The commodity of the future

Trust me when I say that the commodity of the future will be water! Yes water, will be very sought for, especially if the global warming proves to include a big time warming. Many countries are already in the summer period on the northern hemisphere getting hammered harder than in the past.

Ditto, been saying this for about a year now. Water and emmissions: go long!

After that, the next big thing (IMHO) will be fibre-optic bandwidth.

Yes this is very true there already have been skimishes in Africa and Asia due to countries changing river flows

eqypt have openly stated they will go immediately to war with any nation that draws water from further up the nile; The himalayas contains the workds largest water supply outdie of the polar ice caps; thay are melting faster than previously - causing flooding, then drouts. China is dependant on it.

I heard the problem was getting big in the middle east (no wonder though) and that Israel and Palestine was fighting over this now (add it to the other pile of **** they are fighting about). But regardless what, imagine if we can start trading water, and investors basically push up prices due to speculation, it will cause a drought just due to speculation - hey its not impossible you know.

or just buy utilities??

You are correct water will have good demand.

Given that everybody seems to agree on the new hot commodity, how long will be before water is traded and seen on the world financial papers. Carbon seems to be getting more and more hedalines and the market although has suffered in the current climate seems to be holding up in Europe.

Is it realistic to say 5-10 years?

water is a hard commodity to justify that it will become tradeable as in a lot countries it is available to anyone from a tap. Most commodities you look at arent readily realistically as viable to the public ie oil, precious metals, base metals etc

Hard to convince the big commodity houses to take delivery of the physical commodity when most people can just collect it in bottles from the tap.
Im not saying it isnt possible and most likely it will be done as if theres money to be made then guranteed someone will make it happen but the problem i think will be that it is very geographically specific

Personally myself i think silicon is going to be the next big commodity to trade to rival the popularity of copper.
Its the the second most abundant element. its got a range of uses, mostly known for uses in computers but also well used to make aluminium alloys for casting, for example in car manufacturing, and in steelmaking.
I think this is especially possible if you take into account LME launching new products such as Molybdenum and cobalt.

Water. 70% of teh worlds surface is covered by it. Desalinisation plants are not "economically viable" because water is a political tool. People wake up.