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Egypt Is Building a New Nile

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Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#71

Post by kristjansson »

selimthegrim wrote: post #69
kristjansson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

That, at least, needed only to keep out heat and combustion, and could have been extinguished with water had there been enough, and in time.

Instead, consider the absolute PITA that is an EV fire, but worse, and floating in an ocean of the only thing that could make it worse.

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#72

Post by robocat »

selimthegrim wrote: post #69
kristjansson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Which stands out because it is now uncommon. I'd expect warehouse tragedies to be more common in the past?

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#73

Post by cyberax »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #36
atonse wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to why they aren't considering (solar powered) desalinization as an additional source of water, to pump water directly from the ocean?

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…

I'm too lazy to look up all the potentials, but in general, having an exothermic process in the loop means that your efficiency is going to suck.

If you want a compact efficient store of energy, then power-to-methane exists. Ammonia is also an option.

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#74

Post by culi »

broken-kebab wrote: post #68
culi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The revolution that overthrew a US-backed authoritarian lead to a democratic election. The results of that election were thrown out the window when another coup brought in another US-backed authoritarian

> 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.

As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in aid to Ukraine and is obligated for a total of $177b. Yes the rest is being disbursed despite Trump's political antics

https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#75

Post by betaby »

nradov wrote: post #42
betaby wrote: post #38

With a such rapid demographic growth they have no choice. The population of Egypt doubled in last ~35 years. (quadrupled in the last ~60 years)

That's true for now, although their rate of population growth appears to have peaked several years ago and like most other countries the birth rate has since declined sharply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Egypt

People born yesterday are alive today and will be alive in the next ~70 years mostly.

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#76

Post by jedmeyers »

culi wrote: post #74
broken-kebab wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The revolution that overthrew a US-backed authoritarian lead to a democratic election. The results of that election were thrown out the window when another coup brought in another US-backed authoritarian > 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. As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in ai…

> As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in aid to Ukraine and is obligated for a total of $177b. Yes the rest is being disbursed despite Trump's political antics

Where are you getting those numbers from?

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#77

Post by derektank »

rayiner wrote: post #53
krior wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which european dictatorship left their country better off?

"Better off" is too vague a criterion because it suggests some comparison with a counter-factual hypothetical. Instead, I think it's important to observe that the modern organs of state, rule of law, etc., were developed under (pre-constitutional) monarchs and dictators in most western European countries. For example in Germany, much of the bureaucracy was developed by the Prussians and the court system was developed…

Yeah, Frederick the Great is the closest thing I can think of to a European analogue to Lee Kwan Yew. Maybe Napoleon to a lesser extent.

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#78

Post by culi »

jedmeyers wrote: post #76
culi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revolution that overthrew a US-backed authoritarian lead to a democratic election. The results of that election were thrown out the window when another coup brought in another US-backed authoritarian > 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. As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in ai…

> As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in aid to Ukraine and is obligated for a total of $177b. Yes the rest is being disbursed despite Trump's political antics Where are you getting those numbers from?

https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/

Here's the Congressional Budget Justification for FY-2026 if you wanna dig in https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FY-2026-Sta...

Total Appropriated: $195.03 billion

Total Obligated: $177.76 billion

Total Disbursed: $116.02 billion

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#79

Post by culi »

culi wrote: post #51
Revanche1367 wrote: post #35

Earlier 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…

To be clear, Egypt receives on average $1.3 billion annually and Israel in a normal year receives about $3.8 billion. Ukraine has received $116 billion since the invasion and averaged about $250m before it.

Re: Egypt Is Building a New Nile

#80

Post by lazide »

robocat wrote: post #72
selimthegrim wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beirut would like a word about "any old warehouse"

Which stands out because it is now uncommon. I'd expect warehouse tragedies to be more common in the past?

They have been quite common - they just aren’t typically in the middle of a major metro with 1000 cameras on them, because most governments aren’t that dysfunctional.

Notably, metallic sodium at scale would be way worse than this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explos...].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPCON_disaster]

I’m not aware of anyone crazy enough to stockpile pure metallic sodium to anything like this scale. Here is the gov’t dumping a barrel of it in a lake though [https://youtu.be/HY7mTCMvpEM?si=aSJ2dPLrXsUuGOOJ].

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