[Karlos4]

Someone might know the answer. I got no idea if oil is needed to pump water. In a Peak scenario, will we get water without presion or treatment, or no water at all?. As I see it, water is the very esential item in a house withouth which one has to go away.

[CarlosFerreira]

I don't know, and I would expect there's some pumping involved somewhere. But most of it is just pressure from reservoirs, makes sense. Or am I just dumb?

[VMarcHart]

Water pumping, treatment, distribution, etc, is mostly performed with electricity, which in the case of the U.S. is 50% coal, 25% nuclear, 25% everything else, including natural gas, hydro, wind, etc. Thus, oil does not affect water supply directly. However, operators need to get to their places of work for pumping, treatment, distribution, etc. Most of them need a vehicle to get there. No oil, no vehicle ... you can see the problem in the horizon. Similarly, the same operators need a house to live. No credit, no mortgages, no housing ... you know where I'm getting.

[Ronin]

If your in an area that has water towers or the tank is situated on a hill then odds are they're using electric pumps. I'm not sure about the back-up electrical systems for the pumps but if the grid goes down you'd possibly have a few days of water before the tank ran dry.

Then again in that event every man and his dog would be filling up the bath tubs and every empty coke bottle.

Its great isn't it fossils in everything.

[CarlosFerreira]

The world is being enveloped in a pincer movement, between PO and financial crisis, is it? Feel the squeeze yet?

[frankthetank]

The biggest problem will be pipes freezing and bursting=no water. When NG slides off a cliff and becomes unavailable (and expensive) then people will turn off their heat or only heat a couple of sq ft. Pipes will freeze solid quickly in the north.

[Dreamtwister]

It completely depends on the city. Let's just say "I wouldn't want to be living in Las Vegas".

[strider3700]

It really depends on the city. Here the entire system is gravity. in many places it's not. Also if it comes out of the ground it will almost certainly be pumped.

As someone else pointed out most systems will go dry in a couple of days if the power goes out and they are pumped. I believe most of the south west coast is a death trap due to lack of water when the oil runs out

[gonfishn]

I can answer this one.
How long you have water after the grid goes down depends on municipal storage capacity,tank elevation vs. distribution system elevation , consumer usuage and the capacity/duration of the water systems back up power generation.
Average American usuage is around 300 gallons per person per day,so for a municipality of 10,000 you are sucking down 3 MGPD.

[worrier]

A lot of people in Australia and New Zealand are installing roof collection water tanks to their houses, mostly for garden/grey water use. They can be a more expensive system that diverts to the tank for toilet flushing, washing. Or it can be a cheaper tank that connects just to the guttering and just has an outside tap for garden use. Whether people can have such a system depends on whether they have a separate house, their roofing material (I think some materials not suitable for water consumption), and their climate. But it could be a relatively cheap way to ensure your own water supply if your conditions are favourable.

[kpeavey]

All sorts of variable in this question. Utilities with water fed by gravity will hold up for a considerable period. Those utilities which pump water are reliant on the grid and whatever backup power systems are in place. Lose the grid, water will go down in a few days over much of the affected area. Determining exactly how long the water will last is next to impossible, but it's not long.

A fantastic amount of water is lost to leaks. Running toilets, dripping faucets, cracked pipes underground. If the grid went down, there would be some water available in storage, but even if everyone were able to get by with a gallon/day, the leaks will release vast amounts of water in just a few days. This is a problem for every water utility out there. Technology helps to locate leaks, but its the big leaks that get the attention. All the small leaks of a few gallons here and there are left to run because the cost of repairs vs the flow rate does not justify action.

[alokin]

There is as well the problem of the old infrastructure. Why all these leeks? Because the pipes were often put in a 100 years ago. Nobody ever thought that they have to be replaced one day.
Here the government paid nearly our whole tank. Even if not, we would have bought one, but ours is only big enough to water our garden.
We should have bought a much bigger tank.
Here's how to calculate (forget about average rainfall in your area as you want to catch every single drop):
Your daily garden use, let's say 200 litres if it's hot and you have a big veggie patch. Then you might use 120 litres per day as a family of four (you cannot use the Average American usuage is around 300 gallons per person per day is this really true??) that makes 320l per day. Then you multiply this by the maximum period without rain and you only count decent rain something that fills your tank.
The installation is so easy that you really don't need a plumber.

[Ivan_M]

the water will come up short before the oil does. at least thats the hay its trending now. we are finding more oil, but more water isnt forthcoming. which could be worse since the resource wars can still be fought at an extremly high energy bracket if the struggle isn't over the energy itself.

[grassland]

When the poumps run dry, any day now, the people who run the water system will no longer go to work as will the power grid.

Within 4 days of oil shortage, all systems will be disabled incuding government. Then the bad guys can and will do whatever they want to you.
Water will be the least of your worries.

[Ferretlover]

FYI:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Tiny Nation Tuvalu Declares Fresh Water Emergency
By NICK PERRY Associated Press, WELLINGTON, New Zealand October 3, 2011 (AP)--

The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency due to a severe shortage of fresh water, with officials saying Monday that some parts of the country may only have a two-day supply.
New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said his country was working with the Red Cross to deliver aid workers and supplies as quickly as possible.
He said Tuvalu first declared the emergency last week and the situation had deteriorated since then.
Water was scarce in the capital, Funafuti, and a number of outlying islands, McCully said, adding that he had received reports saying some places would run out of fresh water within days. …
Tuvalu — a grouping of low-lying coral atolls that is home to less than 11,000 people — isn't the only Pacific island running out of fresh water after six months of low rainfall. Officials from Australia and New Zealand have said they are worried about other islands in the region, including Tokelau. …

[Tanada]

According to the BBC the UK government has commissioned a new aquifer map of Africa to make exploitation of the ground water more cost effective. Seems to me this newly mapped resource will be exploited as quickly as the water well rigs can get to the now mapped locations for drilling. In a land of abundant sunshine where solar powered desalination is actually cost effective I hazard the guess that all this 'free' ground water will get used up first and quickly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17775211

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Andrew Mitchell', 'T')he publication of the new map was welcomed by the UK's secretary of state for international development, Andrew Mitchell.

"This is an important discovery," he said. "This research, which the British Government has funded, could have a profound effect on some of the world's poorest people, helping them become less vulnerable to drought and to adapt to the impact of climate change."