121–130 of 195 posts
Here's an alternative idea: stop growing crap in the desert. The number #1 water usage in Cali is agriculture. I think we could survive without baby spinach during the winter.
Collecting fog electrostatically is 2x more efficient than desalination. It works by ionizing the droplets in the air and collecting them on wire meshes: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aao5323 . The technique also doesn't produce tons of salt waste that you have to dispose of. It's a potential solution for towns/cities next to the ocean. Desalination is cheap enough already if we get desperate. It won't b…
Quick Google stats: There are 13M households in California. Average household consumes 0.5-1.0 acre-feet of water per year. It costs $419 per acre-foot for desalination. California has a discretionary budget surplus of $49B. Thus: It would cost $2.7B-$5.4B per year to provide desalination-based water to all Californians. With the current budget surplus, we could provide 100% of California's living water needs for 10-…
As others have noted, desalination cause enormous amounts of waste. So then, the next environmental topic needs to be addressed. I believe there are other, better ways to handle limited water supplies like finding inefficacies in the system and plugging those holes. Changing from mass monocultures to perma-cultures. Unfortunately, they are much more boring than desalination plants. There are great videos on this on Y…
Which will obviously accelerate the climate change, but that's the next generations problem. We just need to get through this election cycle without forcing any unpleasant lifestyle changes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh the typical techie solution to environmental problems. We can solve this with tech! Wait until the aquifers under North America run dry. That's where most irrigation pump up their ground water from. A few dry rivers and smaller lakes are nothing compared to what's going to happen. Forget your desalination plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aquifers_in_the_United... And it's entirely predictable. In fact…
What are you even arguing? People posting here need to made less ambiguous, seething comments and stop assuming that people reading already know what they’re arguing. - The poster above mentions desalination and says tech provides a solution. - You make some vague point about tech people depending too much on tech, but without actually discussing the point and why. - Then you go on to talk about the current problem,…
What _can_ work is to use tech to address the root cause, which in many cases resource overuse, just like this one. That is, using tech to reduce the use of that resource. Trying to replenish the resource while not curbing its use is doomed to failure.
California is next to the ocean, so if we really wanted to secure the water supply we have technological answers available. Nuclear desalination has been used at scale across the globe for decades, and it's not hard to imagine a less centralized solution powered by solar or wind. https://www.iaea.org/topics/non-electric-applications/nuclea...
Oh the typical techie solution to environmental problems. We can solve this with tech! Wait until the aquifers under North America run dry. That's where most irrigation pump up their ground water from. A few dry rivers and smaller lakes are nothing compared to what's going to happen. Forget your desalination plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aquifers_in_the_United... And it's entirely predictable. In fact…
Everyone keeps saying desalination is the solution but doesn't desalination cause an enormous amount of waste output (hyper saline slurry)? It seems like creating a new problem to solve another.
Quick Google stats: There are 13M households in California. Average household consumes 0.5-1.0 acre-feet of water per year. It costs $419 per acre-foot for desalination. California has a discretionary budget surplus of $49B. Thus: It would cost $2.7B-$5.4B per year to provide desalination-based water to all Californians. With the current budget surplus, we could provide 100% of California's living water needs for 10-…
I disagree that we should build desalination, even if we can "afford" it. There are agricultural users of water paying astronomically lower prices due to long standing water rights. It would almost certainly be cheaper to pay them to conserve (grow less of water-wasting crops, leave fields fallow, or upgrade to more efficient drip irrigation). The urban water use is around 20%, making them pay billions for this 20% m…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
San Diego got its desal plant in the husk of an old coal plant, and it has been the GREATEST thing. We are much closer to water independence than anyone else in the state and not having to listen about constant drought nagging has been FANTASTIC
strong agree! it comes out to just about 7% of the total water though doesn't it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that doesn't even begin to factor in the revenue opportunities from scaling up desalination further for export to neighboring states (most of which are even more arid than California). I've said it before and I'll say it again: California food and (desalinated) water in exchange for Nevada electricity (be it solar, geothermal, or nuclear) would mutually benefit both states and produce one hell of an economic jugg…
Pumping water from the California coast to Nevada is not a good idea. You’re basically describing a hydro plant, in reverse, carrying expensive water.
Hell...
Lake Lahontan. Megalake. Barely alive. Gentlemen, we can refill it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic lake. Lake Lahontan will be that lake. Better than it was before. Wider. Deeper. Wetter.
jazzy intro music
Quick Google stats: There are 13M households in California. Average household consumes 0.5-1.0 acre-feet of water per year. It costs $419 per acre-foot for desalination. California has a discretionary budget surplus of $49B. Thus: It would cost $2.7B-$5.4B per year to provide desalination-based water to all Californians. With the current budget surplus, we could provide 100% of California's living water needs for 10-…
I admit I’m not familiar with current techniques for desalination at scale, but I’m curious what the energy requirements would be?
After reading how Bermudans adapted to limited water supply and are good at rationing even though they do have desalinators now, it's pretty strange.