Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
[deleted]
A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
121–130 of 183 posts
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Please reread my statement:
> the alfalfa is a soil restorer
So, yes, the agribusinesses WILL grow that alfalfa even if they can't sell it.
Now, you can factually dispute me since I am by no means a California agribusiness expert. However, it is my understanding that alfalfa is uniquely suited to the soil restoration required for the agribusinesses to cycle their fields more quickly.
It is also my understanding that part of the reason why alfalfa can be shipped so cheaply is because you need to return shipping containers back to origin to ship something else and those containers would be empty otherwise.
So, this is a perfect storm of alfalfa that would be grown anyway only to be plowed under being too expensive to ship except for the fact that the shipping is almost free due to the containers being returned to origin.
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#123Why 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…
Because a lot more consumers care about the milk that comes from the dairy cows in California that consume something like 75% of that alfalfa and the meat that comes from the animals that consume the rest than care about data centers?
When I try to find out what % of California's alfalfa production is exported, I get conflicting numbers, some as high as 38%, some much lower.
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Water which is evaporated is also returned to the ecosystem. It falls back out as rain.
The heat issue is also widely misunderstood. The state of California gets on the order of a PWh of heat every day from the sun. A million GWh. Even a large nuclear plant doesn't make a dent in that. The issue is localized to the immediate area at the outlet, because the water temperature directly at the outlet is going to be higher than it is at the inlet, before it diffuses back into the background. Naturally the way to mitigate this is to pull more water through the cooling system, all of which you're still returning, but then you raise the temperature of twice as much water by half as much temperature, which is what you want since the temperature delta is the concern. Of course, doing this will cause people to accuse you of using more water, even though you're neither consuming the water nor modifying the amount of heat being transferred to the environment.
In addition to that, water has extremely different levels of scarcity depending on what region you're in. Parts of California and Texas have arid climates and extremely limited economical means to source additional fresh water. Areas like the Midwest get dramatically more rainfall and as a result fresh water is not meaningfully scarce there.
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#125Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#126Why 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…
California water policy vs other western states in one image:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sandy+Valley,+NV+89019/@35...
A town of 1700 people with a rapidly depleting aquifer (600 AF/yr recharge, equal to a single one of those circles) so 1 or 2 farmers with no restrictions on water usage can grow as much alfalfa as they'd like.
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a fair question, California agriculture tends to use 11 trillion gallons (34e6 acre feet[1][2]) of water annually. (about 1,700 Googles worth). Generally from a market driven standpoint agricultural users are trying to get maximum $/acre out of their land. I'm trying to convince the state legislature to reclassify "solar farms"[3] as agriculture (as opposed to 'industrial' that they are today) which would allow a…
If farms would choose to do solar instead of crops, I would assume that's because they can get more $/acre, but that could cause food prices to rise. At the same time, energy prices would drop if there was a surplus, so I wonder where it would level out. Lower energy cost could have a small affect in reducing the price of processed foods, but I imagine it would be very small (but I don't really know the energy cost o…
There’s also the possibility of famine. But hey at least we’d have AI.
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because food and agriculture (in the region that produces a quarter of America’s domestic food supply) are required for life, while data centers aren’t?
Although delicious, alfalfa is not required for life. A lot of it goes to Saudi Arabia, who use it for horses and cattle, as the Saudis banned it domestically for being wasteful for water usage.
And data centers are required for life?
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Water which is evaporated is also returned to the ecosystem. It falls back out as rain. The heat issue is also widely misunderstood. The state of California gets on the order of a PWh of heat every day from the sun. A million GWh. Even a large nuclear plant doesn't make a dent in that. The issue is localized to the immediate area at the outlet, because the water temperature directly at the outlet is going to be highe…
>> Water which is evaporated is also returned to the ecosystem. It falls back out as rain.
No, not necessary to the same one. Every body of water has a catchment area, and through the bottom parts of some lakes/rivers water sips into the earth, filling underground water levels.
Now, let's say you life on a coast with a regular winds in the ocean direction.
You basin fills with water evaporated by you, your neighbors catchments and – sometimes – ocean (wind doesn't always blow in one direction). But the large percentage of the water you evaporate goes into the ocean. Let's say 90 percent falls again on your catchment area, 10 percent falls in ocean but is regained through neighbors basins evaporation.
Now, if you increase your evaporation, you could easily drain a lot of water from your land.
Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
I didn't even mention water waste in my comment yet you out of touch techies managed to return to your industry talking point AND hate on poor people in one go of it. And yes, despite your industry talking points, water waste is absolutely a major concern. Unlike residential use, where 80% of the water is reclaimed, open loop data centers (which are over 90% of data centers) allow almost all the water to evaporate. S…
What makes you think rayiner is a techie?