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Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

thehill.com

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Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#21

Post by Solvency »

arcticbull wrote: post #14
alan-hn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least farming feeds people rather than taking water from communities purely for profit

In a way - it mostly provides for dairy, which is an incredibly lossy operation. The "alfalfa in the desert" stuff you hear about isn't for salads. It's feed for cattle. A gallon of milk requires [edit](4-5 gallons excluding consumption for growing feed, ~800 gallons, contested, fully realized)[1, 2] and a pound of beef requires somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 gallons. [3] Beef is where the water goes, not Nest…

Do you realize that the US native buffalo population used to be as high as 30 to 60 million before we decimated them?

30 to 60. million. grazers. Roaming the countryside, eating and pooping and fertilizing our soil. Remember when the US had some of the most fertile, nutrient-rich soil in the entire world? Remember how perfectly balanced our ecosystem was before we ruined it?

The issue is not ruminants. It's everything else we've done to this planet throwing everything life carefully manicured into disarray.

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#22

Post by 303uru »

freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #11

Article mentions California a lot. There is absolutely zero reason that California's cities cannot be fed with nuclear heated desalinated seawater or heck, traditionally desalinated sea water. The only thing holding back this engineering solution are NIMBYs, naive greenies, and mountains of legal paperwork. Water doesn't go away and we have the solutions to make freshwater. The problems are political, not technical.…

Pinning water usage on city elites, lol, now that's some mental gymnastics. Ya, I'm not sure "NIMBYs" are going to be super into a nuclear power plant driving a desalination plant with a water pipeline that stretches out into the desert to farms.

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#23

Post by [deleted] »

Solvency wrote: post #21
arcticbull wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way - it mostly provides for dairy, which is an incredibly lossy operation. The "alfalfa in the desert" stuff you hear about isn't for salads. It's feed for cattle. A gallon of milk requires [edit](4-5 gallons excluding consumption for growing feed, ~800 gallons, contested, fully realized)[1, 2] and a pound of beef requires somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 gallons. [3] Beef is where the water goes, not Nest…

Do you realize that the US native buffalo population used to be as high as 30 to 60 million before we decimated them? 30 to 60. million. grazers. Roaming the countryside, eating and pooping and fertilizing our soil. Remember when the US had some of the most fertile, nutrient-rich soil in the entire world? Remember how perfectly balanced our ecosystem was before we ruined it? The issue is not ruminants. It's everythin…

[deleted]

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#25

Post by mjhay »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7
cyanydeez wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. Really, what's required for the electric grid is ways to store the energy, and not use it. For places like Arizona, they may need a whole different type of infrastructure of grey water use. Just piping in water ain't gonna be sustainable.

Water is a lot easier to store than electricity. Desalinate while the sun is shining to fill a reservoir that you can pull from 24/7.

Why do you need to desalinate it to use it for energy storage? Seems like an unnecessary step that would not increase the gravitational potential energy at all.

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#26

Post by Workaccount2 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #3

I think the future is going to find the past 100 years or so an insane time in history as we used all the fossil fuels and water up in the blink of an eye on the historical time scale.

IF we didn't find fossil fuels, in all likely hood we would still be living in the 18th century.

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#28

Post by nullhole »

Solvency wrote: post #21
arcticbull wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way - it mostly provides for dairy, which is an incredibly lossy operation. The "alfalfa in the desert" stuff you hear about isn't for salads. It's feed for cattle. A gallon of milk requires [edit](4-5 gallons excluding consumption for growing feed, ~800 gallons, contested, fully realized)[1, 2] and a pound of beef requires somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 gallons. [3] Beef is where the water goes, not Nest…

Do you realize that the US native buffalo population used to be as high as 30 to 60 million before we decimated them? 30 to 60. million. grazers. Roaming the countryside, eating and pooping and fertilizing our soil. Remember when the US had some of the most fertile, nutrient-rich soil in the entire world? Remember how perfectly balanced our ecosystem was before we ruined it? The issue is not ruminants. It's everythin…

On the plus side there are a lot more people who get to be alive now.

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#29

Post by NegativeLatency »

withinboredom wrote: post #17
Mistletoe wrote: post #3

I think the future is going to find the past 100 years or so an insane time in history as we used all the fossil fuels and water up in the blink of an eye on the historical time scale.

[flagged]

Why invade another country when you can do such insane things as:

- pipeline the Columbia River to the SW Region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_interstate_water_pipe...

- tow icebergs for the fresh water they contain: https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/can-icebergs-be-towed-t...

- pipe water from Alaska to CA: https://www.wired.com/2015/02/california-pipe-water-alaska/

Re: Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

#30

Post by zer00eyz »

arcticbull wrote: post #12
tedk-42 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. We should be implementing technologies we have now today rather than banking on something that might or might not pan out. I don't hate the idea of piping water throughout areas or creating artificial enclosed canals of sorts. But then I'm on the side of thinking that we should advance and terraform the planet rather than try to be more one wit…

So a nuclear power plant adjacent to the ocean and a desal plant?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

We can have safe nuclear power, right after we invent safe people. Till you solve the human problem nukes are bad mmmkay.

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