https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/water-withdrawals-per-cap...
So that is around $775 per person per year assuming no net change in water use. In contrast, Germany uses around 410 m^3, France around 475 m^3, and Australia around 724 m^3, so the US is a significant outlier.
Freshwater withdrawals is a very broad category, it also includes water released to turn hydropower turbines. But it's also unfair to compare across countries without taking into account water sent between countries in the form of produce and products.
$0.5 was per household. $2.00 was per capita. So 10x higher.
As you will note, the average German consumes 1,000 liters per day by the same metric which is 2.5 baths per day which is obviously unreasonable if we were only considering direct domestic water consumption.
To be fair, the agriculture is being grown to feed people, so it is fair to include the consumed produce in each person’s water footprint. This is further exacerbated by growing animal feed for animals that are consumed which is even more “water inefficient”. The US is a major food exporter, so it is over-represented in these sorts of numbers, but it is a fair approximation to within a factor of maybe 2-3x of the embodied water consumption of the average American.
But not counting the water used to put food on your table is too small. So this establishes some bounds.
This is an interesting number. Recently, I saw complaints that green hydrogen is impractical because it would use too much water. But if all the per capita energy use in the US went to electrolysis, it would use about 1% of this water per capita (and, of course, green hydrogen would be only a fraction of total energy use, due to all the preferred direct uses of electrical energy.)
There are plenty of valid objections to hydrogen as a fuel, but water use is a total non issue. Not only does it use so little, but when you get energy back out of the hydrogen, the waste product is water again. It’s literally a renewable cycle.
Adding salt is a great idea, it pushes our collective stupidity to a noteworthy level of nonsensicalness.
It makes me wonder what other hard to remove poisons we could add to challenge ourselves. Perhaps design a new disease?
Clearly, you're not having a rational conversation with comments like this. If there was an abundance of fresh water, the western half of the US would not have been in severe drought conditions for the past however many years. This is where I leave you as you are just making things up like and not even having a good faith conversation
Over 90% of sewage water is treated and recycled to use as agricultural water, creating kind of a full loop here. Very impressive infrastructure.
Don't forget food, industrial, etc