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Comment by 3pt14159 | Hacker News Reader

And even if there were land locked countries, natural trade will supply water. When people talk about water wars they envision people dying of thirst, when the reality is that water will go from being fifty cents a thousand litres (!) to a buck fifty a thousand litres and farmers will need to work around it.

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Indeed. The first thing that would happen if water were a lot more scarce is that lots of things would become more expensive, since water is an input to just about everything. Presumably people would change their behaviour in lots of ways short of just up and killing each other. "OMG expensive meat!" is a lot more likely than "OMG war!"

Maybe a biased source, but http://www.ecotechwater.com/Company/watertrivia.html:

How much water does it take to produce one ton of steel? 62,600 gallons

How much water must a dairy cow drink to produce one gallon of milk? 4 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of a chicken? 400 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of almonds? 12 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of french fries? 6 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of a single orange? 13.8 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of a watermelon? 100 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of a loaf of bread? 150 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of a tomato? 3 gallons

How much water is used during the growing/production of rice? 35 gallons

How much water us used during the production of an egg? 120 gallons

How much water does it take to process a quarter pound of hamburger? Approximately one gallon.

How much water does it take to make four new tires? 2,072 gallons.

How much water is used during the growing/production of a tomato?

I've wondered about the use of hermetically sealed greenhouses where over 95% of the water is recovered with dehumidifiers. The power needed by such dehumidifiers would track solar flux rather closely. Would increases in water costs make such setups economical?

"How much water us used during the production of an egg? 120 gallons"

This is the only one I feel comfortable commenting on specifically, but this is insanely wrong. A laying hen drinks about 16 ounces of water per day, eats a few ounces of food per day, and lays an egg every 1-2 days depending on the breed and the conditions.

Your quoted figure appears to be, quite literally, off by a factor of 1,000.

It does sound a bit high, but to produce a pound of grain it takes about 150 gallons of water, and assuming about 1/2 pound of food eaten every 2 days it is about right.

As the previous poster said, a laying hen eats a couple of ounces a day, no where near a half a pound.

With a cursory google search, 1/4 pound of feed per day seems about typical, assuming 2 days per egg produced.

Maybe, a 'factory' hen that eats nothing but grain might do 1/4 pound of grain. But these hens will also produce very close to 1 egg a day, or about 9 eggs for every 10 days or so.

Also, apparently "rice" is a now a singular specific quantity.

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