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Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

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Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#111

Post by rcstank »

unwise-exe wrote: post #36
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #6

Earlier today I watched a video[0] that helped contextualize the water situation in Iran. The key takeaway for me was that Iran has been rapidly depleting their water reserves and they don't have any ways to quickly refill them, nor do they have treaties with neighboring countries to guarantee water. That video doesn't mention cloud seeding at all. How should we think about cloud seeding? Does this technology actuall…

>>> How should we think about cloud seeding? It's a way to take someone else's rain.

Under international law, countries have complete and exclusive sovereignty over this airspace, just as they do over their land. They aren’t “taking someone else’s rain” because the clouds they’re seeding are effectively theirs anyway

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#113

Post by water-data-dude »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #18

Its obviously not as dire (yet) but I think Texas will face something like this in the coming decades. Its the kind of problem that requires people at all levels of society to cooperate and sacrifice - farmers & businesses need to draw less, people need to use less and government needs intelligent and actionable policy, plus big investment into unsexy and invisble infrastructure upgrades - so basically we're screwed.

Absolutely. It's probably worse than you think though. I work with some groundwater conservation districts in Texas. Texas has some aquifers that they rely heavily on, and they're being depleted at an unsustainable rate. Efforts to regulate the rate at which groundwater is consumed are met with mixed results because of state laws that make it very difficult to regulate pumping.

One particularly depressing example from the recent past is what happened in Hays County. The groundwater situation in Hays County is bad, to the point that springs are going dry.

Hays County managed to push something through the state legislature that'd give the Hays Trinity Water Conservation District more power to manage groundwater use (it passed overwhelmingly), but then Greg Abbot vetoed it - likely at the behest of Aqua Texas, a big water utility company that pumps a TON of water and has been pretty blatant about ignoring pumping caps and generally acted in bad faith.

Source: https://archive.is/b1bp1

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#114

Post by water-data-dude »

ralph84 wrote: post #101
vorpalhex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is either desert or desert adjacent. We have always gotten our water by having torrential rains inconsistently. This doesn't mean don't conserve, be intelligent, etc. But this does mean that your water won't "balance out" year to year, you need to look at big 25-30 year intervals. Right now the single biggest waste of water in Austin is leaky pipes. Like infrastructure pipes owned by the city. Meanwhile our wat…

Wouldn’t leaks from underground pipes end up back in the aquifer and not really be a net water loss in the long term?

Texas state laws make regulating groundwater use very difficult. The Trinity aquifer is probably going to go dry in ten years.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#115

Post by downrightmike »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #6

Earlier today I watched a video[0] that helped contextualize the water situation in Iran. The key takeaway for me was that Iran has been rapidly depleting their water reserves and they don't have any ways to quickly refill them, nor do they have treaties with neighboring countries to guarantee water. That video doesn't mention cloud seeding at all. How should we think about cloud seeding? Does this technology actuall…

Typically the precious metals needed have a cost that is more than the water gained. That assumes there are clouds just on the verge of raining that just need a small push.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#116

Post by vel0city »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #18

Its obviously not as dire (yet) but I think Texas will face something like this in the coming decades. Its the kind of problem that requires people at all levels of society to cooperate and sacrifice - farmers & businesses need to draw less, people need to use less and government needs intelligent and actionable policy, plus big investment into unsexy and invisble infrastructure upgrades - so basically we're screwed.

Texas is doing things to try and address it. Prop 4 passed allocating another billion a year in sales taxes to go towards water infrastructure.

https://www.texaswater.org/prop-4

Texas has also recently started building new reservoirs after a long time of not building any. Bois d'Arc and Arbuckle have recently been finished, others are in progress, and a few more are in planning phases.

There's a lot to hate on about Texas politics but there are some competent people trying to address water concerns. Not saying Texas is doing everything perfectly, we're still drawing on aquifers at an unsustainable rate and need to change that.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#117

Post by downrightmike »

reeredfdfdf wrote: post #88

It's about time to start preparing for global geoengineering. Spraying our atmosphere with stuff that reflects light would buy us time to get emissions under control, and help avoiding the worst scenarios. Best of all, we know it works, thanks to emissions from maritime traffic and the spike in temperature rise after they got cleaner.

Or we could put 3,100 people on house arrest and the major emissions will stop.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#118

Post by toast0 »

ralph84 wrote: post #101
vorpalhex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is either desert or desert adjacent. We have always gotten our water by having torrential rains inconsistently. This doesn't mean don't conserve, be intelligent, etc. But this does mean that your water won't "balance out" year to year, you need to look at big 25-30 year intervals. Right now the single biggest waste of water in Austin is leaky pipes. Like infrastructure pipes owned by the city. Meanwhile our wat…

Wouldn’t leaks from underground pipes end up back in the aquifer and not really be a net water loss in the long term?

Water in the ground from leaky pipes will travel in all directions. Some of it may end up back in the aquifer, but some will end up on the surface and evaporate. Depends on conditions near the pipe and the volume of the leak.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#119

Post by Forgeties79 »

kcplate wrote: post #103
mkoubaa wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing a golf course ban couldn't reverse

Ahh yes, the old “let’s outlaw those things I don’t like, but others do that has billion dollar industries supporting it” approach. That always goes over well.

Is there a better argument for golf courses than “think of the jobs”?

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#120

Post by JumpCrisscross »

londons_explore wrote: post #76
a2tech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume marketing. I’m wondering what will happen when they force the afghan refugees back over the border into Afghanistan since they don’t have the water to give them. Climate change and bad decisions from the last 50 years are starting to bite now. It’ll just get worse. Expect migrations and countries collapsing as millions of people are pushed to migrate for survival.

Drinking water is such a tiny proportion of total water use that it is essentially irrelevant. Water for farming and power stations are the things that will be hit first.

> Drinking water is such a tiny proportion of total water use

A lot of water infrastructure needs minimum levels to function. Drinking water may be a small fraction of use. But if the big users deplete a reservoir below its minimum operational level, the fact that the dead water is enough to keep Tehran alive is more trivia than solace.

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