This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. A little bit later in the hour, we'll talk about China's energy ambitions. Yes, lots of coal, but also floating solar farms, record-breaking wind installations, and all sorts of electric vehicles zipping around. But first, Cape Town, South Africa, a population of almost 4 million people, will run out of water in less

than 80 days. The region is in the middle of a three-year drought, the worst in over a century.

The city's reservoirs are down to 13 percent capacity, but despite soon facing a day zero,

when all water will officially be cut off,

some residents have been dragging their feet to meet conservation goals set by city and government officials.

Joining me to tell us more about that story and other short subjects in science is Maggie Kerth Baker, senior science reporter for a 538.com. Welcome back, Maggie.

Hi, thanks for having me. So give us an update on this situation on the ground right now in Cape Town.

Well, so right now, day zero is set for April 16th. That'll be the day when the tap water in your house gets turned off, and residents are forced to wait in line for a daily water ration of about six and a half gallons per person.

But that date also changes a lot, and that's because it is based not on an absolute, this is when it's going to happen, but on the level of water in the reservoirs.

So it's possible that you could still sidestep day zero and have it never actually come to pass,

though city officials are telling local media in Cape Town that there's about a 60% chance now of day zero happening.

So they've instituted water conservation efforts, but what I'm hearing

is that the people, not everybody's listening to that. Yeah, yeah. The water conservation efforts

actually became more strict yesterday. Yesterday, the limit went from about 20 gallons a day a person

to 13 gallons a day per person.

But 45% of Captonians were already exceeding the 20 gallons a day limit.

And that's even with fines to the tune of about $350 a person, you know, whenever you get caught.

I mean, it's something where attention is on this, but compliance still isn't great.

Yeah, I guess so you just have to wait for the weather.

There's nothing going to turn it around, the drought, I mean, is there?

Yeah, I mean, conservation is the main thing that they're saying could really turn it around.

At this point, even if you got like a good storm, it really

...