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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

#31

Post by arcticbull »

zer00eyz wrote: post #30
arcticbull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody died in Fukushima, except in a bungled evacuation of the surrounding area. Maybe one person in the fullness of time. Nuclear power is literally the safest power source in deaths per TWh - right between wind and solar. [1]

We have safe nuclear power, so I'm pleased to inform you that your concern was mitigated, about 50 years ago.

[edit] Also, I would point out the worst nuclear accident in history killed 4000 people according to USCEAR. The next-worst killed 1. The worst hydro accident in history (Bangqiao Dam) killed 240,000, damaged 5 million homes, displaced 10.5 million people and wiped several cities off the face of the earth - yet for some reason it doesn't share the same perception of intense danger. Interesting. [2]

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

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

#32

Post by FrustratedMonky »

okokwhatever wrote: post #24

[flagged]

Technically, water has been a story for the last few decades already. Not new.

It's bit overshadowed lately by other world events.

There was even a James Bond movie made about it.

Water used to be the biggest concern. Guess other problems caught up to it.

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

#33

Post by 303uru »

There may be good news on this front.

Most of this water is being used to farm, specifically to grow feed crops for cattle. Anyone that can hearken back to elementary school will remember that you lose a lot of energy in the food chain. It takes an absolute shitton of water to get to a steak, 1800 gallons for one 16oz cut (https://www.denverwater.org/tap/whats-beef-water). But a demographic crises is coming. I was just at the stock show here in Denver and yes, ranchers are very much framing this as a crises. 12% of the population is eating half the beef, males 50-65 (https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/17/3795). This group is dying off quickly, quicker even than their peers, as increased beef consumption is a big predictor of early mortality. Younger populations are curbing beef consumption for chicken and it's far more water efficient.

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

#34

Post by zer00eyz »

303uru wrote: post #22
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.

"nuclear power plant"

We dont build these because people fuck them up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)

Is this the company you want having a nuclear plant in CA?

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

#36

Post by leptons »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #26
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.

Electricity came up around the same time and never stopped - the tech involved with electronics and electric everything has far surpassed that of oil and gas. There were electric cars at the same time ICEs were being invented. Oil and gas won for selfish reasons.

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

#37

Post by jsbisviewtiful »

cyanydeez wrote: post #4
nwah1 wrote: post #2

With solar energy prices plummeting, it may make sense during peak production hours to use it to do desalination and/or extract water from the air, depending on where you are.

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.

> they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate.

I'm intrigued. Link?

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

#38

Post by Moru »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #32
okokwhatever wrote: post #24

[flagged]

Technically, water has been a story for the last few decades already. Not new. It's bit overshadowed lately by other world events. There was even a James Bond movie made about it. Water used to be the biggest concern. Guess other problems caught up to it.

It's more a question about trying not to concentrate on something that will mean a lot of change for the worse.

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

#39

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

snagglemouth wrote: post #5

Meanwhile Nestle is pumping thousands of gallons per minute out of aquifers to put into plastic bottles.

Thousands of gallons per minute is not much on the scale of the US.

The Mississippi alone has a flow rate of almost ~6M gallons per minute.

The US uses almost ~500M gallons of water per minute.

Nestle is a pretty large user of water and if it's even 5k gallons per minute that's 1 in 100,000 gallons.

That's about how much 24,000 houses use. On the scale of the US, that's not really a lot.

Yes, bottled water is dumb. No, it is not the reason the Colorado basin is going bone dry. And if you were building a list of reasons, Nestle wouldn't even be worth mentioning.

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

#40

Post by npongratz »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #29
withinboredom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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/

- pipe water shared with Canada out of the Great Lakes, up and over the Rocky Mountains, and down into Phoenix and Las Vegas: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/04/10/g...
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