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California has about one year of water left

latimes.com

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Re: California has about one year of water left

#101

Post by bashinator »

BryantD wrote: post #97
CWuestefeld wrote: post #56

I just moved to Austin, TX 1.5 years ago. We've got our own severe drought here, and I wonder what's going to happen in the long term. Was it a mistake to move here? At least in TX, there are a couple of ways in which it's clear we're doing it to ourselves. First, we can't keep the reservoirs full because a significant amount of water flow is earmarked for rice farmers down at the mouth of the river. That's right: ri…

Almonds are a very water-intensive crop. We grow a huge amount of almonds here in California. (Most of them are exported.) See http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30052290 for one writeup. Now, they're also a very lucrative crop, so not growing almonds would certainly affect the state's economy. But...

Specifically, one almond takes about one gallon of water to produce.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#102

Post by Daishiman »

ars wrote: post #14
sp332 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California's power grid is already stressed. Desalination takes a lot of power, so any new plants will probably have to install new power generation as well.

If I were building a desalination plant I'd put the generator on site - why waste money on transmission losses? Natural gas generators are clean enough that I don't think it would be a big problem putting one by the ocean.

Do you know how much energy is required to evaporate the amounts of water necessary for urban consumption?

Re: California has about one year of water left

#103

Post by malandrew »

sp332 wrote: post #16
blake8086 wrote: post #11

I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.

You're right, if people can't afford water to drink, they're clearly not valuable enough to live. If a farm can't afford water for crops, the crops weren't profitable enough to grow anyway. And if the rest of the nation can't afford food since some foods will be scarce without California farms, they should just be more productive. No need for regulation!

How realistic is it to move certain crops, such as fruit and nut trees that may take decades to grow to maturity?

A few weeks ago I did a 200km bike ride of Mount Hamilton and one of the things I saw along the way was a "nursery" that specializes in very large fairly mature trees in massive planters ready to be moved by truck (Calaveras Rd (Rt 84) just south of 680). The biggest trees had large wooden planters ~5 ft high and as with as an 18 wheeler.

Given how valuable certain trees are and the time cost of waiting for them to grow to fruit and nut bearing age, it must make sense at some point to give loans to dig up orchards and move them to better locations.

Assuming such a plan is botanically viable, my main concern is that the price shock for water takes too longer for it to make financial sense until it is too late to make the decision to move any trees worth being moved.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#104

Post by BryantD »

blake8086 wrote: post #11

I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.

Supply and demand curves are part of the problem, though. People have talked about almonds a lot in these comments. We're growing tons of almonds because the demand for almonds is very high. They're one of the most lucrative crops you can grow. The long-term effects, as we are seeing, are bad -- but we're not making decisions on long-term effects, we're making decisions based on immediate demand needs.

This is the product of two things. First, short-sightedness. But second, and more rationally, if you need money now to keep your farm going, you cannot afford to worry about ten years down the line. It's not just irrational behavior.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#105

Post by bjt »

mathattack wrote: post #30
joshstrange wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, ok they hinted at that in the article but for some reason it didn't click in my head. I wonder if the farmers will just move to neighboring states (not that it's easy to pick up and move a farm....) losing farms in California would be a huge loss: > California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percen…

Is this an issue of price? Charging more for water? Or is outright rationing without doing any price hikes the only viable option?

Yes it's an issue of price, but in a market that doesn't function very well. Water, ironically, is not very "liquid" in the economic sense.

Over time, people will have to pay more for their produce. Some farms will shut down and some crops will stop being grown. If the price of water goes high enough, then desalination or new pipelines from wetter areas will start to make sense.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#106

Post by j_baker »

rjett wrote: post #72

Disclaimer: I have no clue if what I'm proposing is realistic or not, but: Perhaps the federal government should step in and gradually step down the level of subsidies given to farmers in California and gradually increase subsidies given to NEW farmers in other, more water rich parts of the country. This would have the effect of moving farms to more sustainable locations in the country. Sure, the types of crops produ…

The Midwest would make a good alternative place to grow. It won't be as prone to droughts and will have a longer growing season due to climate change.

Either that or giving farmers a subsidy for growing crops that require less water. Our huge Almond industry is a giant water-guzzler.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#107

Post by 0xffff2 »

ebbv wrote: post #53
toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really think "OK, so what? People can move." You are totally detached from reality. That's not what would happen. There would be riots. So, there isn't enough water, people don't want to move to where there is water, what's your solution? Water costs, whether thats to pump it out of the ground, import it from places that do have water, or desalinate it. Someone has to pay for that. Would it not be those who…

There isn't an easy solution that I can write up in a short paragraph in the HN comments. That's the point. It's a complex issue.

So write two long paragraphs. At some point there's simply not going to be any water. What then? Wouldn't it be better to do something before we reach that point?

Re: California has about one year of water left

#108

Post by quaunaut »

rjett wrote: post #72

Disclaimer: I have no clue if what I'm proposing is realistic or not, but: Perhaps the federal government should step in and gradually step down the level of subsidies given to farmers in California and gradually increase subsidies given to NEW farmers in other, more water rich parts of the country. This would have the effect of moving farms to more sustainable locations in the country. Sure, the types of crops produ…

The problem is, this turns places that already have severe unemployment issues into 2008-era catastrophy. The entire central valley is based off of farming.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#109

Post by malandrew »

rjett wrote: post #72

Disclaimer: I have no clue if what I'm proposing is realistic or not, but: Perhaps the federal government should step in and gradually step down the level of subsidies given to farmers in California and gradually increase subsidies given to NEW farmers in other, more water rich parts of the country. This would have the effect of moving farms to more sustainable locations in the country. Sure, the types of crops produ…

    other, more water rich parts of the country
My main question is: What are these other water rich part of the country that aren't already fully exploited for agriculture? Are there maps published somewhere that tell people where they can move to to establish farms elsewhere?

Re: California has about one year of water left

#110

Post by beat »

glesica wrote: post #20
malchow wrote: post #3

A historical view: http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_california-drought.htm...

That reads like it was written by a clueless reactionary. Draining reservoirs didn't cause the drought. It caused the water supply to dry up sooner in the midst of a drought. > Then they alleged that global warming, not their own foolish policies, had caused the current crisis. One of the most brain-dead sentences I've ever read. No one is claiming that global warming is responsible for the reservoirs being depleted.…

To an extent, it's a feedback problem. Global warming causes drought, which means insufficient rainfall, which means more irrigation from reservoirs, so reservoir use does go up. Meanwhile, it also means less replenishment of reservoirs, so they don't recover.
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