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Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

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Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#111

Post by iNate2000 »

johnloeber wrote: post #14

Here's what I'm curious about: how much water is used for every liter of drinking water ? It seems clear that a "liter of water", which could be all kinds of polluted, is NOT the same as a liter of bottled or tap water. A liter of drinkable water has to undergo some filtration process, etc. and I'd be extremely interested in seeing how much water is used in that process. That would help put the headline's figure in c…

The PDF article said that about 20% of the water footprint is from packaging. Bottled water has to be close to that.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#112

Post by mikepurvis »

atemerev wrote: post #70
pjc50 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never cheap. It's plagued by construction cost overruns. We're having this problem with Hinkley Point C at the moment: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/11/edf-chief-ex...

Even given the cost overruns, insurance, nuclear pools, etc it is quite cheap. The only problem with nuclear power is that it is highly centralized and requires significant upfront capital expenditures. And political consequences of radiophobia are so high that investing in nuclear power is limited. I think that solar and nuclear are the only sustainable power generation methods these days. The rest are either bad fo…

Radiophobe here.

I can't accept the morality of handing stewardship of spent nuclear fuel to my children and their children for a thousand generations. Would you still want to be caring for a monster left to us by the people who wrote on cave walls?

As far as a DGR, I'll believe it when a nation other than Finland has shovels in the ground to actually build one.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#113

Post by baldfat »

baldfat wrote: post #39
flopto wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion on this is totally uninformed. A quick search for 'global aquifer depletion' yields "Scientists had long suspected that humans were taxing the world’s underground water supply, but... major aquifers [are] indeed struggling to keep pace with demands from agriculture, growing populations, and industries such as mining." ... "The situation is quite critical" ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/…

We "use" water so poorly for agriculture and cities. I lived in Imperial Valley California. They have an open canal through a very dry desert for 100 miles. The canal is made of porous concrete that leaks along the way. It is then used in the farms to produce what I was told is the majority of America's lettuces and vegetables. They LOVE farming out here since there is virtually no rain or weather events to complicat…

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/from-lettuce-to-beef-wh...

Answered my own Lettuce -- 15 gallons

Chocolate (One Pound) -- 2847 gallons!!!!!

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#115

Post by awakeasleep »

VLM wrote: post #101
nixy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At home I have a 1:1 ratio. I've got my own well and my own pump, so every liter of water I get out of the well flows out through my tap. I guess you could argue that the electricity needed to work the pump may be produced by means that waste water.

The mine that dug the iron that made your pipes contaminated a lot of water. In the vegan world its standard to count every drop of rain that hit the livestock pasture as being used, therefore its fair to count the rain that ran off the factory roof where the pump was manufactured as used. Wells don't dig themselves and although that doesn't happen often, it does take a lot of water to do it, and make the gear to do…

I get your bitter cynicism, but as someone who has worked with industrial processes, this is exactly how we quantify things.

The world is insanely inefficient, and those inefficiencies are REAL even if we have been that inefficient since prehistoric time. All of the points you mention are actual opportunities for improvement, and a 1% reduction in any of them would amount to an enormous savings in water use, fuel use, increase in long term profit, etc.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#117

Post by ThomPete »

PepeGomez wrote: post #107
ThomPete wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drough...

That's nonsense. It's native to the Middle East, from the Levant to Pakistan. I see no good reason why growing it should be problematic in California. They either use it as an excuse to get more water for other crops, or they're doing something very wrong, though I have no idea what it could be.

Its not the growing alone its the process of putting it in bags and selling it. Call it nonsense all you want the issue is very real.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#118

Post by ptaipale »

VLM wrote: post #101
nixy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At home I have a 1:1 ratio. I've got my own well and my own pump, so every liter of water I get out of the well flows out through my tap. I guess you could argue that the electricity needed to work the pump may be produced by means that waste water.

The mine that dug the iron that made your pipes contaminated a lot of water. In the vegan world its standard to count every drop of rain that hit the livestock pasture as being used, therefore its fair to count the rain that ran off the factory roof where the pump was manufactured as used. Wells don't dig themselves and although that doesn't happen often, it does take a lot of water to do it, and make the gear to do…

Modern dishwashers are in fact very frugal with water. The ones sold here typically take about 10 litres (2.5 gal) for a main program.

For some of us, it's irritating of course: the program takes a long time due to the attempts to save water, and we have no shortage of clean water here whatsoever, so time is wasted to save water which could be wasted.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#119

Post by sp332 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #109
nixy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dishwasher etc is not part of producing the drinking water. It's just a way of consuming it. But I get your point about the entire construction of the well. And the drilling rig, say it drills 500 wells in its life span. Then you have to consider the water that went in to building the rig, divided by 500. And the water that goes in to disassembly and recycling. And the water that went in to building the drill rig…

At some point, the infrastructure is a given. Then its all about marginal costs?

Infrastructure needs to be maintained, or even replaced.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#120

Post by maxerickson »

PepeGomez wrote: post #107
ThomPete wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drough...

That's nonsense. It's native to the Middle East, from the Levant to Pakistan. I see no good reason why growing it should be problematic in California. They either use it as an excuse to get more water for other crops, or they're doing something very wrong, though I have no idea what it could be.

They planted large orchards in a desert. The linked article doesn't make any statements about how much water each tree is getting, so I'm not sure what you would be calling nonsense.

It does state that California grows most of the world supply of almonds, perhaps the number of trees being supported by the imported water is much higher than you think?

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