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A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

story.californiasunday.com

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Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#121

Post by masonic »

bilbo0s wrote: post #74
AngryData wrote: post #8

It is all fun and games until the last drop of water gets sucked up. Then they will (already are in some cases) bitch and complain that other states don't pipeline then hundreds of millions of gallons of water while disparaging those same states for not following the same short-sighted and unsustainable practices.

Basically like the states that want to take water from the great lakes. Texas is crying foul because of New Mexico's actions. Florida expects to be given access to the water resources of Georgia, (even though the Army Corps of Engineers has been clear that Georgia needs the resources for things like navigation and, crucially, flood control.) States like Nevada expect access to Great Lakes water. You even have really…

  States like Nevada expect access to Great Lakes water.
They're on opposite sides of the Continental divide.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#122

Post by shalmanese »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #35
Scramblejams wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the article is correct that water will become more valuable than oil, then of course you're gonna ship that water to California. The economics will mandate it. Now whether the article is correct about that prediction is another question. It's an understatement to say I'm skeptical. Desalination plants produce expensive water, but not that expensive...

I'm skeptical that this "water more valuable than oil" prediction will come to pass. Currently, a thousand gallons of freshwater from a desalination plant costs between $2.50 to $5 to the end consumer in the US. By contrast, a thousand gallons of West Texas Intermediate crude oil costs around $2500. And oil is becoming more scarce as we burn through it. https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-05-15/desalination-expensiv...

The assertion was never that water would become more valuable than oil on a per gallon basis, but on an aggregate basis.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#123

Post by therealx »

masonic wrote: post #121
bilbo0s wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically like the states that want to take water from the great lakes. Texas is crying foul because of New Mexico's actions. Florida expects to be given access to the water resources of Georgia, (even though the Army Corps of Engineers has been clear that Georgia needs the resources for things like navigation and, crucially, flood control.) States like Nevada expect access to Great Lakes water. You even have really…

States like Nevada expect access to Great Lakes water. They're on opposite sides of the Continental divide.

I've lived a long time in Nevada and this has never been brought up. We do bitch about other states use (we use the least amount per person ), but I think it's somewhat justified.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#124

Post by CryptoPunk »

pm90 wrote: post #54
m0zg wrote: post #16

Help me out here. Why is using such vast quantities of water necessarily a bad thing? It evaporates right back into the atmosphere and then condenses and finds its way to the rivers again and again. It doesn't disappear. It doesn't get irretrievably ruined with industrial chemicals. Is this mostly about limited capacity?

You're depleting natural waterways and groundwater acquifers. Thats why its a bad thing. Also...they're basically bypassing US labor laws by employing illegal immigrants en-massse. It seems like they've been smart enough to provide them with benefits like healthcare, 401(k)'s etc. But wait until the farms pass on to their kids, who will try to squeeze even more out of the unprotected laborers ...

I think it's safe to say the illegal immigrants be worse off without those jobs. It's not like mandating they provide high-paying jobs would result in the low-paying jobs eliminated being substituted one-for-one with high-paying jobs.

And they're presumably paying the market clearing price for the labor. Any higher price would mean economic deadweight losses, which translates to foregone quality of life gains, as is created by any mandatory price floor.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#125

Post by jacobush »

There was an article on HN some time back, which chronicled the life of a surveyor who presented evidence to the Congress early in the history of the United States. He basically said that state lines were being drawn all wrong and that conflict over water would be baked in.

Can't for the life of me remember his name or google it up, but it looks very apt for this discussion.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#126

Post by golergka »

ebcode wrote: post #57

It's interesting to think of the state of California as one ginormous mining-town. Only instead of some rare mineral that will one day be exhausted, it's the groundwater in the aquifer that underlies the entire valley. The concept of virtual water may help us to treat this vital resource with more care. I'm imagining something like a nutrition label, where there's an estimate of how many liters/gallons of water is ne…

> I'm imagining something like a nutrition label, where there's an estimate of how many liters/gallons of water is needed to grow the food.

We already have price labels.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#127

Post by justtopost »

labster wrote: post #118
pm90 wrote: post #53

> One day water will be more valuable than oil, and like oil it will start wars. Is this true? Its true that natural sources of water might be scant, but what happens if we just build huge desal plants all along the CA coast and pipe in the water? And what if those desal plants are powered by cheap renewable energy?

Of course it's true, water scarcity has caused wars from the Late Bronze Age Collapse all the way to modern Syria. Other regions of the world too, like in the Mayan civ. You get it though, solving energy problems solves all of the water problems. You still have environmental issues from the desalination plants, like where to put the hypersaline water without killing all the fish. But I'd love to see desal using peak…

Not just hyperdsaline, but more toxix as well, as concentrations move from trace, to dabgerous. Desalination is a suprisingly dirty proccess at scale.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#128

Post by empath75 »

m0zg wrote: post #18
empath75 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they scapegoat the workers who are powerless, instead of the employers, like Trump.

Except, of course, Trump is trying to get them to hire workers who are not powerless, and can legally demand the minimum wage and protection under US law at least.

He himself employs a ton of illegal immigrants and his companies were even forging documents for them.

Re: A Kingdom from Dust (2018)

#129

Post by [deleted] »

jacobush wrote: post #125

There was an article on HN some time back, which chronicled the life of a surveyor who presented evidence to the Congress early in the history of the United States. He basically said that state lines were being drawn all wrong and that conflict over water would be baked in. Can't for the life of me remember his name or google it up, but it looks very apt for this discussion.

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