Will the water shortage that plagued the world be a propeller of technological innovation? This is what Nebia, a start-up born in San Francisco wants to believe in. She promises, thanks to a shower head, to reduce by 70% the consumption of water use in a shower.

California being highly affected - facing real drought, increasingly startups are working on techniques to transform wastewater into drinking water. This is the case in the US where the technology community takes the arm problem head on. The University of Singularity, based in the campus of NASA, in Mountain View, has launched with Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, “Impact Challenge," a global innovation competition whose results will be known end of October.

But what is interesting is that this drought pushes the world to find solutions. In Israel, the Ashkelon plant meets the drinking water requirements of more than one million people using seawater. The technology used is that of reverse osmosis. Ultrafiltration salt through membranes, as in Algeria El Magtaa factory which produces more than 500,000 cubic meters of drinking water each day. In India, Devlina Das, a researcher at VIT University, wants to use solar energy to convert wastewater into drinking water. An ideal solution for arid ... His target? The extraction of dichlorvos, a highly toxic product, through the modified polymers. But the real revolution could come from nanotechnology filtration: bacteria is expelled through nanoparticles that emit ions. "This will ultimately save millions of lives," said Pradeep Thalappil, Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Interesting, because it defends to the system is cheap, it does not cost more than $ 2.5 per year per family.

But if technologies allow to drink the planet, she will equally permit the production ... of fuel. This is what General Electric board, just as the US Navy through the Naval Research Laboratory, who flied a model airplane with fuel produced from sea water. The concentration of CO₂, 140 times greater in the ocean than in the air is captured as hydrogen, by a process of electrolysis then liquefied. A little patience, however: it takes another good ten years before the ships could produce on board all their own fuel!

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