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ReadRightRed99 t1_j2bun3y wrote

Yes it is relatively uncomplicated to make water in a lab setting. I suppose it would be a matter of how much energy you could muster to create enough hydrogen to produce enough water to sustain a civilization. Of course once the water is created there are plenty of ways to recycle it.

But more practically, if we were to truly run out of water, we’re all screwed. The air we breath is laden with water vapor. Without it, it would be quite inhospitable. If we ran out of water, animals, plants and crops would desiccate and die faster than we could create water. Bacteria and microscopic life that is the underpinning of our entire planet’s ecosystem would rapidly dry up and perish. There’s no way we could produce enough to rehydrate the entire planet before life totally collapses.

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firejuggler74 t1_j2bwnix wrote

It would take less energy to re-hydrate a entire planet than it would to go to another star and pick up the water there and bring it back, especially if you do it in a reasonable amount of time. So yes a lot of alien invasion sci-fi is just dumb.

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zxcbvnm90 t1_j2cuwok wrote

Naw, I saw a documentary on this topic in the 90s. Swat Katz: The Radical Squadron s2ep03.

Totally happened.

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Driekan t1_j2cwb9o wrote

I'm kinda glad I'm not the only person in the world who remembers that.

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Psychological_Wheel2 OP t1_j2bve69 wrote

Thank you for the thorough answer and some how understanding my stray and incomplete thought, I really appreciate you

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ReadRightRed99 t1_j2bvso6 wrote

Something that occurred to me is that usually we create hydrogen from … water. You can do it by different methods, electrolysis being a common one. So I’m afraid we might run into a hydrogen problem before we even get very far along.

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Psychological_Wheel2 OP t1_j2bw8go wrote

Could we just “collect” it for the galaxy

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EverlastingM t1_j2cgn76 wrote

There's lots of hydrogen in space but it's spread so thin it's basically non-existent. On the other hand, every year we collectively emit 41 billion tonnes of water made from hydrogen that has been locked away in hydrocarbons. Also CO2 which is the part we're usually concerned about.

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PuddleCrank t1_j2byq7j wrote

The current cheapest way to make hydrogen is I believe from steam reforming methane.

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