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Comment by dsq | Hacker News Reader

Desalination is a blessing but it also increases the dependence of the population on technical infra for daily survival. If something were to happen to the desalination plants, that's no water, immediately (in the UAE case, for example).

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The same is true about electricity or gasoline. Once the pumps stop working and the trucks stop supplying the supermarkets, you have maybe two weeks.

We could decrease our dependence our electricity and gasoline too. Who knows, it might even be beneficial for the environment.

If the municipal pumps stop there will be 20 mins of water or so from the gravity header tank. No difference.

Government tank trucks will shortly begin distributing water. It might not be enough for a good wash, but nobody will be dying of thirst.

You can't start eating people when the trail head's in sight.

You gotta give it some space. Let it breathe.

There's 70 plants, it's unlikely something would happen to all of them at the same time.

Except something like an EMP or other large scale breakdown of infrastructure.

The pipes themselves are the vulnerable infrastructure. Calgary just had an emergency situation for a few weeks because of a broken pipe.

Reducing dependence on technical infra doesn't always work out either; the story of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family suggests that for any long-term attempts at autarky, N should be >6. (how much greater?)

Simply not true for the UAE with numerous dams and they are also refilling aquifers to store water.

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