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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

#101

Post by b3lvedere »

arjie wrote: post #73
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.

Given enough solar/wind/battery power i do wonder if a desalination plant could run pretty cheaply. A quick chat with ChatGPT tells me it should be feasible. Roughly investing around 1 billion dollars and around 40 million per year for keeping it run producing around 100.000 m³ per year. Cost price of the water would be around $0.20 per m³. Could run for more than 25 years.

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

#102

Post by yreg »

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…

Is it different with data centers?

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

#103

Post by bsder »

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?

I'm all about stomping on the agribusiness water usage and think that whole swathes of agribusiness in CA should get shut down.

However, as I understand it, the alfalfa is a soil restorer that the agribusinesses are going to grow anyway. The question is whether there is any benefit to forcing the agribusinesses plow it under vs exporting it.

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

#104

Post by rexpop »

voakbasda wrote: post #83
rho138 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn’t be thought of kindly. We’re essentially post food scarcity in the US and children are still sent to school starving. Not only did we fail the here and now, but we’ve failed our future brothers and sisters.

The hilarity of being post food scarcity when the quality of food in stores has declined precipitously both in terms of nutrient density and taste. Most of the processed food contains high fructose corn syrup, sketchy preservatives, and worse. Even if people think we “succeeded” on this front, the truth is that we have failed. The ultimate consequences of our failure have yet to play out.

Both are true: modern food systems can improve availability and shelf-stability while still degrading average nutritional quality.

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

#105

Post by brador »

b3lvedere wrote: post #98
brador wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

84.1% of people have With AI that minimum is expected to increase.

The immense amount of CO2 isn't also doing wonders on our brains.

Lead and cadmium in food caused by cheap fuel and roads closer to farms is also negatively affecting population IQ.

Then there’s the internet.

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

#106

Post by protocolture »

Rzor wrote: post #69
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody actually cares about water use. It's a totem for other activism efforts. Data-centre protests aren't about water, they're about wealth inequality and Altman, Musk and Zuckerberg being hated men.

>Data-centre protests aren't about water I suspect the people facing rising electricity cost and air-noise pollution beg to differ.

>>Data-centre protests aren't about water

>I suspect the people facing rising electricity cost and air-noise pollution beg to differ.

Pulling myself together here to be as polite as possible but could you perhaps read the quoted text and your own post again and try and square that circle?

Otherwise, are you perhaps in the running for some kind of internet non sequitur award I am unaware of? I would vote for your comment if you simply make me aware of how to do so.

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

#107

Post by sylos »

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…

I know plenty of folks who got worked up over the wasteful farming that drains and damages aquifers. much like the penalties that kardashians received when they broke the water usage laws, it amounted to nada.

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

#108

Post by caymanjim »

bsder wrote: post #103
arjie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm all about stomping on the agribusiness water usage and think that whole swathes of agribusiness in CA should get shut down. However, as I understand it, the alfalfa is a soil restorer that the agribusinesses are going to grow anyway. The question is whether there is any benefit to forcing the agribusinesses plow it under vs exporting it.

They're not going to grow it if they can't sell it, nor are they going to grow it if the water stops being free. We shouldn't be growing alfalfa, for export, in the desert, with free water, and subsidizing the farmers on top of it to encourage even more of it.

It's nothing more than purchasing votes with tax dollars and limited natural resources.

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

#109

Post by Melatonic »

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…

They do and have been - unfortunately the farms are far from most people and isolated. And in super hot arid areas. Not ideal but many people aren't directly affected

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

#110

Post by consp »

yreg wrote: post #102
throwaway2037 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is it different with data centers?

Depends on if they use evaporative cooling or not. But the water returned is warmer which can harm the ecosystem quite a bit, both for power plants and data centers.
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