by Ivan Anthony

Created on: November 22, 2007   Last Updated: May 03, 2012

I don't believe it's a question of, will water become more valuable than oil, but a question of, when will water become more valuable than oil? As we move towards viable alternative fuel sources (and as ever heightening gas prices encourage us to move further and faster in this direction), I think it's clear that oil is on it's slow and steady way out. And even if you dispute this observation, you can't argue that oil has an endless global supply. We know for sure that this is not the case.

The 'Peak Oil Theory', devised by M King Hubbert in 1956, describes a likely decline in consumption as demand and therefore prices increase, while supply diminishes. He predicted Americas consumption peak to be between 1965-1970. Oil industry giants admit that most of the worlds oil reserves have already been found and globally, we've peaked as far as daily production is concerned.

I believe that first the so-called first world nations will move further and further away from oil as fuel, as alternatives become more reliable and cost effective. Once these alternative sources are perfected and proven, the second world nations then begin to move into them. Then of course, when prices fall enough as the new fuel routine becomes truly routine, the third world nations begin to switch, perhaps with a little help from their friends. Once everyone has switched, the price of oil falls through the floor with it's demand.

The worlds population continues to grow, so too does the worlds oil shortage. Economics will definitely push us to develop our alternatives. But oil is not the only shortage we will face. Nor is it the most important. Fresh, clean water is also a limited resource. We do have technology to clean dirty water, but the process adds price to production. Nominal price so far, but as demand goes up and supply goes down, price goes up. And we can desalinize salt water into fresh but not very efficiently and so far, at great expense.

Our global ability to clean the water we dirty is not keeping up to the rate of consumption and as global population continues to rise, the shortage of fresh, clean water will become more and more evident. It may take another hundred years or so, but once the need for oil is all but faded into the annals of history, the need for water will not only still exist but likely increase. The only possible way to keep up will be to use technology to clean, re-clean, and clean again, all the fresh water we have. Every time we process it, we add cost to it's production. At this point water should be worth more than oil.

Global warming could very well continue to diminish our already limited supply of fresh water with each successive generation. This effect can only serve to tilt the scales more quickly. Water will absolutely be more valuable than oil at some point in the future, and then forever beyond. And any good philosopher would tell you, it already is.

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