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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technologies have side effects - some good, some bad. This effect of solar i admit i had not thought about.
It's not a direct effect of solar. It's cheaper energy with undisciplined resource abuse.
I know some farmers in North Texas where they are pulling water out of a depleted aquifer. The water is starting to get salty so they're adjusting to salt tolerant variants of their crops. The ground is also starting to drop due to the aquifer draining. It's crazy to see
Also in southern California there is a fair amount of previously productive farm land that is salted up and useless. That'll happen to the north Texas farmers you've mentioned. If they're having to switch crops they have another ten to twenty years and it's all over.
Edit: Even better Jakarta is sinking so bad because of ground water pumping that the government plans to abandon it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, sub-surface, or drip close to root zone, is perfect -- however that's really expensive, in terms of capex as well as maintenance, harvesting, etc. Drip systems tend to require a) a lot of pressure, and b) a very consistent pressure, to get reliable output. These are also expensive to buy & run. Drip or leaky-hose type underground systems are difficult to maintain (I've tried!) just because you can't see them. Th…
> These are also expensive to buy & run. Long-term, it’s the cheapest option if you want to farm in an arid region.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a direct effect of solar. It's cheaper energy with undisciplined resource abuse.
It is for the engineering mindset. 'If I build this, what will happen?' is a question you are taught to consider in school and some of the examples are much like this
The direct effect is lower cost of energy. That it gets used to then pump water continuously is a second-order effect.
Viewing humanity like a single organism, this is the strategy where like a slime mold we expand to consume all resources, then most of the organism dies off while some number of spores go on to continue to the process elsewhere. If we'd like that not to happen, because we like our civilizations and like not to see them crumble, we must develop some kind of governance mechanism to prevent slime mold behavior. Seeing s…
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Humans are bad at predicting the future going by the record
I’m very naive in this space. What percent of water extracted makes its way back into the water table and how long does it take? I assume you lose some to the plant that is harvested and some to evaporation. But how much makes it back?
Viewing humanity like a single organism, this is the strategy where like a slime mold we expand to consume all resources, then most of the organism dies off while some number of spores go on to continue to the process elsewhere. If we'd like that not to happen, because we like our civilizations and like not to see them crumble, we must develop some kind of governance mechanism to prevent slime mold behavior. Seeing s…
I feel you, and I'm not sure how to explain this to children. How honest should we be? I believe there is no version of this that ends well, we are left with outcomes to our decisions on the spectrum of awful to really awful. There is no arguing with physics.
I’m very naive in this space. What percent of water extracted makes its way back into the water table and how long does it take? I assume you lose some to the plant that is harvested and some to evaporation. But how much makes it back?
This is why most groundwater pumping is properly called water mining.
Viewing humanity like a single organism, this is the strategy where like a slime mold we expand to consume all resources, then most of the organism dies off while some number of spores go on to continue to the process elsewhere. If we'd like that not to happen, because we like our civilizations and like not to see them crumble, we must develop some kind of governance mechanism to prevent slime mold behavior. Seeing s…
Picture a roller coaster where the carts have little steering wheels .. that do nothing. We like to imagine we are in control, but zoomed out we behave quite predictably, chasing that unsustainable growth. I feel you, and I'm not sure how to explain this to children. How honest should we be? I believe there is no version of this that ends well, we are left with outcomes to our decisions on the spectrum of awful to re…