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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

#121

Post by ars »

Daishiman wrote: post #102
ars wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Eh? Desalination plants don't work on evaporation. They use reverse osmosis membranes.

And even the old ones that do use evaporation, recapture the energy, so you really only need to evaporate the water once, other than losses.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#124

Post by davmre »

victoro wrote: post #61
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.

Perhaps you should crack open that Econ 101 textbook first, because that same Econ 101 textbook would likely have water as the canonical example used to explain elasticity of demand. Demand for water is inelastic, both for agriculture and home use, so letting the "supply and demand curve" take care of it would likely cause a sharp increase in price in a very short period of time, which, from a policy perspective, see…

There are some obvious fixes here, like subsidizing the first N gallons/person/month (where N is some amount sufficient for basic human needs) and then charging market rate for water use above that level. You could even use a soft cliff, with a partial subsidy remaining up to 2N g/p/m, and let the generosity of the subsidy gradually decrease over time to "phase in" the adoption of market-rate prices and give people time to adjust their water usage.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#125

Post by akkartik »

acomjean wrote: post #77
nfriedly wrote: post #45

How feasible is desalination? If they can make that work on a large scale, then there's quite literally an ocean of water available to California.

Desalination is expensive and not great for the environment, but its starting to happen. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/533446/desalin...

Don't forget solar desal. For example, http://waterfx.co. That would eliminate any pollution.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#126

Post by ars »

sp332 wrote: post #27
ars wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, but real estate by the ocean seems like it would be at a premium.

They are not on the coast, they are more inland. They just needs some pipes to the coast.

The pipes have to go pretty far into the ocean anyway - they can't discharge right on the beach.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#127

Post by guelo »

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…

I'm not sure how you're imagining this would work. Are you suggesting the feds build giant canals across the Sierra Nevada and then across hundreds of miles of Nevada desert? To where?

Re: California has about one year of water left

#128

Post by beat »

freehunter wrote: post #74
emodendroket wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get real. Where is there that has the same amount of arable land and infrastructure and semi-skilled labor to just ramp up to where California is now?

The entire Midwest and plains states. They would just need to switch from growing field corn to something that people can actually eat.

It's not that simple. Farm crops are what works well for the soil and climate of that region. You don't see fields of corn in California because it's not an attractive climate for corn. Likewise, you don't see fields of broccoli in Iowa, for the same reasons.

Midwest corn mostly goes to feed for cattle, hogs, and chickens. The corn may not be really great human food, but it gets made into great human food through an extra process step.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#129

Post by ziyadb »

Just to add my 2 cents.

I'm based in Saudi Arabia, and considering the deserted climate and environment, there are literally no persistent water sources (aside from a few select wells that are over-exploited by bottled water manufacturers).

Desalination is currently (as of 2015) being used to supply 50% of Saudi Arabia's water needs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_...

So yes, it's feasible, and just FYI, it is provided free of cost.

Re: California has about one year of water left

#130

Post by protomyth »

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…

If the rest of the country could grow the same crops as "America's Salad Bowl" we would. California is ideal for those crops and without the large population would be fine.

It is probably past time to actually push desalination plants or convince a lot of people to move somewhere else.

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