What Hannah Ritchie thinks about infrastructure
Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes Sustainability by Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of her, and revises in public when they say something she did not expect.
Hannah Ritchie did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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6 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Hannah Ritchie has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsSupplying drinking and household water through desalination is really quite cheap, and uses far less energy than I’d have guessed.
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Their wordsReservoirs are not automatically cheaper than desalination plants.
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Their wordsThe problem is that reserving desalination for emergency situations does not seem to work well.
- 13 days earlier
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Their wordsIf the UK is to survive water-starved summers in the future, it will need to build more reservoirs and plug holes in our existing pipelines at the same time.
↗The UK needs to build more reservoirshannahritchie.substack.com
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Our readingBritain has a systemic problem building large infrastructure projects, including reservoirs
Their wordsI think Britain has a real problem with building almost anything, from train lines to houses, and reservoirs to energy infrastructure.
↗The UK needs to build more reservoirshannahritchie.substack.com
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Their wordsThere is also a clear rationale for why privatisation would lead to a drought in reservoir-building.
↗The UK needs to build more reservoirshannahritchie.substack.com