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The Colorado River is shrinking

sciencemag.org

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Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#231

Post by bsder »

dogman144 wrote: post #222
bsder wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems to be the few ways out of this that's totally within our control. Desalinization works just fine--if you have an ocean nearby. In California, desalinization plants keep getting built and will eventually be able to handle the water needs of people near the coasts. However, there is no way desalinization can ever support farming. And that's 80+% of the water consumption. Either you shut down the farms now…

Why can’t you pipeline desalted water? Or is there not enough throughout. Take oil tech for refinery storage and transport and use it for water.

You can pipeline desalted water just fine.

The problem for agriculture is that desalinization is expensive--several orders of magnitude more expensive than sucking it out of the aquifer. You won't be growing any cheap or staple crops with that.

And, we could certainly supply the people in the Central Valley of California with pipelined desalinated water. However, if the agribusinesses disappear, so will the cities. Thus making a water pipeline moot.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#233

Post by rtkwe »

CountDrewku wrote: post #229
rtkwe wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live out there with little water impact if you don't insist on importing the kind of green water intensive landscaping that the rest of the country wants. People living there is relatively ok from a water point of view (though from a power usage perspective we really should be building very different homes in that area too) it's doing farming in some of the drier parts of the US that seems wasteful when we kn…

> You can live out there with little water impact. it's doing farming in some of the drier parts of the US that seems wasteful when we know water is an issue there. Ok then they'll use it up and the problem will solve itself. I don't agree that you can live there and have the infrastructure to support jobs, food etc. with "very little impact"

Most of the water usage in the US west is farming not from residential use and a lot of residential use isn't destructive since it's treated and released.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#234

Post by autokad »

01100011 wrote: post #78
autokad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems like desalination parried with nuclear and solar power (because desalination is expensive electricity wise) is the solution. most of our problems comes down to energy, to which fusion power will one day solve. we just need some stop gaps.

Why would we desalinate water when there is water already desalinated by nature available for us? Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not against desalination, it just seems crazy to leverage it to supply all of our water shortfall. Wouldn't a network of canals and pipelines allow the country to be more secure and handle disasters more effectively?

draining other aquifers is only delaying the inevitable. Look what happened to the Aral sea. we will need canals and pipelines too, but I do think we are going to have to rely on water desalination.

I have a crazy dream of greening the Sahara with desalination plants.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#235

Post by mkhpalm »

briga wrote: post #29

Just like we fight deforestation by planting trees maybe we should fight drought by re-watering our land. It's a massive logistical problem, to be sure, but it seems like humans already have a pretty good handle on draining water from the land. They could start by banning lawns and golf courses in the desert. No reason someone living in Phoenix needs a verdant green lawn. Maybe place some limits on unsustainable agri…

Phoenix is a desert but it wasn't ever devoid of water like people think. Its more like a "green desert" of sorts. Its very existence is the result of the sheer amount of water naturally running through the area. Was once the alfalfla capital of the US due to the water and the number of growing seasons.

The only reason it started growing so quickly is because A/C became available. Prior to that they couldn't use swamp coolers mid summer due to the monsoon season making it too humid to work. Water, power, etc, all of that was already there.

A better example is someplace like Las Vegas.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#236

Post by simiones »

maxerickson wrote: post #198
simiones wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumping energy into desalination (and water transport) to continue farming in the desert will only increase our massive global warming problems. Again a bad, risky solution.

No it won't, heat from the sun (and radiation away from the planet on the dark side) completely dwarfs human energy utilization. Climate change is happening because of changes to atmospheric composition, solar panels aren't going to have a massive impact on that. Austerity is the bad, risky idea that isn't a solution to anything.

> solar panels aren't going to have a massive impact on that

Solar panel production, like all industrial activity, is pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, not to mention other pollutants - from mining, factories, transport.

Besides, we need to replace all fossil fuel energy generation as quickly as possible with renewable energy generation. Adding any extra energy consumption makes this vital goal more remote.

Perhaps once 100% of energy is produced from renewable sources with 0 carbon emissions, we could think about starting to grow energy consumption again. Before that, thinking about huge new industries like this is completely irresponsible.

While austerity as a solution to monetary crises is completely counter-productive and a non-solution, it is unfortunately mandatory to avert the worse effects of the climate crisis. We have run out of time entirely, unfortunately, ignoring and hiding this crisis for the past 50 years. Stagnating and even reducing consumption is the only possible response today that can prevent the worse effects of global warming.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#237

Post by bluGill »

01100011 wrote: post #218
WkndTriathlete wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well energy, #1, and you should actually do the napkin math to figure out that it takes an enormous amount of energy to pump 14.8 maf/year (which is the average annual flow of the Colorado) of water uphill. (Hint: Desalination of water for California comes out to far less than petajoules.) But #2, the Great Lakes are effectively staying level right now. Pumping 14.8 maf/year out of the Great Lakes would eventually de…

Why do you need to pump the equivalent of the CO river uphill? Do high elevation states need that much water? Could you not pump the water to CA instead(a net energy wash, minus transportation losses(friction, turbulence?))? Why would you need to pump out the equivalent of the CO river from the Great Lakes Basin? Why would you need to pump out the equivalent of the CO river from the Mississippi river mouth? I'm tryin…

The Colorado river is where the water comes from now and what we want to replace.

You can of course not pick a single source, but for napkin math it is easier. Also west of the Mississippi there is no left of water to take, so realistically the Mississippi is the closest water source.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#238

Post by pbronez »

nohuck13 wrote: post #215
Nzen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the effect of residents is small, the usage of other sectors is, ultimately, in service of residents. People raise cattle in response to or anticipation of demand. Those cattle use more water than if we raised chickens or wheat for seitan. I consider it unlikely that a top down campaign to ration beef, in service of water usage, would succeed without a change in residential culture. I am more apt to agree with…

You're taking it for granted that a market-based system isn't going to work. Why? Utah farmers get their water almost for free, while city residents pay closer to its marginal delivery cost. This isn't wise public policy choice made by 21st century philosopher-legislators, but simply the path-dependent product of an anachronistic 19th-century framework of "water rights" plus 100+ years of lobbying. It doesn't help th…

Agree. Markets and prices are super useful tools, but they must be constructed thoughtfully and maintained rigorously. Property rights must be refactored to allow price discovery. Regulators must price in externalities by force of law. Corruption must be minimized.

Above all, you need an effective government at the core. Markets are fantastic for helping large groups of people make locally optimal decisions within global constraints, but you have to be able to establish those global constraints effectively. Water rights, climate impact, employment structures, supply chain resilience… none of that stuff is inherently baked into prices, and governments won’t fix those problems unless they’re solution-focused with low levels of corruption.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#239

Post by gumby »

nohuck13 wrote: post #215
Nzen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the effect of residents is small, the usage of other sectors is, ultimately, in service of residents. People raise cattle in response to or anticipation of demand. Those cattle use more water than if we raised chickens or wheat for seitan. I consider it unlikely that a top down campaign to ration beef, in service of water usage, would succeed without a change in residential culture. I am more apt to agree with…

You're taking it for granted that a market-based system isn't going to work. Why? Utah farmers get their water almost for free, while city residents pay closer to its marginal delivery cost. This isn't wise public policy choice made by 21st century philosopher-legislators, but simply the path-dependent product of an anachronistic 19th-century framework of "water rights" plus 100+ years of lobbying. It doesn't help th…

> It doesn't help that the state senate (like all state senates) is designed to over-represent rural areas.

I don’t think this has been true since Reynolds v. Sims almost 60 years ago. Since then state senates have been pretty pointless (just small equivalents of the lower houses) and really should be abolished.

In California, for example, it’s just a mechanism for assembly members who want to stick around beyond their term limits to have a chance at another couple of terms. As I understand the problems of term limits I probably shouldn’t complain.

Re: The Colorado River is shrinking

#240

Post by gumby »

dogman144 wrote: post #49

Does anyone have educated views on desalinization tech? That seems to be the few ways out of this that's totally within our control. I imagine we'll rob Peter to pay Paul with it via extincting a bunch fish we didn't mean to in desal turbines or something unexpected like that, but that aside..

Another problem is that you have to do something with the salt. The standard thing is to pumping back into the water, which has local downside.
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