Oct 6, 2026 02:08 AM
PETER ZEIHAN (geopolitics)
https://youtu.be/ME77LPWhuL4
VIDEO EXCERPTS: This is going to be a short series because there are multiple angles to this. But the first piece I want to talk about is something called fossil water. Water that is fossil water is pulled from an aquifer that does not recharge with the normal seasonal cycles. So normally it rains, you get runoff, it seeps into the ground, goes into an underground aquifer and springs, and it recharges every season. So you can tap it, I don’t think as much as you want, but pretty heavily.
Fossil water is deeper, and it’s typically in a more arid zone, and it doesn’t recharge from the surface at the same rate. So instead of recharging in weeks to months, it’s millennia. So we’re going to talk about three regions here that are affected, because all of them are going to cease to be agriculturally producing zones within the next 20 to 30 years. And based on what happens, it could really happen next year, because a lot of this is driven by stuff at the surface.
[...] Yes, you can use it for agriculture, but you can only use it once. And so what we’ve seen in multiple parts of the world is the tapping of the zone in increasing volume. And the problem is honestly kind of legal, because if there’s a surface water dispute, there are negotiations, there are laws, and there are regulations.
[...] But if you can just drill, then it’s just a race to the bottom of the tank. ... And most of these zones, if they’re not already going dry, are going to go dry within the next decade. We’ve already seen some efforts by places specifically in Kansas to shift to lower-use irrigation. So instead of those big circular irrigation things that are huge water users and wasters to go to, say, drip irrigation and switching crops.
The problem is, remember, the aquifer recharges in millennia, so switching from a high-water crop to a low-water crop doesn’t buy you much time and might buy them 30 to 60 years if they’re really, really lucky. And then, as we’ve already seen in a number of places in Texas, the land will just go fallow because you won’t be able to grow anything there.
This will have a big impact, because this is a zone that produces a lot of wheat that directly or indirectly feeds literally tens of millions of people, but it’s nothing compared to the other two. We’ll do that part of the video from further up the canyon...
What happens when fossil water runs out? ... https://youtu.be/ME77LPWhuL4
https://youtu.be/ME77LPWhuL4
VIDEO EXCERPTS: This is going to be a short series because there are multiple angles to this. But the first piece I want to talk about is something called fossil water. Water that is fossil water is pulled from an aquifer that does not recharge with the normal seasonal cycles. So normally it rains, you get runoff, it seeps into the ground, goes into an underground aquifer and springs, and it recharges every season. So you can tap it, I don’t think as much as you want, but pretty heavily.
Fossil water is deeper, and it’s typically in a more arid zone, and it doesn’t recharge from the surface at the same rate. So instead of recharging in weeks to months, it’s millennia. So we’re going to talk about three regions here that are affected, because all of them are going to cease to be agriculturally producing zones within the next 20 to 30 years. And based on what happens, it could really happen next year, because a lot of this is driven by stuff at the surface.
[...] Yes, you can use it for agriculture, but you can only use it once. And so what we’ve seen in multiple parts of the world is the tapping of the zone in increasing volume. And the problem is honestly kind of legal, because if there’s a surface water dispute, there are negotiations, there are laws, and there are regulations.
[...] But if you can just drill, then it’s just a race to the bottom of the tank. ... And most of these zones, if they’re not already going dry, are going to go dry within the next decade. We’ve already seen some efforts by places specifically in Kansas to shift to lower-use irrigation. So instead of those big circular irrigation things that are huge water users and wasters to go to, say, drip irrigation and switching crops.
The problem is, remember, the aquifer recharges in millennia, so switching from a high-water crop to a low-water crop doesn’t buy you much time and might buy them 30 to 60 years if they’re really, really lucky. And then, as we’ve already seen in a number of places in Texas, the land will just go fallow because you won’t be able to grow anything there.
This will have a big impact, because this is a zone that produces a lot of wheat that directly or indirectly feeds literally tens of millions of people, but it’s nothing compared to the other two. We’ll do that part of the video from further up the canyon...
What happens when fossil water runs out? ... https://youtu.be/ME77LPWhuL4