Comment by dahart

> for just 5kWh we can desalinate 250 gallons … pipes are relatively cheap

I live 1500km from the ocean at 1500m altitude with 3 million other people in a place that’s neither poor nor a war zone.

Ignoring the cost of pipes for a minute (which is probably not small), googling the energy required to get 250 gallons (or about 1 cubic meter) of water from there to here, I get at least 140kWh [1], assuming a straight shot and no ups and downs along the way.

If that cubic meter is distributed to 5 households per day (so ~30kWh / household), which is less water than the average household uses [2] but might be reasonable for drinking water needs, we’d still probably be doubling the energy requirement for the entire region from ~30kWh per household [3] to ~60kWh. And the current ~30kWh usage is somewhat elastic and reducible, where the energy to pump water is not.

[1] (my calculation: large pipeline, 112MJ * 3<altitude> * 1.5<distance> ~= 140kWh) https://www.quora.com/How-much-energy-would-it-cost-to-pump-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residential_water_use_in_the_U...

[3] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit...