Water – The World’s Most Important Commodity

"It’s quite the strange duality when you think about it. Undoubtedly, water is the single most important thing on earth….ok, so maybe it’s the second most important thing (sorry, oxygen) – but you get the idea. If I go to the store and there’s no bread, I would be shocked, and certainly annoyed, and that’d be about it. But if I turn on my faucet and nothing comes out, I’m about 15 hours away from turning into Mad Max – and so are you.

So why is water so underappreciated?  Why, when I live in a state that’s experiencing a once-in-a-generation drought that could become economically catastrophic in a heartbeat, can my home water bill be just 75 bucks a month? It’s because water doesn’t act like crude oil, or any other commodity for that matter. It’s heavily regulated at the municipal, state, and federal level. It explains why projects like the Carlsbad Desalinization Plant, which will soon be the largest desalinization facility in the western hemisphere, don’t have 100% slam-dunk economics in their favor from day one.

No, we’re far from the day when an Elon Musk type comes in with a massive private effort to supply water and reinvigorate the industry: the costs are just too great to get started, the time to get approvals too long, the current state of our infrastructure too poor, and the potential profits too murky to justify the capital outlay..."

at http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/08/water-etfs/