The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs • Hacker News Board

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#51

Post by phpisthebest » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #44

I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…

>> Cooling is more energy efficient than heating.

How is that?

First thing ofcourse is everything we do as human, including our body is generating heat, for my cooling my home is FAR FAR FAR more expensive (thus i would assume more energy intensive) than heating my home.

>>Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc).

This is largely government zoning or HOA's here, people outside of AZ could allow for less lawns as well. This would require a cultural shift. I would love to replace my lawn with something I did not have to mow, but my local government prevents that

>- People like it

Some people like, some people (like me) like cold climates, or places with seasonal changes. I would never in a million years live in the south west US, I prefer places that snow.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#52

Post by paulcole » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #44

I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…

> People like it

This one doesn't hold water (no pun intended). Over the next few generations, people in the US are going to have to give up a whole lot of things they like.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#53

Post by dktoao » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #44

I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…

You are going to need to provide a source for your claim that cooling is less efficient than heating. AFAIK from my days as a mechanical engineer, heating from an electric source is ~95% efficient and cooling is ~30% efficient...

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#54

Post by paulcole » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

> “Like, a scrambling-for-your-toilet-water-every-month kind of thing.”

A few years ago I saw this coming and invented the Waterless Toilet. It's like a kitty litter box but for people who live in areas like those discussed in the article. Why scramble for toilet water when you can just use the Waterless Toilet?

I've been trying to get funding for this so please reach out if interested.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#55

Post by woodruffw » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #37

I'll voice an unpopular opinion: people should live in these dry areas. Deserts have wildlife, yes, but they have much less biomass than the other places humans live. A person living in Arizona or Nevada is displacing much less natural wildlife than a person like me, living in Seattle. So I say let's embrace people living in water-starved areas like the Southwest. We can enable it by smart water usage, like you see i…

What natural wildlife is someone on the 10th floor of a century-old apartment building displacing?

Last time I checked, Vegas also gets the majority of its water from the Colorado River, including via Lake Mead. No amount of smart water usage is going to change the macro climate patterns here.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#56

Post by mywittyname » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #12

mooreds wrote: post #2

The final quote is chilling: “We got two great offers in, and neither of them cared about the water situation. They believe that the county is not going to let five hundred homes next to one of the wealthiest cities go without water.” We'll see what happens in 2023, when Scottsdale no longer sells water to the water haulers. The Water Knife feels more and more prophetic.

Eh, it's the same logic when people move to coastal areas that will be impacted by sea level rise. No one can imagine they'll be the ones who get screwed over, and certainly not if they're wealthy. As such, I'm not sure I would call it chilling so much as entirely predictable. The real failure is in the states and municipalities that are approving the building in the first place.

> and certainly not if they're wealthy.

Because they know that politicians will step in and have the government pay their bill. Too rich to fail.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#57

Post by legitster » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #49

legitster wrote: post #44

I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…

Point 3 - the article explicitly mentioned lawn sprinklers, a pool for bathing horses, and some other things that most definitely DO waste water. And are they required to be better insulated?

Sure, but on average less than northern cities.

At the end of the day, I don't actually care about moralizing what's wasteful or not if the owner is being charged the proper cost to acquire. If that's $1 a gallon for solar and desalination/recycled water, enjoy that lawn.

(Pedantic person side note: pools are not actually that wasteful. If they are properly covered when not in use, evaporative loss is actually pretty minimal).

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#58

Post by throw8383833jj » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

bradfa wrote: post #5

I can feel for the people who have been living there for a long time and now have to deal with the water situation. But I can't understand the attitudes of people who are choosing to move to such a place where access to water is such a risk. I have no information about this, but I would expect that homeowner's insurance should get much more expensive for these locations as without access to water it's quite hard to h…

It's the real estate agent's duty to inform house buyers that they property they're buying may not have water in the future and what a huge pain point that would be. The only logical conclusion i can come to is that the buyers real estate agents have not been honest in this regard.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#59

Post by woodruffw » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #39

csnover wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are probably thinking of The Growth Ponzi Scheme[0], which was adapted into a video series by Not Just Bikes[1]. [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6...

Strong Towns starts with the conclusion and then creates arguments to support it. It's interesting writing, but I wouldn't take it too seriously.

Normally we call that "forming and substantiating a hypothesis." Is there a specific reason why we shouldn't take it seriously?

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#60

Post by coryrc » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

dktoao wrote: post #53

legitster wrote: post #44

I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…

You are going to need to provide a source for your claim that cooling is less efficient than heating. AFAIK from my days as a mechanical engineer, heating from an electric source is ~95% efficient and cooling is ~30% efficient...

Heat pumps have COP of 2-4, so in either heating or cooling mode, they generate more heating/cooling than electricity used.

But the reason cooling is cheaper is the temperature differential. AZ might get to, say, 110°F peak (and far cooler at night), for a temp delta of 35°F while the Midwest will stay below 20°F for months, and even colder at night, for a temp differential no better than 50°F during the day and 60°F at night.