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

A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 183 posts

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#141

Post by rayiner »

aesthesia wrote: post #91
rayiner wrote: post #21

Most of the southwest should not have people living in it. It's a fake place that is enabled to exist by massive and unnatural engineering projects, like dams on the Colorado river. We need to create a long term plan to relocate the population to other parts of the country.

You can make this kind of claim about living in lots of different places. Some amount of engineering and technology has been necessary to enable humans to live in most parts of the world. What determines the line?

Access to resources that are used in prodigious volumes, like fresh water, seems like a good place to draw the line.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#142

Post by abosley »

bsder wrote: post #122
caymanjim wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But the water. What about the water necessary to "restore the soil". The soil in question of course, was non-productive desert 50 years ago. We are doing input intensive farming in areas where the complex supply chain necessary to support is causing what some people call "externalities". Others, the tragedy of the commons. Well run societies try to use regulation to keep this from happening.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#143

Post by watwut »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #134
rayiner wrote: post #30

Why 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…

I would assume because water-wasting concerns are just another tool for the left to use against their political opponents, not an actual concern most of their constituents deeply care about. Same, for example, as right-leaning people suddenly discovered concerns regarding wind turbines killing birds or spoiling views from the shore (I bet those birds covered in oil after spills enjoy it and are a treat to the eye!).…

The opposition against data centers is remarkably both side things. Both MAGA opposes it and progressive opposes it. And no, I do not think maga and progressive are the same, but they do in fact both oppose data centers.

> Same, for example, as right-leaning people suddenly discovered concerns regarding wind turbines killing birds or spoiling views from the shore

What is their actual issue there? They want the electricity to be more expensive? They want the global warming to warm faster?

> Western lefties consider farmers their class allies

Pretty much all American leftists I have ever seen talking about the issue consider farmers to be the core MAGA/Trump constituency. Leftists do NOT consider them allies.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#144

Post by toomuchtodo »

arjie wrote: post #37
p-e-w wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing something about this is the job of the government, not of “you all”. If taking care of such essential matters is somehow the responsibility of society as a whole, we may as well get rid of governments altogether.

Governments are just a structure for people to coordinate collective action. In democracies, it’s not that distinct from “us all”. We exercise this responsibility through representatives but they are our agents not our rulers. Outcomes depend on our ability to direct them, and the ability of our opponents to do so likewise. For the most part, I like to forward evolve solutions so I happily don’t care if Las Vegas run…

Funny enough, Las Vegas has been planning for this outcome and won't run out of water. Only agriculture users will be impacted, who consume ~50% of the total annual Colorado River Basin. So, to your point, the ag users responsible for overconsumption for decades will be the ones primarily exposed to the outcome. Municipal water systems will continue to function as they do today with available water reserves and flows.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#145

Post by yreg »

lesostep wrote: post #129
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why can't they condense the vapor on site? Or simply use closed cooling loops? Would it be that much more expensive?

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#146

Post by toomuchtodo »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #86
rayiner wrote: post #30

Why 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…

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…

> 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 farm to decide on an acre by acre basis how much to plant and how much to put into solar farming.

If you were not already aware, you might consider reaching out to the Wetlands Water District legal and policy team (https://wwd.ca.gov/), as they helped champion AB 2661:

> “California law AB 2661, enacted in September, authorizes the water district to develop, construct and own solar generation, battery storage and transmission facilities as identified in the plan. The law also requires the district to adopt a community benefits plan with input from local communities, a requirement the district has endorsed. A community benefits plan typically involves payments from a project owner to the neighboring community,” pv magazine writes.

to enable https://www.goldenstatecleanenergy.com/valley-clean-infrastr... with details from reporting at https://cleantechnica.com/2026/01/03/21-gigawatts-of-solar-f...

Fact sheet: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/68b8b921ce5fb0440fdf5...

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#147

Post by peterbecich »

b3lvedere wrote: post #101
arjie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty clever idea. Sadly uneconomical when compared to desalination because I love the idea of iceberg calf hunting. Ripe for a novel Moby Dick - The target is already a large white object. Call me Icemael. Got a bit of a Cold War era pykrete like project feeling.

Given enough solar/wind/battery power i do wonder if a desalination plant could run pretty cheaply. A quick chat with ChatGPT tells me it should be feasible. Roughly investing around 1 billion dollars and around 40 million per year for keeping it run producing around 100.000 m³ per year. Cost price of the water would be around $0.20 per m³. Could run for more than 25 years.

They are not popular. See the canceled Poseidon facility in Huntington Beach.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#148

Post by scarmig »

sensanaty wrote: post #128
scarmig wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The claim I was responding to was that alfalfa using 1000x the water of Google data centers was okay because alfalfa is needed for life. My response was not "data centers are needed for life" but "alfalfa is not needed for life."

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#149

Post by cryptoegorophy »

theossuary wrote: post #14
cryptoegorophy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can you realistically do?

Start by not electing a pedophile who calls climate change a hoax

I don’t remember Democrat Gavin Newsom calling climate change a hoax? Jokes aside, I don’t think politicians have anything to do with that. From what I’ve learned droughts in CA are natural part of the cycle and humans just accelerate it. You can’t reverse it because it is nature” you can slow down the acceleration, but then at what cost and why? If we are “all going to die” how does it change if it will happen in 50 years vs 60 years? 60 years of misery or 50 years of normal life.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#150

Post by eudamoniac »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #60

I have been reading articles like this for more than 20 years. Really, it feels like click/rage-bait at this point. The answer is pretty simple: (1) Build desalination plants (Calif already has a few) and (2) switch to more efficient uses of water in agriculture (drip irrigation, that is already widely practiced in water stressed areas of the world). Sure it costs money, but California is insanely rich and can afford…

It's not even misleading, it's just a lie. There's no way to interpret it correctly from the words.
Post reply on HN