Desalination Skids Ration Output as Reservoirs Slip Again

JAKARTA — At the Tethys Hydrous Group intake on the north shore, plant manager Sari Wibawa has begun staging output the way a hospital triages beds: chargers and clinics first, gardens last. The Oceanic & Atmospheric Assembly logged a fourth straight month of below-average rainfall across three continents this week, and with the global mean anomaly holding at +2.8°C, the reservoirs that feed twelve billion people are slipping earlier than the calendar predicts. "We are not out of water," Wibawa said, watching the reverse-osmosis skids hum. "We are out of cheap water." Desalination now covers roughly a third of Jakarta's municipal demand, up sharply from a decade ago, and every liter of it is priced in electricity. Analysts at the Cerulean Exchange say costs are firming across water-scarce hubs and warn of a possible price shock later this month if the dry spell holds. For Wibawa, the ledger is simpler: forty thousand households on her grid, one intake, and a queue that starts before dawn.