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Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

latimes.com

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Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#161

Post by rektide »

s0rce wrote: post #49
beambot wrote: post #28

Quick Google stats: There are 13M households in California. Average household consumes 0.5-1.0 acre-feet of water per year. It costs $419 per acre-foot for desalination. California has a discretionary budget surplus of $49B. Thus: It would cost $2.7B-$5.4B per year to provide desalination-based water to all Californians. With the current budget surplus, we could provide 100% of California's living water needs for 10-…

I disagree that we should build desalination, even if we can "afford" it. There are agricultural users of water paying astronomically lower prices due to long standing water rights. It would almost certainly be cheaper to pay them to conserve (grow less of water-wasting crops, leave fields fallow, or upgrade to more efficient drip irrigation). The urban water use is around 20%, making them pay billions for this 20% m…

Now that there is a Tier 1 & escallating water shortage, there literally is no longer a water resource available to farmers. Personally, the thought of the state paying people to lower usage sounds absurd, when there literally was not the resource to use in the first place. These water-rights holders are holding rights which are underwater.

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#162

Post by biztos »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #132
thehappypm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pumping water from the California coast to Nevada is not a good idea. You’re basically describing a hydro plant, in reverse, carrying expensive water.

It also makes no sense because it would be cheaper and easier to just ween California off the Colorado river which already passes through Nevada and other states in the southwest. I think this is the easiest solution to the water problem there. You already effectively have a massive pipeline in the form of a river. Luckily, the state with coastal access has the highest water allocation for it.

So we sell them the water from the Colorado river, and use the money to build power plants there, with which we will power our expanded desalination for the benefit of agribusiness foreign and domestic?

I mean, it would probably work, right?

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#163

Post by biztos »

sgift wrote: post #140
njarboe wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not politically possible to build desalination plants (or much of anything else really) in California. In just May of this year[1], a private company that had spent $100 million trying to get approval to build a $1.4 billion de-sal plant in the L.A. basin. It would have served about 400,000 homes but the permit was denied by regulators. Private money would build these plants if allowed. [1] https://www.reuters.…

> Private money would build these plants if allowed. By replacing one environmental problem with another: > The commission's staff experts said the facility would destroy marine life in about 100 billion gallons of seawater per year, and the company's ability to mitigate that damage with wildlife habitat restoration fell far short of state requirements.

From the same article:

> Environmentalists have long said desalination harms ocean life, costs too much money and energy, and the plant would soon be made obsolete by water recycling.

Well if that's true then awesome, let's get busy recycling water and "soon" we won't need to desalinate!

I actually wonder (yes, I'm not an expert) whether at some point drinking water will be valuable enough that you could profitably build a desalination plant in international waters and then deliver the water in tanks to the thirsty citizens who can pay for it. If you bottled at the source, maybe it wouldn't be more expensive than importing from France or Fiji?

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#164

Post by biztos »

odiroot wrote: post #61
beambot wrote: post #28

Quick Google stats: There are 13M households in California. Average household consumes 0.5-1.0 acre-feet of water per year. It costs $419 per acre-foot for desalination. California has a discretionary budget surplus of $49B. Thus: It would cost $2.7B-$5.4B per year to provide desalination-based water to all Californians. With the current budget surplus, we could provide 100% of California's living water needs for 10-…

> acre-feet Being European, that's the weirdest unit of volume, I've ever seen.

You should get out more:

http://www.buyinchiangmai.com/land-measurements-in-thailand....

[Edit: And in Hungary, which is also European, you usually use hektár (ha) and négyzetméter (m2) now but you'd better know your hold ( ~ acre) and négyszögöl ( ~ square fathom) if you want to buy agricultural land.]

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#165

Post by biztos »

mistrial9 wrote: post #7

Los Angeles area with 13 million inhabitants, is the economic powerhouse of California overall. Gov. Arnold S. famously had staff meetings in LA, less so in the official capital city of Sacramento (gold era). San Diego county is unique to the area as a border to Mexico. San Diego County is largely separate from the others with heavy Federal presence. The multi-county region including LA County there is known as SCAG…

Governor Schwarzenegger was from LA (after being from Austria of course), still lives there (West Side I believe), and had/has most of his network there.

I agree that LA is vastly more important than Sacramento but I doubt that was the reason for holding meetings there. When I am elected Governator, I will make my staff drive up Highway 49 and they will thank me for it.

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#166

Post by ASalazarMX »

yellowapple wrote: post #135
wildmanx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may need to check the orders of magnitude we are talking about here and then re-evaluate your statement. This is not about a few stretches of CA coastline. This is about all of the continental US. A few desal plants won't cut it.

> A few desal plants won't cut it. Then we build more than "a few".

Hope their byproducts are environmentally safe. Northern Mexico also has water scarcity, and it's been shocking to see the studies about how water is used in my state:

- Residential: ~10%

- Industrial: ~20%

- Agriculture and farms: ~70%

Residential water is being rationed, but it won't make a dent unless we address that 70%, which to make it worse, loses half of that to evaporation and inadequate distribution networks. Solve the most glaring wasters and you don't need massive desalination anymore.

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#167

Post by myroon5 »

mistrial9 wrote: post #7

Los Angeles area with 13 million inhabitants, is the economic powerhouse of California overall. Gov. Arnold S. famously had staff meetings in LA, less so in the official capital city of Sacramento (gold era). San Diego county is unique to the area as a border to Mexico. San Diego County is largely separate from the others with heavy Federal presence. The multi-county region including LA County there is known as SCAG…

California is one of the most extreme states in terms of how far the capital is from most of the population:

https://vividmaps.com/the-distance-of-states-capitals-from-t...

There are also discussions about more remote capitals being less accountable

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#168

Post by thehappypm »

29athrowaway wrote: post #105
thehappypm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vineyards aren’t particularly water intensive, are they? Compared to things like almonds and alfalfa

They are among the top consumers in CA. They're going to pump aquifers dry.

Source?

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#169

Post by thehappypm »

yellowapple wrote: post #139
sn0wf1re wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parts of Nevada are below sea level so the total energy expenditure to move water should be "minimal". This would be after making aqueducts. My thinking is, if the Romans could move water over mountains without pipes, so too can the Americans.

Which parts of Nevada are below sea level? Lowest point IIRC is around 400ft.

Not anywhere near where the people live, that’s for sure.

Reno: 4500’

Vegas: 2000’

that’s a huge amount of potential energy to pump water from the sea

Re: Extreme heat, drought will permanently scar California and its social fabric

#170

Post by s0rce »

nomel wrote: post #110
s0rce wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really much different than pumping Owen's valley water to LA...

A quick google search says Owen's valley is at 4k feet, while LA is at 300. I assume that reversing that would be incredibly expensive, considering the 570,000 acre-feet/year that flows is 1.5 trillion lbs of water. So, I think it depends on where it's being pumped from/to.

There are mountains in the way though.
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