Water, Water Everywhere.
Southeast England finds itself facing a Drought Order again. It is unfortunate that the water companies don't put as much effort into doing their jobs as into finding excuses not to- enough rain falls over England in the course of a year to meet all the country's needs, as any cricket or tennis fan will know. The obvious solution is simply to arrange a plumbing equivalent of the National Electricity Grid, but alas, common sense is unlikely to prevail in this case.
There are various things that could be done to increase the efficiency with which households use water, without inconveniencing the owners. The single largest use in an average household is probably in flushing the lavatory- a tremendous waste of painstakingly purified water. My proposal is to install a second tank in the attic space of every new home, to which rainwater running off the roof, and waste water draining from the bath and sinks would be pumped. This would be used solely for flushing the toilet. Of course the action of pumping the water in the first place would require electrical power, which may distress the increasingly energy conscious elements of society, but a small turbine, powered by water falling from the tank to refill the cistern after every flush, would serve to recover much of the energy thus expended.
On the subject of energy, electrical power stations invariably function by using the pressure of super-heated steam to power a turbine. The steam is evaporated, put to work on the turbine, and recondensed. The cycle of evaporation and recondensation of course is exactly what a desalination plant does; the only difference is that in a power station the water/steam is recirculated. (None too efficiently in fact, as anyone who has ever passed a cooling tower on a cold day will attest). With some minor modification, the facilities could just as easily take in sea-water, run their generators and pump out fresh, distilled water to augment supplies.