EG03 - The Water Lily Cross Read Online Free PDF

moment.”
    She brushed a strand of hair from her forehead but Kingston caught the disguised attempt to wipe a tear from her eye. “What is there to talk about?” she asked.
    Plenty, he was about to answer. What he actually said was, “You’re right—at this point, not a lot, I suppose.” He nodded his head silently, thinking. No point whatsoever in his rattling off a laundry list of all the things that might happen as a result of Stewart’s discovery. That would serve no purpose. Becky was already distraught enough. Nevertheless, the implications of Stewart’s message were starting to sink in and he needed time to think about it. He had to choose his words carefully.
    An awkward pause followed while Becky waited for him to continue.
    Kingston drew in a breath. “If—and let’s face it, it’s a big ‘if’—Stewart has stumbled upon a million-to-one shot of breeding an aquatic plant that can actually extract salt from seawater, a lot of people would want to know about it.”
    She frowned, obviously trying to fathom what he was inferring. “And you’re suggesting that somebody already does?”
    “No, I’m not. That would be pure speculation. To start with, we don’t know how long Stewart’s known this. I take it he’s never mentioned anything to you?”
    “No, not a word. But that’s not unlike him. Like I said, he hardly ever talked about his work. When he told me that he was going to the conference I didn’t pay too much attention to it at the time. Why would I?” She looked away for a moment, deep in thought. “A bit late in the day now—I suppose I should have asked him more about it, taken more of an interest.” Another pause, then she said, “Would you like me to look for that piece of paper? I wrote it down, you know.”
    “Don’t worry about it right now, I’m sure I can find out easily by calling the Bristol Chamber of Commerce.”
    “If it’s true—?” She paused and looked up to the ceiling. “If, for argument’s sake, Stewart really has discovered a way to desalinate seawater, well—just how significant is it, Lawrence?”
    Kingston rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger. “It depends on several factors. Mind you, I’m no expert. I’m only going on what little I’ve read. There’s more than one process of desalination, but distillation, while not necessarily the most common, is perhaps the easiest to understand. In theory it’s remarkably simple. All one has to do is boil seawater until all the water is gone and only the salt and other residues remain. In the meantime the steam has condensed back to water and is no longer saline. All ships use the process as their basic source for drinking water—have for years.”
    Becky interrupted. “If it’s such a simple process, why is its use so limited?”
    “It’s not the process that’s the problem, it’s the expense. The cost of the energy required to heat the massive volume of water needed to make it worthwhile is astronomical. I don’t recall the exact numbers but I do know that projections for a pilot plant that I read about called for roughly a hundred million gallons of seawater per day in order to produce 15 million gallons of purified water.You can just imagine how much energy it would take to heat that much water to boiling, let alone keep it going until it’s all evaporated.”
    “I can, yes,” said Becky, looking at Kingston. But her thoughts were clearly elsewhere. “The conference had to do with global warming,” she said, after a lengthy pause. “Is that what it’s about? Why Stewart went?”
    “Not directly, no. It’s not so much about climate change but rather population growth. Some nation’s water supplies won’t be sufficient to keep up with the demand. It’s a serious problem right now, but in the coming years it will become a worldwide crisis. More so than the shortage of oil, one could debate.”
    Becky said nothing so Kingston continued.
    “So, if Stewart has indeed discovered how