Question:
Companies Hope Profits Run From Clean Water any ideas?

Answer: ILLIONS have been made by turning water into a designer product and putting it in attractive bottles aimed at the hip and health-conscious. But those who see money when they look at water are now far more intrigued by two areas of the business that are less sexy, but potentially far more lucrative: providing clean water for industrial and municipal use, and cleaning dirty water when that use is done.

Small wonder. According to Kerry Stirton, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, industrial water treatment alone is a $35 billion global market. When municipal treatment systems and other water processes are factored in, he said, water-related revenue may even top $100 billion.

In fact, demand for clean water continues to surge ahead of supply, particularly in developing nations. "Water scarcities still loom,'' said William J. Roe, the chief operating officer of the Nalco Company, which is based in Naperville, Ill., and is a big player in the water treatment business. "I don't think it's Orwellian to suggest that future wars may be fought over water instead of oil.''

Perhaps not surprisingly, the potential profits have attracted industrial behemoths. General Electric has been building up its water business even as it has played down other industrial lines. Pentair, a company based in Golden Valley, Minn., that had been putting equal emphasis on its lines of tools and water products, just announced that it would acquire Wicor Industries, another water products specialist, and would probably shed tools altogether.