ABSTRACT
Industrial uses of water are becoming dominant, and by 1980 it is expected that more than half the water used in the United States will go to power stations and factories. The situation facing Western Europe and the United States foreshadows developments to be expected in all industrial regions in the foreseeable future. Over and above the accelerating expansion of water-using industries in the populated lands, the great deserts and semi-arid portions of the earth might sooner be developed, and water is unquestionably the first essential for this. Water shortage is hindering development of established industries in many places, and in the same areas the industrial pollution of rivers and lakes is creating its own problems. Man could increase the amount of available usable water by large-scale purification and recirculation, just as in the closed environment of a space capsule a limited quantity of water is used again and again, purified, recirculated, repurified, and so on for an indefinite period.
