Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 248 posts

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#141

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

imtringued wrote: post #82
tejohnso wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is politically untenable to fix this I believe this statement is applicable to the climate crisis in general. Recent reviews of 2015 Paris agreement progress indicate abysmal performance. We've been using resources in such a way that we don't have to consider their true costs, and we've been doing so for generations. I don't think we'll see very significant change until it is forced upon us. We'll then make reac…

"IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming" Never it is.

I wouldn't say never. One way or another, we'll stop contributing to climate change.

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#142

Post by thepasswordis »

Meanwhile the US NRC is denying permits to nuclear startups like OKLO which would solve this problem in a way which is clean, and both safe and effective.

Water is a solved problem. Nuclear desilnation plants exist, and are both safe and effective. The only thing standing in the way is regulators.

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#144

Post by mindslight »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #74
danaris wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think there should absolutely be limits of some kind, if the water need in places like California could be spread out over the water table of, say, everything else west of the Mississippi, I imagine it could make a big difference to the water-poor places without running the risk of depleting the water-rich places enough for anyone to even notice. Of course, that's assuming that such a pipeline network would b…

The nuclear power + desalination plant combo seems like a no-brainer to me in particular. Even if it meant sticking them in Oregon or Washington (for reduced seismic risk) and piping the fresh water down to Cali.

Does anyone know how the capital depreciation versus electricity cost of desalinization works out? As in, would desalinization make for a good capacity smoother (for solar/wind and the like), where the plant could produce more fresh water while electricity was abundant and then idle when it was not? Or if desalinization is done by something like reverse osmosis then perhaps storing energy as accumulated pressure, while the filter membranes worked full time. It would seem to make more sense than using lithium for grid scale batteries.

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#145

Post by Kon-Peki »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #97
dahfizz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't forsee a transcontinental water pipe going over well. I, for one, refuse to subsidize people who want to live in a dessert with my own water table. People should live in areas that can support human life.

Someone else had an interesting idea: We could set up a transcontinental pipeline to the desert, and in exchange we would receive their solar power.

It's only interesting if you live in the west. It's not a good trade.

There's plenty of solar energy potential in the midwest, along with tons of wind energy potential. We don't need your solar power.

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#147

Post by JumpCrisscross »

krapp wrote: post #113
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a desert Why do so many people choose to live in a desert? It makes very little economic sense. Feels like it will be destined for failure no matter what silicon valley tries to pay its grunts. Any expectation of having enough water for such a low price is laughably absurd. The population of this state is literally asking for these conditions - they are choosing to live there.

People lived in deserts all across the US for tens of thousands of years and got by just fine and never had to pay a dime for water. This isn't a desert climate problem, it's a "capitalism charging money for something that should be free" and "modern civilization having no concept of ecological balance" problem.

> it's a "capitalism charging money for something that should be free"…problem

It’s mostly the opposite. If we put a price on water, with the first 50,000 gallons per residence being free or subsidised [1], the problem would self correct. Water-heavy industries would be priced out. A budget would emerge for conservation.

We don’t get this, however, because the state’s heaviest water users, certain agriculture and industry, have convinced enough of the urban population that water pricing is some capitalist scam. (Analogous to how landowners convinced renters that the enemy was the employers.)

The story of modern California’s woes is one of special interests co-opting a gullible anti-capitalist slice of the populace.

[1] https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2021/Nov-21/State-Ag...

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#148

Post by [deleted] »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #29
DannyBee wrote: post #18

It's not unprecedented. It's been a steady state that they have pretended was not a steady state. They are not "in a drought". They say drought in a way that implies that it is a temporary state that may return to a different, normal state. But it will not. They have reached a new normal of a lower water level. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-05-06/editorial-t... was a great editorial on this from last yea…

CA water use is 50% environment, 40% agriculture, 10% residential. Maybe we should focus on reducing that 50%? It was nice and all when we had plenty of water to waste but it’s time to revisit those policies. https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

[deleted]

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#149

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

eesmith wrote: post #110
t-3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artifacts are not history, they are items. The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integration. I said that they lacked the trappings of what present-day humans think of as civilization, not that they didn't exist or have civilization, which I know they did - but they died out due to drought. Much of the time, they lacked resources for widespread acce…

So if I understand you right, Namibia lacks the " trappings of what present-day humans think of as civilization" because many San live as hunter-gatherers? The link you gave describes people who live on the margin; "peripheral members of the Puebloan culture". Not "most of the native groups", which is the phrase yous used earlier. Yes, many modern people don't have a sense of the pre-Spanish history of the Southwest.…

to be fair to t-3, they seem to have some real focus on the Chihuahan and Sonoran deserts, and I suspect that things may indeed have been a little different there than the areas occupied by the Tewa/Pueblo peoples and even the Hopi.

Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet

#150

Post by wbl »

ehnto wrote: post #131
deaddodo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, they continue to push nonsense to help. The amount of water used by residences doing "outdoor watering" is miniscule. Agriculture is over 80% of the water use in california. If they were going to completely run out of water in a week, and all outdoor watering by residences would stop, it would buy you less than a day. This is definitely true and something I try to point out to people all the time. The Ca…

That's not really the whole story though, because water supplies are not a centrally stored resource shared amongst all consumers. It's a fairly distributed system with lots of different reserves feeding different consumers. For example, small towns may pull their drinking water from a dam or other reserve that is of limited supply, where the agriculture in the area is not affecting the same water, being pulled from…

Not true in California due to the state water project. Water is captured in NorCal and shipped to SoCal for agriculture. Central Valley farmers directly reduce the water for SV suburbs. The only river they haven't tapped is the Klamath.
Post reply on HN