I don't believe it.
Egypt Is Building a New Nile
61–70 of 108 posts
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#62This article has several passages repeated verbatim. Either bad AI or bad editing, not really a great advertisement for the product (“Brilliant”) it seems to be selling. Example: “The construction of the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, brought clear benefits. It provided a steady supply of hydroelectric power and allowed water to be regulated for year-round irrigation.” appears twice, word for word.
I skimmed through the article. Several pictures are also repeated. Would this kind of thing happen before 2020? I don't think so.
Either way, I got taught in high school geography that parts of rivers get rebuild all the time. The Maas (Meuse, as Dutch is my native language I say Maas) gets longer due to the corners getting more sharp (due to water and wind erosion). Then at some point, the water might actually go straight between two corners, leading to the part between the two corners (an extra 180 degrees of two corners, though might look like one) getting cut. Sometimes, that doesn't happen (quick enough) and humans need to help nature a bit. Because sometimes, the new part of river tends to reach villages or other parts of society humans want to preserve. So, we interfere. Near Maastricht, there's also a canal next to the Maas, and this can help with deficit or excess water in the Maas. But sometimes, even an extra part of river next to the old river is build. IIRC they do that because the erosion destroyed such parts, that the outcome of the erosion keeps coming back and back in too short amounts of time. So then, it makes more sense to look for a more long term solution.
The water and wind erosion were interesting to me back in the days. So, from memory (and I surely am forgetting something here, possibly related to the chemistry of the water/earth), the way it works on low water level the wind on the corners erodes the corners, while on high water level the water pressurizes against the corner, leading to basins in the (wind eroded) corner which itself is part of the domino effect. In other words, it is bound to happen, given time. The river snaking around is bound to happen, and the breach is bound to happen as well. But the breach usually means the river goes to its original pathway (although temporarily).
So for a large river as the Nile, it also comes as no surprise Egyptian government (Egypt being the country who benefit from the Nile delta) invests in the Nile. But the main problem the Nile faces is AFAIK related to drought which is related to climate. I'm not sure how they want to fix that.
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hear me out: There's a way the desert states can export and store their solar energy production cheaply, easily, at scale, without needing any rare earths (nothing that is hard to obtain / limited supply / is dirty to extract). And as part of the process, they get clean water as a side effect. Unlike e.g. export via electrolysing water and shipping the hydrogen gas which requires clean water and thus requires spendin…
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The commenter mentioned the same idea 2 years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Castner%20by%3Arzwitserloot&ty...
The AI answer seems reasonable at a glance (similar to HN comments for things I'm ignorant about). Unfortunately using AI has become contentious and we don't yet have a polite way to check whether someone has taken the first step of validating their comment against the basic issues brought up by AI replies (similar to how some people prefer to ask than to Google it first).
Edit: How should we apply AI to individual comments and moderation for a site (programmatically or UI before submit)?
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#64It's practically a project of the Egyptian military who will mostly own the land. They will grow cash crops for export to gain a source of income. This will also drain the ancient and non-renewable Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. This is water that has been trapped for thousands of years. It is the world's largest fossil water system and is of immense scientific value. Not to mention the historic Nile Delta wetlands that w…
"Sounds like a great idea" -- Modern Humans
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#65The article makes a good point about food imports to Egypt. I think a lot of people don't realize that Egypt has been an innocent victim of Russia's invasion of Ukraine which disrupted wheat exports. Recent strikes by Ukraine on Russian oil refineries are in turn disrupting Russian grain harvests due to shortages of diesel fuel. While this is a legitimate defensive tactic by Ukraine, as a side effect it's likely to c…
Maybe the Egyptian government could pressure Putin to stop killing innocent people and sending young men to the front to needlessly die, how about that ?
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any large government project in Egypt is a project of the Egyptian military. That’s the result of being under a military dictatorship with a fake civilian president.
A state of affairs you can thank the US for. Besides Israel and, as of recently, Ukraine, Egypt is the biggest receiver of US military "assistance". Most military officials have attended elite U.S. military academies and the two forces work closely together. The 2011 revolution successfully outed Hosni Mubarak (another Egyptian dictator propped up by the US). Following the 2012 elections came the 2013 coup by Sisi. E…
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Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#67The article makes a good point about food imports to Egypt. I think a lot of people don't realize that Egypt has been an innocent victim of Russia's invasion of Ukraine which disrupted wheat exports. Recent strikes by Ukraine on Russian oil refineries are in turn disrupting Russian grain harvests due to shortages of diesel fuel. While this is a legitimate defensive tactic by Ukraine, as a side effect it's likely to c…
Maybe the Egyptian government could pressure Putin to stop killing innocent people and sending young men to the front to needlessly die, how about that ?
Sounds good, I hope they do. But as a practical matter Egypt is in a difficult spot because they import wheat from both Ukraine and Russia. And Egypt has no real leverage with Putin.
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any large government project in Egypt is a project of the Egyptian military. That’s the result of being under a military dictatorship with a fake civilian president.
A state of affairs you can thank the US for. Besides Israel and, as of recently, Ukraine, Egypt is the biggest receiver of US military "assistance". Most military officials have attended elite U.S. military academies and the two forces work closely together. The 2011 revolution successfully outed Hosni Mubarak (another Egyptian dictator propped up by the US). Following the 2012 elections came the 2013 coup by Sisi. E…
Which exact part of the state of affairs? Because if your point is that the current regime is propped by US assistance, it sounds fair, but would Egypt be a democracy if this military dictatorship disappears? If anything, revolution of 2011 suggests it's unlikely.
Besides, your sources need to be updated as you seem to believe that Ukraine is within top 3 receivers of the US military aid, and it's definitely not true.
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever dealt with metallic sodium? You are dramatically underestimating how dangerous it is at scale. Hard no.
I do love GP's excitement about the energy potential of violent exothermic reaction upon contact with water ... and the proposal mere sentences later to ship industrial quantities thereof on creaky old ships
Beirut would like a word about "any old warehouse"
Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you look at UNDP historical HDI data [1] you will see that Egypt barely caught up with the HDI levels of poorest Eastern European countries like Moldova from 10 years ago and is still well behind the HDI levels of better-off Eastern European countries like Czechia from 1990 . [1] https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/in...
Yeah, Ottoman rule sucked.
Yugo wasn't doing so bad in 1990 before it imploded for other reasons (read: was "suicided")