Scrolled pretty far and haven’t seen mention of this:
Water shortages will be entirely solved in the next decade by cheap renewables and desalination.
Clean water can be manufactured, and effectively free electricity will make it dirt cheap
Water shortages will be entirely solved in the next decade by cheap renewables and desalination.
Clean water can be manufactured, and effectively free electricity will make it dirt cheap
(I do agree that very cheap electricity means very cheap water.)
If it wasn't for heavy, heavy government subsidies in this space (some states match 50-75% of the up-front cost over the course of a year or two), I am not convinced it would be popular, at all, for regular Joe Schmoe.
The tech itself is at the right level now, it's the middle men and bureaucracies or bad rates that are the main problem. Source: family member who has overseen installation and maintenance of many major solar installations.
Effectively free? For a first world country, maybe. But the countries where water shortages are an actual life or death situation already have trouble getting a good enough power grid. Noone is going to show up to a village in the middle of Ghana and install solar panels for free so they can have water. This is a horribly first-world centric point of view.
There are plenty of organizations who will do exactly that. But I think I agree with the general slant of your comment, which is that much of the world will have to rely on the charity of the developed world to solve this problem for them. That charity is not guaranteed to be timely, effective, or predictable.