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Yup. The fresh-water problem is an energy problem, and it's getting solved.
by ph0rque 10y ago
Yup. The fresh-water problem is an energy problem, and it's getting solved.
- WalterBright 10y agoIt's also a pricing problem. Shortages happen when the price is not allowed to rise.
- gunnihinn 10y agoWell I'm glad you guys nailed the problem in three tweets or so.
- icelancer 10y agoThere's a difference between solving the problem (which it has been) and municipalities/governments/etc thinking the solution is palatable.
- tomjen3 10y agoNot all big problems have complicated solutions.
- sullyj3 10y agoThen why aren't the big problems with simple solutions solved already? If your answer is something along the lines of "politics", or "coordination is hard", or "people are stupid", I'd argue that those factors are part of the problem and a solution should account for them.
- sbov 10y agoWater rights are way more complex than platitudes pulled from a high school economics class.
- WalterBright 10y agoEndless economic troubles happen when governments try to repeal supply&demand or deny its existence. A topical example is the drought in California mixed in with the political distribution of water rights.
- jacquesm 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- azinman2 10y agoExcept the market doesn't let society prioritize. In CA, a big part of the water issue was what goes to humans vs farmers. That's not something that the market should be solving, that's for policy, because things like almonds being a status symbol in China cause major issues locally and distort the picture of supply & demand.
- sbov 10y agoEven beyond that, lot of those farmers bought the right to access a certain amount of water when they bought their land. Taking it away from them is like taking property away from someone in SF because they didn't pay enough for it back in the 80s.
- dpark 10y agoEminent domain is a thing. When public good demands it (or when cronyism pushes it through), we do in fact take property from private citizens. The idea that farmers' water rights are inalienable seems absurd to me. A state can be in a drought but farmers needn't curb their usage at all? If each suburban plot of land in California hypothetically came with a guarantee of 100k gallons of water a month, there would be no doubt that this would be cut immediately when a drought hit. It's only farmers' lobbying power that stops their water rights from being restructured wholesale. With that said, I do think agriculture rightfully gets a lot of water allocated. Much of it seems wasted, though.
- discordance 10y agoI've always thought areas where desert meets the sea present incredible opportunities. It has heavily under utilized land, abundance of insolation and plenty of water that could be desalinated If we grew crops in these areas, then both food and water would be a function of energy.
- justinator 10y ago> It has heavily under utilized land, abundance of insolation and plenty of water that could be desalinated Southern California is one such place where the desert meets the sea. It is not underutilized, but it is undergoing a massive drought.
- RijilV 10y agoThis ignores another key component of agriculture- nutrients in the solid. Land that hasn't had a diverse ecosystem on it for decades isn't going to have the required nutrients. Sure you can dump additives in the ground and boost this years crop but that isn't going to create long term healthy soil which can support farming. Fertilizers are just another dependency on fossil fuels. Water is certainly a part of terraforming a desert, but only a part of it.
- vkou 10y agoEnergy is a huge problem in many areas where access to freshwater is threatened. Wealthy nations can afford to get their water in whichever way they want. Nobody's going to pay for a RO plant in, say, Syria.