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The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

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Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#141

Post by Kon-Peki »

almost_usual wrote: post #38
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it's the same logic when people move to coastal areas that will be impacted by sea level rise. No one can imagine they'll be the ones who get screwed over, and certainly not if they're wealthy. As such, I'm not sure I would call it chilling so much as entirely predictable. The real failure is in the states and municipalities that are approving the building in the first place.

NOAA has a sea level rise viewer. https://coast.noaa.gov/slr In the Bay Area the ocean coast communities aren’t very impacted. The Bay coast is significantly impacted, Foster City is already building a levee. https://fostercitylevee.org/

Building a levee now is a smart move. They don't make the water disappear, they make the water go somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't have such a high levee, for example.

In 10-15 years, the lawsuits surrounding construction of a new levee will make them take forever and cost a fortune.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#142

Post by caramelcustard »

woodruffw wrote: post #138
caramelcustard wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost any significant technological innovation was expensive to provide to the public in its infancy but as the time went on, it became more accessible to the public. Right off the bat, i could name airplane transportation as a fine example.

The flaw in this reasoning is that it requires corresponding demand among the non-wealthy. It was true for airlines (everybody likes to go on vacation); is there a particular reason to believe that the average American wants to live in a desert, particularly as the resource limitations become more obvious?

Perhaps it was true for airlines, but mind you that airlines were a substantial upgrade over railways in terms of travel speed, so it's not just about vacations. "...is there a particular reason to believe that the average American wants to live in a desert..." yes and no. With the rise of "alternative lifestyles", i wouldn't be surprised if people would begin exploring the cheaper to purchase lands for development. And while, obviously, most people aren't going to live in the desert, the technology that would be developed and used could benefit in areas other than "supplying those desert weirdos with water". Alternative ways to obtain quality water to me are just like what airplane travel was in comparison to railways.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#143

Post by clairity »

coryrc wrote: post #132
clairity wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "...they generate more heating/cooling than electricity used." that's thermodynamically impossible. @dktoao, being a mechanical engineer, surely understands this, and made a statement that is different, and more plausible. COP is a ratio of change in energy (e.g., temperature) produced against a common benchmark (running electricity through a resistive element, for example). that's how it can be greater than 100%.…

Basically no common A/C is 30% efficient in any sense of the word. There's a scenario where you can argue it can get as low as 50%, but no common A/C I have ever heard of is using moving less than 2x heat power as electricity power used. 30% is wrong no matter how you cut it. And, "efficiency" doesn't matter. COP does. COP is what is reflected on your electrical bills.

it's basic thermodynamics. you mixed the two, as i explained previously, and now you're leaning into the misconception, rather than acknowledging the difference.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#144

Post by Scoundreller »

legitster wrote: post #133
Scoundreller wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delta is one thing, but you're also fighting solar gain when trying to cool. Sure you can mitigate, but when heating, the sun is working in your favour. Winds are another variable.

If you are in a weird climate that gives you cold temperatures but consistent sunlight maybe? But you are also dealing with angle of declination. Solar gain will be diminishing the further north you go even if you get sunlight.

High elevation can do that, but cloudcover is a lot heavier than much of Europe over winter than in much of North America.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#145

Post by phpisthebest »

legitster wrote: post #123
tristor wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, unfortunately, this is very common. I'm in South Texas (for a few more weeks before I move) and my municipal ordinance requires homes to have a grass lawn and for it to be maintained. No HOA here (main reason I bought this house). I pay a lawn service company monthly to manage it for me, because it's a huge pain otherwise due to the climate.

Are you sure? Most places I have lived, the wording of the local ordinance says " IF you have a grass lawn, it must be maintained". I don't think many places would have issue with a nice xeriscaped native garden or even a cinder lawn.

Even in cities that do not call out grass, combination of ordinances make grass the easiest and most economical, one could not replace it with say concrete.

These are set in a variety of zoning, building, and maintenance ordinances

For your "native garden" depending on your meaning could be banned because the city classifies all "unmaintained plants" to be weeds in violation of the ordinance.

Various zoning and building codes outline ground coverings for run off, and flood control purposes.

Then you have separate regulations about shrubs and trees,

All of these combined make grass the easiest way to comply with the government even if the government does to implicitly require grass

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#146

Post by NoSorryCannot »

bombcar wrote: post #46
knappe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too want to find this article (I'm certain it was linked from HN). It isn't a strong towns article, but it had some great diagrams showing how the city centers are the only economically viable places for utilities because of density. The suburbs were just not cost effective and thus were going to go bankrupt because of the lack of efficiency. I've tried to find this article in the past and it has been long enough t…

I have strong suspicions that the data doesn't hold up if examined closely, because "suburbs" are just low density towns, and small towns continue to exist nearly everywhere. Sure maintenance comes around, but it always seems to work out, somehow.

They're not small towns. Suburban homes very often have no commercial activity in close proximity. You have to drive somewhere else to do just about anything.

Small towns haven't historically been built like that.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#147

Post by bombcar »

chasd00 wrote: post #124
_dain_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, (North American) suburbs are fundamentally different to small towns. They don't have their own retail or small businesses, they're just places where people live and commute into the city.

Well a counterpoint would be the northern suburbs of Dallas like Plano, Richardson, and Frisco. They have so much economic activity that I would not be surprised if more people commuted from Dallas to those suburbs for work than vice versa. Also, I bet the people living in the far north exurbs are commuting to the suburbs and not all the way to Dallas proper.

I’m not sure that “true suburbs” actually exist anywhere - because if there’s large swathes of houses, you’ll find at least some retail in the area.

However if it’s more than a mile it may not be walkable but that’s not the same thing as unsustainable.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#148

Post by tlavoie »

Scoundreller wrote: post #110
bradfa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but even with a volunteer fire department, at least there's normally water that they can use to save the neighbor houses once they arrive on-scene. If there's no water then there's no way to save anything from a fire.

Right: They'll have water delivery trucks on standby contracts. The very trucks that deliver water to homes. They'll come to the scene and deploy an instant-pool for firetrucks to draw from. You could say that having homes that depend on cisterns actually helps in firefighting efforts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i090t5scQ1o&t=220s

The tenders, as those trucks are known, would be from the fire department themselves. Filling from nearby-as-possible ponds or tanks, a good-sized structure fire will still go through multiple trucks' worth of water.

I volunteer with our rural, island-based fire department. The more populated part has 90% or more of the people, and is part of our coverage area. The larger part is more parks and forest, and sees regional coverage such as chopper- or truck-based crews, helicopters and so on.

Each of the engine trucks carries something like 1000 gallons of water, and is kept full. So are the tenders, which can dump into the "porta-pond" as in that video. The water supply team has a list of available sources of water that they can go to to keep that water flowing, but if there is nothing nearby, the round-trip time will get longer, and firefighters will have to leave the building until there is water available.

Wildfire fighting is very different, and much more focused on containing the edges of the fire by using natural fire breaks or creating new ones. (Think picks and shovels, heli buckets, and heavy equipment where available.) If there is a house or two threatened, maybe some sprinklers can be set up ahead of the fire. If the house is on fire, too bad, efforts are on what's ahead.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#149

Post by azinman2 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #120
jeffbee wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many are actively working to bring the disaster into the present! In the book Running Out the author interviews Kansas farmers who are explicitly managing the aquifer so that it runs out within their lifetimes. Not too soon, but not too far into the future, either.

What's the logic here - is it just agribusiness maximizing profit in the short-medium term with the expectation of writing it off and moving production elsewhere once the point of collapse arrives?

“I got mine”

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#150

Post by azinman2 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #74
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it's the same logic when people move to coastal areas that will be impacted by sea level rise. No one can imagine they'll be the ones who get screwed over, and certainly not if they're wealthy. As such, I'm not sure I would call it chilling so much as entirely predictable. The real failure is in the states and municipalities that are approving the building in the first place.

Well in their defense the government has a long history of bailing out politically connected people before they have to pay for their poor choices

You’re failing to integrate in that humans are very flexible, nothing is static, and technology often allows us to address problems as they come. Levees are a great example of that.

There are very few, if any, places on earth that don’t come with risks from nature.

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