capture more
difficult to forecast. With a warming planet, Sharp. He should know. A professor of Earth rainwater and a pipeline to bring water from
there is just not enough snowfall or rain to and Atmospherics at the University of Alberta a creek. But “the weather,” she adds, “is not
replenish many of the world’s glaciers. As they in Canada, Sharp studies glacier dynamics, helping.” Her voice trails off as she gazes
disappear, one by one, droughts and water hydrology, and climate-driven changes. He is upward, seeking signs of rain up past the
shortages will follow. “They are coming, frustrated that policymakers in Bolivia, Canada, brown mountain peaks in the distance. Then
and I don’t see clear evidence that people are and elsewhere have been so unresponsive to the she gets to the real point.
developing policy proactively,” says Martin science and to the coming challenges. Which is that the sky won’t cooperate.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 41
Brown
Diamonds
With its glacier
gone, Chacaltaya,
the world’s
highest ski
resort, now
sits on a barren
rock pile.
42 POPULAR SCIENCE
FOR YEARS, SCIENTISTS PREDICTED
F.
that climate change would cause a devastating
water shortage in the Andean plain. Like the
ominous rumblings of a movie soundtrack
before the Big Bad appears on-screen, there
were persistent warnings. Nongovernmental
organisations like Oxfam (2009) and then the
Stockholm Environmental Institute (2013)
put out increasingly dire pleas for water
management. Lake Poopó, whose waters
sustained the indigenous Uru-Murato for
millennia, dried up last year. At the same
time, the normally robust winter rains shrank
by more than 25 per cent. And through it
all, a local paleo-glaciologist named Edson
Ramirez tried to get someone to act.
A soft-spoken professor at the Institute
of Hydraulics and Hydrology of the Higher
University of San Andrés in La Paz, Ramirez
did not want to be the Cassandra for this
catastrophe. But the science left him little
choice. In 1998, he began measuring
Chacaltaya, a glacier an hour’s drive from the
city, which held a world-famous attraction:
the world’s highest ski resort. Ramirez
expected shrinkage. But the reality surprised
even him: Just 15 metres thick, the glacier
was disappearing at a rate of at least a metre
a year. Ramirez calculated it would be gone by
2015. In 2005, he went to city officials to warn
them and discuss the consequences for a city
that relies on glacial runoff for water. He laid
out a dire timeline. The bureaucrats politely
listened but were unconvinced.
It turned out Ramirez was wrong—but only
in his optimism. By 2009, six years ahead of his
calculations, the glacier had vanished, leaving
nothing but a brown stain. The revelation hit
the worldwide media like a storm. But La Paz’s
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 43
that his long-ignored prophecies have come true. bursts, making it more difficult to capture, and
Instead, he is intent on getting the government harder on farmers and their crops.
CLIMATE CHANGE QUIETLY to focus on reacting to what will come next. And all this leads back to the big ice. The
OF NATURE UNTIL THERE IS responsible for .35 per cent of the world’s
greenhouse-gas emissions, compared with
rarities are disappearing rapidly. During the
rainy season, a small temperature increase
NO ROOM FOR HUMAN ERROR. the United States’ 14.4 per cent. But because
of Bolivia’s location and elevation, the Andean
means that instead of snowing in the very
high altitudes—which would recharge these
nation is experiencing the impact of those giants—it rains, accelerating melt. The result,
carbon emissions at a far more accelerated according to Ramirez, is that 37.4 per cent of
pace than the US. The speed of temperature the tropical glaciers around La Paz liquefied
increase has gone from .11 degrees Celsius and slid away between 1980 and 2009.
per decade 40 years ago to .33 degrees in the While runoff might provide only 10 to
last decade, he explains. (The global average 20 per cent of the city’s annual water supply, it
travails are greater than glacier melt. In recent is .15 to .20 per decade.) Climate change has has historically played a crucial buffering role
decades, temperatures on Altiplano rose by also provoked an increase in the number and during droughts. For example, La Paz’s nearby
about two degrees Celsius. In the past 15 years, strength of El Niño years in the Pacific Ocean. higher sister city, El Alto, which sits on the
annual rain and snowfall declined by 20 per In El Niño years, the country gets 20 to 30 per towering 19,000-foot (5790m) Huayna Potosi
cent. Local water officials say that will fall at cent less rain than what was once the average. mountain, still has running water, despite the
least another 10 per cent by 2030. But even in non-El Niño years, precipitation drought. “In the heat, runoff from Huayna
Ramirez seems neither righteous nor angry comes less frequently and in more-intense Potosi has increased, causing equilibrium in
the system,” Ramirez explains.
A favourite among climbers, the mountain
has been reliably covered with snowpack for
thousands of years.
But even the glacier there, once a thick slab
of blue-white ice, is only half of what it was a
few decades ago. How long before it too goes?
Ramirez does some calculations. “Maybe 40
years,” he says. “Maybe.”
It is a devastating assessment of the region’s
water future—and indeed, its entire future. Is
there a chance Ramirez would save himself,
move out of La Paz?
“No.” He shakes his head and smiles
gently. He has offered to help the government
address the crisis. Has the government
accepted? He again shakes his head.
The politics of water in Bolivia are touchy.
What Ramirez hints at but will not say is
that the government will tolerate only so
much criticism; if he is too public in his
condemnation and focuses on human
mismanagement instead of climate collapse,
he might lose grants or other financial
support. The silence of what is unsaid fills the
room. Nobody denies climate change in La
Paz. It’s simply too obvious.
Ramirez suddenly pipes up and points
out a bright spot in the settling gloom. “The
way people think about water is changing,”
he says. “Now people are trying to catch the
rainwater. I think this is very important.”
44 POPULAR SCIENCE
Have Barrel,
Will Wait
Locals must miss
work to wait for
the city to turn
on the water, and
then fill their
storage tanks.
Who’ll Start
the Rain?
Workers build
a new dam and a
bigger reservoir
to catch rain—
which is not
likely to come.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 45
The nationalised utility, ESPAS, which that will raid water from a nearby “creek” at
replaced the French company in La Paz, is the rate of 200 litres per second. That creek,
awash in incompetence. A 2013 audit found however, is the water supply for local farmers.
A.
that millions of dollars of potential revenue As their land dries up, they’ll move to La Paz,
were lost due to leaking hardware. The city’s further taxing the city’s water system.
infrastructure, which is separate, has fared no We leave the caravan to travel another
better. One audit revealed 45 per cent of all 45 minutes down a dusty and rock-strewn
its water escapes through faulty pipes. New road to a vast dam/reservoir construction
pipes and better oversight could improve the project that Moreira has told us about. It’s
situation—but maybe that is not even enough. just upstream from the old dam and looks
One of the insidious qualities of climate like workers slapped it up overnight. “It will
change is that it quietly reduces the resiliency be operational by mid-January,” Moreira
of nature until there is far less—or no—room pledged. It seems improbable the government
for human error. La Paz seems perched on will make that deadline—and irrelevant. The
that precipice of no return. And the city’s evening before, Oscar Meave, the coordinator
leaders still may not have accepted that. of the technical unit of dams in the ministry
of water resources and irrigation, had already
AFTER VISITING RAMIREZ, MY WHITEBOARDS COVER THE WALLS explained the problem. While the new
local guide, Paola, takes me for a trip up to visit of the Water General’s headquarters, a single reservoir will be capable of holding much
the spot where the Chacaltaya glacier once vast room of planning and plotting. Here he more water than the old one, it will probably
lay. At 17,115 feet (5216m), the glacier’s old ski charts the progress and locales of each of the take two rainy seasons to fill it.
resort perches far above the tree line. In fact, it 113 cisternas at his disposal. He is proud of his Being a technical man and not a politician,
sits far above the line where anything grows. efficiency. He brags that the number of daily he says what they will not: This season is a
Without its snow dressing, the barrenness requests for water have greatly diminished disaster, down 40 per cent in its first month.
is absolute. The deserted ski lodge and the since the height of the crisis. Things seemed Back in the city, the people of La Paz do
lift’s old winch add to a haunted atmosphere. to have levelled out. The people are being what all humans do in the face of a slow-
Paola, now 41, remembers vividly her mother served. But when asked if his solution—using motion disaster: adjust. On a Friday afternoon,
and grandfather taking her here as a child. I trucks to take water from the same source that Katherine Sanchez Lopez, a 43-year-old public-
try imagining the shrieking of children and normally feeds the city’s pipes—isn’t a bit like relations professional, sits in her two-storey
snowball fights instead of the desolate pit of robbing Pedro to pay Pablo, he shrugs. It slows home in an upscale neighbourhood. Santa
shredded rocks. My reveries are broken by the pace of consumption, he explains. Asked Claus figurines perch on cabinets and a stairway
a shout of greeting from a day hiker. He has how much water is left, he says confidently: landing, ready to greet Christmas with a cheery
stripped to a T-shirt because of the heat. “We have 10 days. And soon it will rain.” face. In other circumstances, the house might be
Paola is looking off in the near distance, Two days of dry weather later, and under described as tidy. These days, buckets and pots
where Huayna Potosi looms. She is shocked clear skies, the Water General and the Water of all shapes and sizes, filled with water, perch
by its change in appearance. Huge grey granite Minister lead a caravan of four-wheel drives on counters, hide behind chairs, and crowd the
ridges jut from the snowpack. Perhaps, she into the mountains to show reporters two bathrooms. The seven people who live here use
conjectures, Ramirez has been too optimistic new construction projects. One is a pipeline them for flushing, cooking, and sponge bathing.
about that glacier as well. It is 1 p.m. on a workday. Before the crisis
Bolivia has both a tragic and triumphal began, Lopez would have been in her office
history with water. In the 1990s, many of downtown. Now she sits at home hoping the
its cities, including La Paz, privatised their city will turn on her taps so she can do laundry.
water systems, hoping the American and
French conglomerates they hired would bring
37.4 PER CENT OF THE ANDES’ Piles dot the floor. The city said it would turn
on her water at 9 a.m. and leave it on for five
efficiency and expansive service. It worked,
but prices climbed; the people rebelled. They
TROPICAL GLACIERS hours. Lopez checks her taps again, turning
them uselessly. Still nothing.
booted the corporations. Then, in 2009, Bolivia
got a new constitution, one that described water
LIQUEFIED AND SLID AWAY Everything is “totally, totally different,”
she says. “We have to spend so much time
as a fundamental human right. The move also BETWEEN 1980 AND 2009. waiting.” She wears a pink sweater and a
gave the Bolivian government, under President festive red bow in her hair. But her demeanour
Evo Morales, an international role as defender does not match her upbeat dress. “I wish we
of this new guarantee. had been warned,” she adds. “We could have
The reality is far more complicated and acted more consciously about water.” It is too
shameful. One river that bisects La Paz is so late now, she seems to say, with a shake of her
thick with raw sewage and industrial runoff bow. “Now, I think it is the way we will have to
that people won’t touch it, even in a drought. live for a long time.”
46 POPULAR SCIENCE
$0- 6<5,);165 .69 ;0-
,=)5+-4-5; 6. :;96564@
:<7769;15/ -?+-33-5+-
$0- 6<5,);165 .69 ;0- ,=)5+-4-5; 6. :;96564@ -:;)*31:0-, *@ ;0- :;965641+)3 #6+1-;@ 6. <:;9)31) 9-+6/51:-: -?+-33-5+- ;096</0 ;0- #6+1-;@: )+;1=1;1-:
C The Bok Prize .69 6<;:;)5,15/ 9-:-)9+0 *@ )5 656<9: ):;-9: :;<,-5; C The David Allen Prize .69 -?+-7;165)3 ):;96564@ +644<51+);165
C The Charlene Heisler Prize .69 46:; 6<;:;)5,15/ ):;96564@ !0 ;0-:1: C The Berenice & Arthur Page Medal .69 -?+-33-5+- 15 )4);-<9 ):;96564@
C The Louise Webster Prize .69 -?+-33-5+- *@ )5 -)93@ +)9--9 9-:-)9+0-9 C The Richard Cole Fund ;6 :<7769; ;9)1515/ .69 76:;/9),<);- :;<,-5;:
C The Ellery Lectureship .69 6<;:;)5,15/ +65;91*<;165: 15 ):;96564@
46<5;
;0-9(((((((((((((((((((((((((((
!9-.-99-, 791A- )+;1=1;@ ;6 :<7769; 56; +647<3:69@ ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
0-8<-: 7)@)*3- ;6 B6<5,);165 .69 ;0- ,=)5+-4-5; 6. :;96564@D
9-,1; )9, !)@4-5;: 6 ):;-9+)9, 6 %1:)
)9, <4*-9 ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ((( ?719@ );- ((( (((
)9,063,-9 )4- (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( );- ((((((((((((
)9,063,-9 :1/5);<9- ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
65);165: 6. 69 469- )9- ;)?,-,<+;1*3- .69 <:;9)31)5 9-:1,-5;: 6569: +)5 +066:- ;6 :-3-+; >01+0 6<5,);165 )+;1=1;1-: ;0-@ >6<3, 312- ;6 :<7769;$0- 6<5,);165 -?1:;: ;096</0 ;0- :<7769; 6.
<:;9)31)5 ):;96564-9: )5, ;0- /-5-9)3 7<*31+ !3-):- :<*41; @6<9 7)@4-5; ;6 ;0- # $9-):<9-9 9 );915) #-)3-@ +' <:;9)31)5 :;965641+)3 *:-9=);69@ ! 6? 69;0 "@,-
#&
# 9)31) 5+
$0- 4- : 64
48 POPULAR SCIENCE
PARCHED.
A WEEK EXPLORING HOW WE’LL HAVE
TO LIVE IN A POST- WATER WORLD.
BY SARAH SCOLES
One Saturday morning in December 2016, I drank half and set it on the living room floor while I used an online
as much coffee as usual and then, dull-eyed, walked to a calculator to tabulate how much water I had consumed—
hardware store to purchase the 70-litre storage container I directly and indirectly—in the heedless days before this one.
would use to take showers for the next seven days. Because The result: 4,996 litres per day, compared with the
for one week, I was going to shrink my water footprint. American average of 7,900 litres per day.
Much of my home state of Colorado is in a drought. Last Well, congratulations to me.
May, when I moved to Denver, where I share an apartment I took the bucket into the bathroom, plunked it in the
with my sister, Rebekah, the locals promised me snow tub, and got ready to go lower.
by October. None fell till mid-November. Rainfall was Then I headed to the kitchen.
about half the amount normal for autumn. I’d come from
California, where drought is so severe that lawns have YO U A R E T H E WAT E R YO U E AT
turned brown and swimming pools go unfilled. Colorado
isn’t that bad yet. Neither is most of the US. But while we’ve I knew that changing the way I ate would make the biggest
largely been spared, a big chunk of the world is struggling. difference. It takes 4300 litres of water to produce a
In some places, it is our carbon that is melting their glaciers kilogram of chicken. The same amount of beef needs
and shrivelling their lakes. So I decided to find out what an 15,400 litres. A single egg floats on 200, while a 220g of
average citizen—me, you—could do at home. cheese can take as much as 1300.
How often I turn on the tap would hardly seem to make Going vegan was the obvious solution. To help me plan, I
a dent. Of the 1.3 trillion litres of water that wash through invited my friend Tasha Eichenseher, an editor who helped
American pipes daily, less than 10 per cent is for domestic create National Geographic’s water-use calculator, over for
use. Thermoelectric power accounts for nearly half of the dinner the first night. She gave me some general guidelines.
total, while irrigation amounts to a third. Much of the rest “No meat or dairy,” she said. Food should be “locally sourced
goes to livestock, aquaculture, and mining. to avoid transportation water footprints.” An average tractor-
But did you ever think about how much water your shirt trailer positively quaffs 40 litres of fuel for every 100km
uses? Not just to wash it, but the amount that went into travelled. For every 10 kilometres cargo travels, it sucks up 50
making it? Then there’s the water that feeds the food you litres of water. And then came more considerations: “Small
eat and helps produce the fuel that makes your car go. portions so there is no waste,” Eichenseher said. “Minimal
In other words, our individual choices add up to an cooking. Minimal packaging. No diuretics.”
enormous demand as a society—2.5 trillion litres per Diuretics? I simply googled “drought-friendly
day. In a 2014 Government Accountability Office study, recipes.” Luckily for me, television chef Nathan Lyon
water managers in 40 out of 50 US states said they expect has a tag on his blog called exactly that. I picked out his
shortages in the next 10 years. By late last year, nearly a “eggless shakshuka,” normally a dish of eggs poached
third of the contiguous US was in moderate to exceptional in a simmering spiced tomato-and-onion sauce. His
drought, the latter defined as widespread crop loss, suggestion to include avocado seemed water unwise (1330
shrinking reservoirs, and water-shortage emergencies. litres per kg), as did his call for goat cheese (very dairy).
I decided to see how low one person could go to ease the So we decided to chuck both—meaning we’d basically be
problem, and whether that could make a difference. eating tomatoes and onions sopped up with bread.
Feeling overwhelmed by all the complicating factors, Later that day, recipe in hand, Eichenseher and I visited
I walked back to my apartment, big blue bucket in hand, Sprouts Farmers Market, a Denver mini chain with lots of
50 POPULAR SCIENCE
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 51
Yes, I thought. It was then, my blue container nearly full, that I faced
“No,” I said. I opened up my Tupperwared food and the practical issue of what to do with all the grey water.
gulped my tap water. The National Academy of Medicine With no backyard, I had no good purpose for it. I decided
sets “adequate intake” of hydration, including from both to use to flush: letting that bucketful of skin-cell-and-soap
water and food, at about 15 cups a day for men and 11 for water spill into the toilet bowl, forcing the appliance to
women. If you’re doing anything endurance-related, you flush without using any tank water. Problem solved, right?
need more—along with electrolytes—to replace fluid lost to No. My toilet requires about 5 litres for each flush, and
sweat and other bodily processes. On most days, “adequate” I don’t have 4.6 bowel movements per day, which is now
was enough for me. But at that particular moment, my non- a thing you know about me. I had more grey water than I
electrolytic water was definitely not satisfying, nor were could use. With this realisation, I felt as I had in the grocery
my leftovers. Yet what Jones had said was true. The feeling store. I wanted to do good, and well, but I didn’t know
passed, at least as soon as my sister stopped crunching away how. So I started pouring out the leftover litres to flush
on her trail mix right next to my face. the yellow I should have mellowed. But I didn’t feel great
When we got home, I p eeled o ff the outer- about it. And the occasional splash-back was gross.
wear I would continue to use to go running for the rest of In addition to being full of dirtied water, my apartment
the week. How gross they were, sweaty and slightly smelly. was also full of dirty everything else. By the end of the
For supper I had a baked-potato and cabbage concoction, week, glasses and mugs that I’d repeatedly reused—as well
while Rebekah made meatballs for herself. as plates, pots, and pans that I hadn’t pre-rinsed— packed
“Let me just smell them,” I said to her, before heading to the dishwasher. Its interior held an almost-fossilised
an abbreviated shower. record of what I’d eaten.
52 POPULAR SCIENCE
And I needed to do laundry. All week I’d worn the same litres for the week, or 2500 per day, not including the wet
jeans (9,900 litres of water to make). I put them in the cost of electricity. When I checked my math using the
freezer daily, which, like hanging them in the UV-filled same online water calculator I’d used at the beginning—
sunshine, is said to kill some of the odour-causing bacteria which considers electricity—I got 2760 litres per day. I had
(but there doesn’t seem to be any science to back this up). decreased my water use by about 45 per cent, to just 35 per
THINK ABOUT the original owner’s conscience; the other, an athletic top
whose synthetic fibres had a smallish water footprint but
average is actually terrible. My experimental footprint was
the same size as a Chinese citizen’s normal one. Over in
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 53
100 AUSSIE ISSUES
A BRIEF HISTORY OF
POPULAR SCIENCE
The world has been reading a magazine called Popular Science since 1872, and
it’s been recognisable as the mag you know and love since 1915. Popular Science (it
will always be PopSci in our hearts) has seen the rise of everything from affordable
electricity to private cars to international air travel to colour TV to the nuclear arms
race to the Moon landings to the internet and more. Popular Science has watched as
we’ve doubled our life expectancy, killed millions with terrible machines of war,
saved the world with the green revolution, indelibly changed the chemical signature
of our atmosphere via nuclear testing, eliminated diseases like smallpox and
(almost) polio, and girdled the planet in high bandwidth fibre optic cables.But why?
Why publish a magazine like this? On the occasion of Australia’s 100th issue, let’s see
if we can divine some kind of pattern in the often chaotic march of progress...
BY ANTHONY FORDHAM
54 POPULAR SCIENCE
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 55
A Fantasy of the Future
In an age before colour photography,
cover illustrations were, let’s say
unrestrained by reality
56 POPULAR SCIENCE
100 ISSUES
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 57
WHY POPULAR SCIENCE? were starting to appear in shops. Sure,
One of the challenges of convincing everything was a stupidly expensive half-
companies to give us cool stuff to show off working beta version of the stuff we can buy
to you, the reader, is that the name of this crazy-cheap at JB Hi-Fi - you should see 1915
magazine doens’t immediately conjure the fridges! - but the point is people needed to
idea of “future tech”. At least, to people
know what this tech was and what it could do.
who aren’t familiar with it.
But back in 1872, the word “technology” Those early issues had a big focus on DIY
didn’t mean “a clever machine.” For at least craftsmanship and home improvement. What
200 years, a technology was a detailed tools should I buy to build my own furniture? Is
description of a specific art or craft (like, a drop-forged hammer worth the extra nickel?
a book that explains what teaching
systems masters use to help apprentices How can I build a usefully sensitive shortwave
learn to become skilled blacksmiths, or radio without electrocuting myself?
leatherworkers, or goldsmiths etc). Mixed with these were the kinds of articles
In the mid-19th century the meaning we still run today. Bold, often in hindsight
slowly changed to mean “the study of
hilarious, predictions of the future. Breathless
mechanical and industrial arts.” So as
a word, it was more like “theology” or articles about how we’ll rollerskate to the
“geology”. It certainly didn’t mean what it airship station and fly to work. Robot maids!
means today - an object that does a thing, Cars that aren’t death machines! Amazing
or the knowledge of how to build an object tanks that will crush the Kaiser! An airport
that does a thing.
When the magazine was founded, built on the roof of a giant building in the
science was very academic. Ordinary middle of New York City!
people might have had some idea that this Naive Technology The circulation doubled.
guy Charles Darwin was messin’ up the Between WW1 and WW2 ideas of future And so the Popular Science we’ve been read-
natural order of things with his monkey weaponry were often, uh, wrong. ing our entire lives (the US mag even has some
book, but in the 1860s and 1870s, unless
you were at university, you probably didn’t FOURTH GENERATION subscribers!) found
know much about the laws of physics, or World’s Advance and even Popular Electricity. its groove for the next hundred years.
indeed that physics has laws. This is not a joke, there really was a magazine
Youman’s mission, in those early days, called Popular Electricity. THE FUTURE THEN
was to get normal people reading about
science. And not just super-hardcore maths After purchase of the name, the October
and physics and whatnot. The science of 1915 edition was published as Popular Science As the decades marched inevitably past, Pop-
ordinary things, the everyday science of a Monthly and World’s Advance. It had Popular ular Science gained a subtitle: the What’s New
changing world. A science of the people. A Science’s volume and issue number (vol. 87, Magazine. That was the tagline, right there
kind of popular science, if you will.
no. 4) but the content was from the existing under the masthead. It became a guide to the
Today, because of the nature of the
world we live in, Popular Science is largely World’s Advance magazine. relentless pace of technological change in the
a technology magazine. But our scope As confused as existing readers world, especially after World War 2. What was
is bigger and broader than that. This and subscribers may have been at the next? Such things as television, cheap interna-
magazine is called Popular Science because overnight (well, month-on-month really) tional phone calls, flight and then jet flight and
we believe that everyone can, and should,
be interested in science, technology and transformation of their stuffy and important then SPACE flight. The discovery of DNA, the
everything that flows from both. journal into a mainstream mag packed with idea of genetics, genetic testing, genetic pro-
gadgets and advice on how to build a deck, it’s filing, then genetic engineering.
this magazine - October 1915 - that marks the Codebreaking machines, then computers,
start of an unbroken chain of issues stretching then desktop computers, then networking
from that distant, warn-torn past to this often and the internet. And of course flying cars...
stupid-seeming future. no wait, not flying cars. Still waiting on those.
At some point, perhaps the millennium,
DIY TOMORROW the pace of change overtook us all. The future
that a thousand terrible sci-fi films (and a few
The change may have been dramatic but it good ones) had promised was here. Everyone
proved extremely wise. The early 20th cen- was walking around with a tiny supercomput-
tury, for people not away fighting in a distant er in their pocket, only a few taps away from
and probably only half-real-seeming war (this communicating with their friends or insulting
was all happening in America remember) was a stranger or misinterpreting a badly sourced
a place where the constant change we now ex- opinion of some aspect of human knowledge.
pect was just starting to really ramp up. Spotting this change, Popular Science
The early 20th century saw the creation took on a new tagline - The Future Now - in
of the kind of middle class we’d recognise. October 2006. What does “the future now”
People had their own homes, which they had mean? It means that the amazing but perhaps
to run without the aid of servants. Appliances somewhat confusing and overwhelming
100 ISSUES
future the magazine had espoused for 91 actual giant Tesla coil because working in the
years (at that point) needs a guidebook. And mines is boring, and so much more.
the magazine aimed to be that guidebook, While the fortunes of our scientists and
making sense of everything from cosmology innovators ebb and flow with the political
(dark what now?) to carbon fibre. tide, in the long term Australia seems to end
By 2014 we figured everyone had gotten the up punching well above its weight when it
point, so the tagline disappeared. Probably for comes to building humanity’s future through
good. But never say never! technology. Our existing list of achievements
In September 2008, this magazine you’re is impressive, and we look forward to bringing
holding was born. The Australian edition of you news and in-depth analysis of Australian
Popular Science has always aimed to take that achievements still to come.
rich dollop of US science and tech and mix it The future depends on technology. Sure,
generously with the best of what Australia can social change consolidates every step forward.
do when it comes to science, technology and Tech by itself can’t save the world. But with
innovation. It’s been quite a ride. 7.5 billion people alive today, natural systems
Over the last nine years, we’ve covered ev- under strain, and growing demand for, well,
erything from solar car races to hot rocks to everything, solutions will come from science,
our tiny nuclear reactor to the debate over our and the machines (be they big, small or
natural gas deposits, to auto-gyros, tactical microscopic) that science will build.
police helmets (now a skiing helmet), the or- If you want to still be able to make sense
igins of Dick Smith Electronics, bees with tiny of the systems that run your life in 2025, keep
Tribute to a great
computer backpacks, the seemingly doomed This Nick Offerman cover from 2014 reading this magazine. We’ll keep writing.
dream of high speed rail, a guy who built an mimics a 1920s Norman Rockwell cover That’s not a threat. It’s a promise.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 59
THE UNDRINKABLE OCEAN
WHERE THEY TAME
BY K E L S EY AT H E RTON / P HOTO G R A P H S BY S P E N C E R L OW E LL
One of the fastest-growing cities and the Arabian Desert, the Jebel
in the world is also among the driest. Ali desalination plant makes
Situated between the Persian Gulf the metropolis of Dubai possible.
A Big Gulp Dubai’s population boom long ago outgrew its groundwater supply.
of the Gulf Today, it provides only 0.5 per cent of the city’s demand. To meet
the other 99.5 per cent—a daily peak of 1.57 billion litres, on aver-
age—the Jebel Ali plant imbibes 10 billion litres from the Persian
Gulf every day, turning it into pristine drinking water. In the first
step, the sea passes through filtration baskets, which isolate large
materials including junk, seaweed, and occasionally marine life.
62 POPULAR SCIENCE
Separation At the reverse-osmosis facility, motorised pumps force salt water
Under Pressure through tubes filled with tightly wound membranes. The result? Highly
concentrated salt water on one side, and something you’d actually want
to drink on the other. Reverse osmosis used to be notoriously expensive
and energy intensive. But over the past decade, major advances in
membrane technology let plants like this one treat more water faster.
Jebel Ali produces 113 million litres per day via reverse osmosis alone.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 63
Journey Through The rest of the seawater—about 98.5 per cent—goes through a multi-
the Vape Chamber step heating and cooling process called flash distillation. Turbines
send steam via pipelines to a series of evaporation chambers. There,
steam heats the salt water, and the resulting vapour cools and con-
denses into a collector. Leftover salt water travels to the next cham-
ber, which has lower pressure (and a lower boiling point). This repeats
many times until pure H2O—and a dense brine—are all that remain.
64 POPULAR SCIENCE
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 65
From the Ocean The water gets tested for pH, turbidity, and any chlorine dioxide left
to the Tap over from treatment. Then it’s transferred to reservoirs en route to
the city. The Dubai Energy and Water Authority (DEWA), which
operates the plant, services 666,430 customers with water as of
early 2017, most of them residential. Currently, the total capacity of
the plant is 2.1 billion litres a day, but demand is growing, so an expan-
sion to accommodate an additional 180 million litres is underway.
66 POPULAR SCIENCE
Brack Despite all that work, only about 9 per cent of the total original intake
to the Sea becomes potable water (or goes to generate electricity). The rest—now
with a higher salinity—gets pumped back into the Persian Gulf. In 2015,
that translated to nearly 5 trillion litres of discharged brine. DEWA
keeps a close watch to ensure all that warm salt water doesn’t harm the
local ecosystem. At multiple distances from the plant, workers routine-
ly test the sea for things like acidity levels and the health of marine life.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 67
VALUE
D AT
$2
,800
SUBSCRIBE AT
SUBSCRIBE TO mymagazines.com.au
FOR A CHANCE TO
WIN
Please send me a subscription to
2 Years (24 issues) @ A$165 SAVE OVER 31%
1 Years (12 issues) @ A$89 SAVE OVER 25%
New Subscription Renewal Gift Subscription
How would an Oris timepiece improve your life? (25 words or less)
AN ORIS ARTIX
GT DAY DATE MY DETAILS:
TIME PIECE Name: Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms
Address:
Postcode:
Daytime phone:
10 Bar Stainless Steel case, OR please charge my MasterCard Visa American Express
Postcode:
Daytime phone:
this
For your chance to WIN
E-mail address:
cribe or
amazing timepiece, subs stralian Price offers available to Australian and NZ residents only ending 29/03/17. All rates
to Au include GST. Overseas Airmail Rates: 2yrs/24 issues A$299, 1yr/12 issues A$150.
renew your subscription ine and Savings based on total cover price. Subscriptions commence with the next available
issue. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery of your first magazine. This form may be
Popular Science magaz tion used as a Tax Invoice. nextmedia Pty Ltd; ABN 84 128 805 970. Competition open to
new, renewing or extending Australian and NZ residents who subscribe to Australian
es
answer the following qu Hi-Fi, Popular Science, Camera or Australian Guitar between 2/3/17 and 3/5/17 for a
minimum of 1 year. This is a game of skill. To be eligible to win you must answer the
in 25 words or le ss : question provided in 25 words or less. ONE (1) winner will receive an Oris Artix GT Day
Date (735 7662 4424RS) Timepiece valued at $2,800. Entries will be judged by the
iece
How would an Oris timep
editorial teams on 9/5/17. The most creative answer will win. The judge’s decision is
final and no correspondence will be entered into. The Promoter is nextmedia Pty Ltd,
exchangeable. P lease tick if you do not wish to receive special offers or information
from nextmedia or its partners via [ ] mail [ ] email. For full Privacy Notice, refer
to www.nextmedia.com.au. If you would prefer to receive your communication
electronically, please ensure we have your current email address.
TALES F R O M T H E
FIELD
BOTTOMS UP
70 POPULAR SCIENCE as told to Sophie Bushwick / illustrations by Mark Nerys as told to Sarah Fecht
TA L E S F R O M T H E F I E L D
GEARED UP
look at
this trove,
treasures
untold Spear Gun Buoy
Kelly and her Never mind the
E M I LY K E L LY , E C O L O G I S T A T T H E S C R I P P S
colleagues like to sharks—stray boats
INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY
get their fish-gut are a more threaten-
specimens from ing concern. To avoid
Among Hawaii’s reefs, Eskies local shops when accidents, Kelly’s
Emily Kelly dives with The researchers possible. But if they team totes a float
surgeonfish and parrotfish. preserve specimens do go collecting, out to the water
By grazing on fleshy algae, on the way to the lab they rely on a to mark their
these “underwater in an ice-filled esky. Hawaiian sling-style diving location.
lawnmowers” make room A similar esky holds gun with a three-
for hard corals to grow. To snacks. The trick is prong spear tip.
study how the fish aid the remembering which
reef, and how to protect esky is which!
them from overfishing,
Kelly uses this collection of
gadgets and gizmos.
Waterproof
Paper
Kelly takes notes
GPS Unit about what algae
Scientists can’t fish prefer, how they
exactly mark a fish’s eat (nibbles versus
street address. chomps), and their
So they use a civilian roles in different
GPS unit to track ecosystems.
where they make
observations and
find specimens.
Seaweed
Samples
Parrotfish and
surgeonfish
sometimes graze on
seaweed, which Kelly
and her colleagues
store like flower
pressings. She
displays some in her
office, but they’re not
just decorative: Kelly
can always slice off
a piece, rehydrate it,
and examine its
cell structure under
Surgical Equipment a microscope.
Although the fish go to the lab for later study,
Wetsuit Kelly and her colleagues use razor blades and
Even in Maui’s balmy forceps to dissect some specimens right in
23- to 26-degree the field. First they remove essential organs and
waters, up to eight collect the ear bone, whose tree-ring-like
hours a day in the structure can help determine a fish’s age. Then
water saps Kelly’s they take out the guts and slice them open before
body heat. A wetsuit putting them into a vial of formalin, allowing
keeps her cozy. the preservative to permeate the organs.
KILLER JOB
Hydro-
battling a waterborne plague planing
and hail
R I C K G E LT I N G , U S P U B L I C H E A LT H S E R V I C E O F F I C E R A T
THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION are usually
scarier
than the
tornado
itself. It’s
like driving
on black ice
in the
middle of
nowhere
with no
reception.
E M I LY S U T T O N ,
METEOROLOGIST
AND STORM CHASER
When you’re in a water emergency, it’s really where local knowledge comes in handy. AT K F O R -T V I N
OKLAHOMA CITY
not the time to try something new. In 2010, For large community water systems, we
when the cholera outbreak hit Haiti, the local used locallyavailable materials to drip a liquid
government invited* us to help implement a chlorine solution directly into storage tanks, a
water-cleaning system. We had to work method that Haiti’s national water and
quickly to get clean water to small communi- sanitation agency (DINEPA) developed. But
ties fighting against the waterborne disease. some people were bringing in small batches
But we also couldn’t introduce any new tech- of water from other places. In those cases,
nologies or products that local workers and special chlorine tablets and solutions let
residents might not be familiar with. individual households treat their own water.
Chlorine was our go-to: It’s available, inex- Working with DINEPA was key because
pensive, and incredibly effective. Problem is, they knew the local conditions and communi-
there are different types of chlorination, so ties better than we did. Local knowledge
we had to trace where people got every drop ensures that what you build will sustain itself
of their water—whether they piped it in, and make a difference in the long term—
hauled it from wells, or got it elsewhere.This is because you will eventually leave.
*Diplomatese for "desperately beseeched" as told to Claire Maldarelli
5 1
Test for Master Diver Join the Seabees
After 12 to 20 years, a Enlisted sailors learn
written test, and rigorous construction and
dive simulations in the Gulf demolition, without the
of Mexico, you’re certified added pressure of doing
as one of the Navy’s best. it underwater.
WET WORK
becoming
a navy
master diver
JA M E S E M E R S O N , N AVA L C H I E F WA R R A N T
OFFICER AND MASTER DIVER
3
Learn on the Job
One of Emerson’s first
tasks was to cut up a ruined
Virginia pier in “some of
the coldest, darkest water
you can imagine.”
ASTRONAUT DOUGLAS H.
MYSTERY
PACKING LIST
how to
survive
the desert
K U M U D A C H A R YA , H E A D O F E C O L O G I C A L
E N G I N E E R I N G AT T H E D E S E R T
RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN LAS VEGAS
The Snowy Mountains sell it off, or the fate of the platypus, or what.
But the Snowy Mountains Scheme remains
a rare example of a large infrastructure
80 POPULAR SCIENCE
place underground in tunnels, 120 men died
and thousands were injured.
So too did the Scheme sacrifice the Snowy
River in the name of progress. Not only does
the system capture snowmelt and divert it
into dams above the generators, afterwards
it sends that water into the Murray and the
Murrumbidgee Rivers, where it is picked up
by the various irrigation schemes. Today, the
Snowy River carries as little as one per cent of
the water it did before 1949.
Of course, since this was an unprecedented
25 year multi-state project plagued no doubt
with Commonwealth interference, the
Snowy Mountains Scheme finished years late
and millions over budget, right?
In fact, it finished on time and for its $820
million projected budget. In some ways,
that’s the most impressive thing about it.
The Snowy Mountains Scheme is owned
by the government, or three governments
depending how your loyalties lie, but it is
operated by a company called Snowy Hydro. Turbines to speed And almost nobody seems to remember that
Like other power companies today, the Coal, gas and even nuclear power the Scheme also provides water to farmers on the
are all thermoelectric. Hydro
method Snowy Hydro uses to make its runs on pure gravity Murray (except the farmers, they remember). In
electricity is almost irrelevant. It generates fact, most people on the street probably think
a certain output, and then sells that output of the Scheme as a single, gigantic power plant
onto the national electricity market. One of seven sitting athwart a raging cataract. Not seven
Murray 1 is just one of seven
The company even owns gas-fired peaking individual power stations that stations and over 250km of tunnels.
plants in NSW and Victoria, ready for those days combine to form the Scheme Featuring the Scheme as a retro invention
when everyone switches on the AC at once. is a bit unfair, in some ways, since it’s still out
Meanwhile, back up there in the hills, there, making electricity and not putting out
the debates continue. Ecologists want very many emissions at all.
environmental flows into the Snowy. Certain, But if you think of it as an achievement of
uh, interest groups still insist the hydroelectric bipartisanship, as an engineering triumph
stations are a boondoggle, and NSW getting that cuts air pollution, as an institution that
10% of its energy from hydroelectric isn’t welcomed immigrants and paid them not just
worth it. Aggressive environmentalists say a fair wage put a competitive wage, and acted
hydro is barely superior to coal, given how as a very real-world showcase of Australian
much it disrupts natural river flows and ruins technological innovation...
the ecology downstream from the dams. ...yep, sounds pretty retro to me.
EARLY ADOPTERS
First, for
tourism!
Australia’s first hydroelectric plant was
built in 1888 for the benefit of tourists
visiting Jenolan Caves. It supported the
increasing number of electric lights
being installed in the various caves for
tour groups. This stuff was absolutely
state of the art. Consider: Edison
patented his carbon-filament vacuum
bulb in 1879. By 1890, Jenolan Caves, on
the far side of the planet, had a small
but effective hydroelectric power
station. See? We used to get into stuff,
and before it was cool.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 81
L A B R AT S
QDC Cockatrice
The thrill of abnegated responsibility. The luxury of abandoned choice.
The intensity of ecstasy at the limits of quasi-autonomous dynamic control.
WHEN I ARRIVED AT THE CARPARK FULL OF some kind of excitement overload. “Oh wow,” he said. “So
quasi-autonomous dynamic sports coupes, the very serious are you going to press the button?”
and important test drivers regarded me with narrowed Rather than engage with the question, I pressed the
eyes. A rake-thin one dressed all in black removed his button. The car rumbled into life. Maps and airflow
cigarillo and, exactly like that stoned caterpillar from Alice diagrams and other esoterica appeared on various displays.
in Wonderland, puffed out: “Who - are - YOU?” A stern little robot called Mapshit had been suction-
I was all set to explain myself, but at that moment cupped to the windscreen by the equally stern safety guys
Quadynacoup’s likewise quasi-autonomous and dynamic who coordinated test drives like this. I had encountered
engineering lead, Stanley “Runner” Blockade, erupted out Mapshit - pronounced Maps-hit, thank you very much -
of a grey SUV and explained myself for me. before. He was a miserable little prick, but also a GPS.
“He’s a client of my brother’s,” said Blockade, through “You’re driving to an eco-resort out the back of
teeth like bullets. “A boner fie-day science guy. A scientist. Goulburn,” snapped Mapshit. “The road is goddamn
He’s the control. The one who isn’t here to try and wrest narrow so keep to the speed limit and watch out for roos.”
manual drive back from this car.” “Me?” I said. “I’m not driving
Blockade indicated the cars. anywhere. The car is.”
Myself, I knew very little about “Oh great ,” said Mapshit .