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The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

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Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#111

Post by legitster »

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...

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014...

https://zeroenergyproject.org/warmer-climate-construction-de...

https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta...

Sure, but in a cool climate you need much less cooling to be comfortable than you need heating in even a neutral climate.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#112

Post by rightbyte »

bradfa wrote: post #24
Enginerrrd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 have firefighting infrastructure. Without firefighters, homes and humans are at much higher risk. Maybe insurance economics will help to resolve this? It's pretty normal in rural areas to basically not have a fire department for all practical…

Right, but even with a volunteer fire department, at least there's normally water that they can use to save the neighbor houses once they arrive on-scene. If there's no water then there's no way to save anything from a fire.

Don't US fire trucks carry water?

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#113

Post by mechagodzilla »

crikeyjoe wrote: post #83

California refuses to desalinate, which would solve all the problems. I thought they were smart, instead they're political. They'd rather kill off the southwest. Assholes.

Desalinated water is $1000+ per acre-foot, while water from existing water infrastructure is heavily subsidized and sold for a few dollars per acre-foot to farmers. There are many reasonable arguments as to why we should not be building new infrastructure that produces water at 100x the cost it is currently sold at. Nearly all water projects in the west in the last hundred years are “political”, not economic.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#114

Post by clairity »

coryrc wrote: post #60
dktoao wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "...they generate more heating/cooling than electricity used."

that's thermodynamically impossible. @dktoao, being a mechanical engineer, surely understands this, and made a statement that is different, and more plausible.

COP is a ratio of change in energy (e.g., temperature) produced against a common benchmark (running electricity through a resistive element, for example). that's how it can be greater than 100%. absolute efficiency (what @dktoao offered) compares against a 100% conversion of energy from one form (or place) to another. in this case, you cannot beat 100% (or generally get super close) due to the 2nd law of thermo.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#115

Post by alistairSH »

legitster wrote: post #57
alistairSH wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't actually care about moralizing what's wasteful or not if the owner is being charged the proper cost to acquire.

In theory, I feel the same way. However, I'm not sure anybody is paying anywhere near the proper cost with externalities included.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#116

Post by anigbrowl »

throw8383833jj wrote: post #58
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.

Other people just don't care. I know a Mojave desert community far to the east of LA where water delivery happens by truck. It's a very harsh and unforgiving environment, but I really liked it when I worked out there some years ago and have considered moving there because I like solitude and am comfortable with a very frugal/minimal lifestyle.

Last year I ran across an LA Times article about how people were making different life choices due to the pandemic, and and other factors - specifically moving from LA to this place. In contrast to locals who tend to build low houses and choose colors that blend with the desert landscape, these people were painting their houses bright white and, I kid you not, installing swimming pools.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#117

Post by bradfa »

rightbyte wrote: post #112
bradfa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but even with a volunteer fire department, at least there's normally water that they can use to save the neighbor houses once they arrive on-scene. If there's no water then there's no way to save anything from a fire.

Don't US fire trucks carry water?

Only enough for a very short amount of time, basically the water in the truck or fire engine lasts long enough for the firefighters to get connected to a hydrant and not much more.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#118

Post by legitster »

woodruffw wrote: post #50
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?…

> The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) Ecological impact includes draining aquifers and diverting rivers. Human civilizations, particularly dense ones, have preferred oceans and rivers near temperate rainforests (like the entire Northeast) for this reason. The marginal advantages of less heating aren't outweighed by the resource and economic…

That doesn't mean it has to be the case.

Israel is a good model for how you can invest heavily in desalination and irrigation efficiency and support profitable agriculture, even in wasteland spaces.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#119

Post by galdosdi »

paulcole wrote: post #54

> “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.

I wish you the best, but having looked into these topics when I was interested in RVs a few years ago, I think there's no market for your proposal because the market is already well served by (at the higher end) composting and incinerating toilets, which are clearly more palatable, and, at the lower end, just putting kitty litter in a bucket with an optional toilet cover, which you can already do for nearly free. I think most people who really wanted a waterless toilet would already fall into one of those two camps (cheap and crummy or expensive and fancy) leaving little room for your product, which would be both more expensive than just putting kitty litter in a bucket, yet not really all that much more palatable, since you still have to dispose of the used material, which is really the essential "annoying" part that would make one want a fancier option.

You are forced to figure out how to deliver enough value to be clearly better than shitting in a bucket, yet not much more expensive, to avoid competing with composting or incinerating toilets. I wonder if you actually might do better starting from a composting design and trying to improve it to make it more cost effective.

Sorry for the pessimism, just some things to think about! Maybe there is a path through, wish you the best.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#120

Post by anigbrowl »

jeffbee wrote: post #72
juve1996 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meaning they are used to living in the "Land of plenty" never thinking that one day, it could end. This was my thought as well. The music is about to stop. Many don't realize it. Some don't believe it. Some actively deny it. But it's happening, and faster than we're ready for.

Many are actively working to bring the disaster into the present! In the book Running Out the author interviews Kansas farmers who are explicitly managing the aquifer so that it runs out within their lifetimes. Not too soon, but not too far into the future, either.

What's the logic here - is it just agribusiness maximizing profit in the short-medium term with the expectation of writing it off and moving production elsewhere once the point of collapse arrives?
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