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A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

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Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#71

Post by throwaway2037 »

scarmig wrote: post #57
avazhi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because food and agriculture (in the region that produces a quarter of America’s domestic food supply) are required for life, while data centers aren’t?

Although delicious, alfalfa is not required for life. A lot of it goes to Saudi Arabia, who use it for horses and cattle, as the Saudis banned it domestically for being wasteful for water usage.

    > alfalfa is not required for life
This quote doesn't do much for me. It is like saying that the insane amounts of corn and soy that US (and Brazil and Canada) farmers produce "is not required for life". If you think a little deeper, it is used to feed livestock, that are used for meat, that are "required for life". (Please don't respond with something dumb like "you can stay alive without meat". Yes, we know that.) For the record, Japan also imports lots of alfalfa from the US. Japan has far more fresh water than it can use, but it doesn't have enough arable land to grow the alfalfa that it needs to feed its livestock.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#72

Post by tesnorindian »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #65
rayiner wrote: post #30

Why can't we work up the political outrage over water-wasting agriculture in California that we managed to gin up over data centers: https://finance.biggo.com/news/202508220112_Data_Centers_vs_... > Alfalfa irrigation (Colorado River): 1.6 trillion gallons annually > Google data centers (global): 6.4 billion gallons in 2023 > Thermoelectric power plants: 41% of total US water use EDIT: that page has a correction to s…

> Thermoelectric power plants: 41% of total US water use I did some research on this statistic. More than 90% of this is returned to source. So if the power plant is drawing water from a river (or aquifer), it is returned after being used to generate electricity (create steam, turn turbines). For example, if you have a 1GW coal powerplant on a river, it might draw 4 billion liters of water per day, but will only evap…

Most rivers drain into Oceans while some do drain into inland lakes.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#73

Post by arjie »

augment_me wrote: post #11

Who cares there is so much more to exploit. For example no-one has yet moved massive freshwater icebergs by boat, and its up for grabs!

Pretty clever idea. Sadly uneconomical when compared to desalination because I love the idea of iceberg calf hunting. Ripe for a novel Moby Dick - The target is already a large white object. Call me Icemael.

Got a bit of a Cold War era pykrete like project feeling.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#74

Post by jahnu »

basilgohar wrote: post #58
ColdStream wrote: post #18

There are some reasonable books by William T Volleman called 'Carbon Ideologies' it is all about Nuclear and Coal power. Regardless of that, they are written focusing on the people that would be reading those books in a few hundred years time. The justification being that those that read it today already understand the issues. As such they are focused on a world that is deeply resource depleted and much hotter. But i…

I disagree strongly and push back on this framing. It's technically correct but it subtracts the huge factor that maximizing short term profit plays, and couching that in "feeding the people" papers over that. Just feeding people sufficiently, even at a high standard, wouldn't lead to the resource depletion and waste we are seeing today. But doing so at record profit levels does.

Exactly. It’s been done to enable luxury.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#75

Post by culi »

scarmig wrote: post #57
avazhi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because food and agriculture (in the region that produces a quarter of America’s domestic food supply) are required for life, while data centers aren’t?

Although delicious, alfalfa is not required for life. A lot of it goes to Saudi Arabia, who use it for horses and cattle, as the Saudis banned it domestically for being wasteful for water usage.

It's also grown for the same reason soy is grown. It's a highly effective nitrogen fertilizer for the soil. It's also one of the most digestible and high-protein forages

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#76

Post by hnav »

voakbasda wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #30

Why can't we work up the political outrage over water-wasting agriculture in California that we managed to gin up over data centers: https://finance.biggo.com/news/202508220112_Data_Centers_vs_... > Alfalfa irrigation (Colorado River): 1.6 trillion gallons annually > Google data centers (global): 6.4 billion gallons in 2023 > Thermoelectric power plants: 41% of total US water use EDIT: that page has a correction to s…

Even worse, my understanding is that much of that alfalfa gets put into shipping containers and sold overseas. The agricultural drain on the aquifers does not even benefit US ranchers.

It benefits whoever has the water rights since they're effectively able to export something that they're not paying the externalities on.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#77

Post by throwaway2037 »

arjie wrote: post #67
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is a necessary activity and in most countries, they are also a politically influential group. The case for data centers in the age of AI is weaker, and the only effects for the average person are noise, pollution, higher electricity costs, higher water costs, for the ultimate "benefit" of losing your job.

The necessity of alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states is certainly not obvious. Why do you believe this is essential?

    > alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states
Which states are those?

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#78

Post by tesnorindian »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #22

> The only way to know for sure whether permanent compaction has occurred is through expensive core samples or other measurements at depth Wouldn't it be for rain to fall and the aquifer's levels to rebound less than expected?

Yes, looks like they are acting like a sponge whose efficiency to retain water decreases as time passes.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#79

Post by [deleted] »

arjie wrote: post #67
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is a necessary activity and in most countries, they are also a politically influential group. The case for data centers in the age of AI is weaker, and the only effects for the average person are noise, pollution, higher electricity costs, higher water costs, for the ultimate "benefit" of losing your job.

The necessity of alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states is certainly not obvious. Why do you believe this is essential?

[deleted]

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#80

Post by throwaway2037 »

tesnorindian wrote: post #64

As the Super El-Nino is at its peak, South India is facing an acute water crisis https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/cauvery-water-managem... #SaveWater #SaveElectricity #SaveFuel Interestingly none of our Govts. or Leaders are talking about conservation yet and the ancient water laws/standards don't take climate change into consideration. For eg. as per BIS IS 1172: 1993 standards an average Indian is entitled to…

The answer is desalination plants. Look at rich water-stressed countries in the Middle East and North Africa. All of them use extensive desalination plants. India has lots of very smart engineers. I am sure you can build them. Another thing: India needs to build the equivalent of the California State Water Project to move water from wet areas to dry areas. (China did the same.)
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