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Large swaths of the country currently receive sufficient rainfall to meet agricultural, industrial, and municipal needs. Desalinating and pumping water from the

Large swaths of the country currently receive sufficient rainfall to meet agricultural, industrial, and municipal needs. Desalinating and pumping water from the coasts as a complete replacement solution is madness. Any realistic solution to water scarcity will be a multi-pronged approach: improvements in water infrastructure, groundwater recharge, pollution control, water conservation, rainwater harvesting, and technology-driven gains in purification/distribution efficiency.

jdavis703 7y ago
How can we make this argument when rivers like the Colorado are barely a trickle by the time they reach the ocean? Even arid areas that seem fertile like the Southwest and the Central Valley are only fertile because we're diverting and pumping water unsustainably.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  A "water grid" sounds appealing, especially given the uncertainty of climate change. But you have to consider that water is used so much by human that you need pipes on much larger scale than you need with petroleum (the water needed for agriculture dwarfs that needed for cities - it can be easier to move the farms to the water than the water to farms). And water is quite heavy given the amount being moved, so you much more energy than you need for petroleum. Just remember that to move a river across a mountain you need the more than energy of a vast series of dams on the other side - since a some proportion is lost to friction.
  - maxander 7y ago
    Nee gig for Musk’s Boring Company? Drilling water pipelines right through the mountains.
- labster 7y ago
  On the Colorado we’re not even taking the easy wins like “store all the water in one big reservoir during drought to prevent evaporation”.
  - floatrock 7y ago
    What do you mean? It seems like you described Lake Meade -- the reservoir created by the hoover dam.
    - coryrc 7y ago
      I think they mean Lake Meade is so low different turbines have been added to the Hoover Dam to generate electricity even at low water levels.
      - labster 7y ago
        No, I meant that we shouldn’t be storing water at the Glen Canyon Dam, since two large shallow lakes have more surface area. And on this scale, evaporation actually matters—consider the shade balls used in California reservoirs. But for some reason, upstream folk think that if the let the water go they will never see it again. This is not the way legal allotments work. But it’s the same reason people prefer dams to underground storage, because seeing things feels reassuring, despite it being less efficient.
- bjelkeman-again 7y ago
  StoppIng unsustainable use, would be one part of how to fix it.
  - mc32 7y ago
    So much of is either for making a semi-desert region into one of the most productive agricultural lands on earth and another fraction goes on to quench the thirst of the L.A. Basin. I guess we could cap either per person use or cap the pop in L.A.
- niftich 7y ago
  Because most of the US does not have this problem. The Colorado River basin does, but it's worth noting that California's allocation is very high relative to the portion of the drainage basin within the state, and most of the state's allocation (>88%) is pumped out of the basin. Top users of California's allocation of Colorado River water are [1]: - the Irrigation Districts of the Imperial Valley (~61%) and its northwest extension the Coachella Valley (~8%); - the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (~20%) [2]; - the Palo Verde Irrigation District (~8%). The Palo Verde Irrigation District is inside the Colorado River basin. [1] https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2018/2018.pdf https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2018... [2] http://www.mwdh2o.com/AboutYourWater/Sources%20Of%20Supply/Pages/default.aspx http://www.mwdh2o.com/AboutYourWater/Sources%20Of%20Supply/P...
  - bradknowles 7y ago
    At the very least, you'd think that California could make much more use of desalination, and greatly reduce the amount of damage they do to the CRB.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
s/large swaths/most of the eastern half/ West of 100 west longitude (so, half of the continental US), almost nowhere receives sufficient rainfall.
- vvanders 7y ago
  Broad sweeping statements don't do anyone justice. We live near the westmost tip of the US and have a water management plan for the entire county. We pay into a mitigation that manages the entire watershed.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Well, I said "almost nowhere". The Sierras and Cascades (and west of there) are the exception. If you look at the US west of the 100th meridian, though, that's still "almost nowhere".
  - vageli 7y ago
    > Broad sweeping statements don't do anyone justice. > We live near the westmost tip of the US and have a water management plan for the entire county. We pay into a mitigation that manages the entire watershed. I live on the east coast and can't get fined for collecting rainwater. There might be something to the notion of piping water from the "wet" coast to the Midwest and potentially beyond.
no_wizard 7y ago
Just to be clear, he was talking to High School students, so perhaps sacrificed a little accuracy for the sake of making a point. I still think the general idea is sound, even if you don't take it literally on implementation Just to address that for the sake of that dude, I didn't want it to come across the wrong way. To address some things further down: I do remember a specific detail, and I don't know how accurate it is, however, he did explain that (and also prefaced how theoretical it is, even at that time more so I imagine): - If you wanted to do this right, what you would want to do is desalinate the water and pump it to existing surface basins/reservoirs first (e.g., the Colorado River Basin), and taking great care to match that water to the ecology (e.g., mineral, PH level etc) of the water you are replenishing This way you aren't forcing an entire set of infrastructure to be obsolete, but rather working with existing delivery modes to get the water where it needs to be - In cases where this isn't feasible, your best bet would be to run some sort of infrastructure (likely pipes) to those in need. In some cases, you might even be able to simply create new reservoirs to feed population centers to create efficient delivery mechanisms. The other thing I remember him mentioning specifically is there are many delivery mechanisms (e.g natural) ones that were no longer in productive service that could be revived also (I wish I had an example for this, but I don't). The cheapest way to do this (by the dudes estimation) would be to use nuclear power near the coasts, that rely on the salt water for cooling which gives you two advantages: 1. in theory, the water that the plants themselves could produce a by product of clean, usable water[0] 2. The nuclear power plants themselves should be able to produce the power cheaply and ecologically friendly)[1] 3. This would incentive more research into pressurized water systems for nuclear power, which in theory could yield smaller reactors which in turn are even safer as is intrinsic to their design, they may even yield ever smaller sized reactors[2][3] [0]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512082949.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512082949.h... [1]http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/reconsidering-risks-nuclear-power/ http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/reconsidering-risks-n... [2]http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/kraus1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/kraus1/ [3]https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/for-educators/04.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/for-educat... Its, in a practical sense, feasible, but I think the takeaway I had back then and even now, thinking about it, was we needed to start this by 2009 to have it be up and going by 2019. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't do something now, but rather, we're still deciding what to do about it and that's crippling
olliej 7y ago
Uhhh, so being agriculturally productive isn’t just about having water, that’s the problem: California is one of the largest cereal crop producing places on earth for a reason, ditto for citrus, and many other fruit. Because the soil quality and climate are amazing for them. The problem is that it’s essentially a desert and farmers have for a century just been digging wells and aggressively draining the ground water while simultaneously removing the various catchments and watering inefficiently (seriously drive through the Central Valley and they’re all watering crops in the middle of the day when the temp is 100/40+. That’s part of the problem with the various nut milks: it’s not just that they use a huge amount of water, but that unlike cows you have to grow them in specific environments - like the middle of the CA desert.
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Solar will never scale.

jdavis703 7y ago

How can we make this argument when rivers like the Colorado are barely a trickle by the time they reach the ocean? Even arid areas that seem fertile like the Southwest and the Central Valley are only fertile because we're diverting and pumping water unsustainably.

joe_the_user 7y ago
A "water grid" sounds appealing, especially given the uncertainty of climate change. But you have to consider that water is used so much by human that you need pipes on much larger scale than you need with petroleum (the water needed for agriculture dwarfs that needed for cities - it can be easier to move the farms to the water than the water to farms). And water is quite heavy given the amount being moved, so you much more energy than you need for petroleum. Just remember that to move a river across a mountain you need the more than energy of a vast series of dams on the other side - since a some proportion is lost to friction.
- maxander 7y ago
  Nee gig for Musk’s Boring Company? Drilling water pipelines right through the mountains.
labster 7y ago
On the Colorado we’re not even taking the easy wins like “store all the water in one big reservoir during drought to prevent evaporation”.
- floatrock 7y ago
  What do you mean? It seems like you described Lake Meade -- the reservoir created by the hoover dam.
  - coryrc 7y ago
    I think they mean Lake Meade is so low different turbines have been added to the Hoover Dam to generate electricity even at low water levels.
    - labster 7y ago
      No, I meant that we shouldn’t be storing water at the Glen Canyon Dam, since two large shallow lakes have more surface area. And on this scale, evaporation actually matters—consider the shade balls used in California reservoirs. But for some reason, upstream folk think that if the let the water go they will never see it again. This is not the way legal allotments work. But it’s the same reason people prefer dams to underground storage, because seeing things feels reassuring, despite it being less efficient.
bjelkeman-again 7y ago
StoppIng unsustainable use, would be one part of how to fix it.
- mc32 7y ago
  So much of is either for making a semi-desert region into one of the most productive agricultural lands on earth and another fraction goes on to quench the thirst of the L.A. Basin. I guess we could cap either per person use or cap the pop in L.A.
niftich 7y ago
Because most of the US does not have this problem. The Colorado River basin does, but it's worth noting that California's allocation is very high relative to the portion of the drainage basin within the state, and most of the state's allocation (>88%) is pumped out of the basin. Top users of California's allocation of Colorado River water are [1]: - the Irrigation Districts of the Imperial Valley (~61%) and its northwest extension the Coachella Valley (~8%); - the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (~20%) [2]; - the Palo Verde Irrigation District (~8%). The Palo Verde Irrigation District is inside the Colorado River basin. [1] https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2018/2018.pdf https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2018... [2] http://www.mwdh2o.com/AboutYourWater/Sources%20Of%20Supply/Pages/default.aspx http://www.mwdh2o.com/AboutYourWater/Sources%20Of%20Supply/P...
- bradknowles 7y ago
  At the very least, you'd think that California could make much more use of desalination, and greatly reduce the amount of damage they do to the CRB.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

s/large swaths/most of the eastern half/ West of 100 west longitude (so, half of the continental US), almost nowhere receives sufficient rainfall.

vvanders 7y ago
Broad sweeping statements don't do anyone justice. We live near the westmost tip of the US and have a water management plan for the entire county. We pay into a mitigation that manages the entire watershed.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Well, I said "almost nowhere". The Sierras and Cascades (and west of there) are the exception. If you look at the US west of the 100th meridian, though, that's still "almost nowhere".
- vageli 7y ago
  > Broad sweeping statements don't do anyone justice. > We live near the westmost tip of the US and have a water management plan for the entire county. We pay into a mitigation that manages the entire watershed. I live on the east coast and can't get fined for collecting rainwater. There might be something to the notion of piping water from the "wet" coast to the Midwest and potentially beyond.

no_wizard 7y ago

Just to be clear, he was talking to High School students, so perhaps sacrificed a little accuracy for the sake of making a point. I still think the general idea is sound, even if you don't take it literally on implementation Just to address that for the sake of that dude, I didn't want it to come across the wrong way. To address some things further down: I do remember a specific detail, and I don't know how accurate it is, however, he did explain that (and also prefaced how theoretical it is, even at that time more so I imagine): - If you wanted to do this right, what you would want to do is desalinate the water and pump it to existing surface basins/reservoirs first (e.g., the Colorado River Basin), and taking great care to match that water to the ecology (e.g., mineral, PH level etc) of the water you are replenishing This way you aren't forcing an entire set of infrastructure to be obsolete, but rather working with existing delivery modes to get the water where it needs to be - In cases where this isn't feasible, your best bet would be to run some sort of infrastructure (likely pipes) to those in need. In some cases, you might even be able to simply create new reservoirs to feed population centers to create efficient delivery mechanisms. The other thing I remember him mentioning specifically is there are many delivery mechanisms (e.g natural) ones that were no longer in productive service that could be revived also (I wish I had an example for this, but I don't). The cheapest way to do this (by the dudes estimation) would be to use nuclear power near the coasts, that rely on the salt water for cooling which gives you two advantages: 1. in theory, the water that the plants themselves could produce a by product of clean, usable water[0] 2. The nuclear power plants themselves should be able to produce the power cheaply and ecologically friendly)[1] 3. This would incentive more research into pressurized water systems for nuclear power, which in theory could yield smaller reactors which in turn are even safer as is intrinsic to their design, they may even yield ever smaller sized reactors[2][3] [0]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512082949.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512082949.h... [1]http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/reconsidering-risks-nuclear-power/ http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/reconsidering-risks-n... [2]http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/kraus1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/kraus1/ [3]https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/for-educators/04.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/for-educat... Its, in a practical sense, feasible, but I think the takeaway I had back then and even now, thinking about it, was we needed to start this by 2009 to have it be up and going by 2019. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't do something now, but rather, we're still deciding what to do about it and that's crippling

olliej 7y ago

Uhhh, so being agriculturally productive isn’t just about having water, that’s the problem: California is one of the largest cereal crop producing places on earth for a reason, ditto for citrus, and many other fruit. Because the soil quality and climate are amazing for them. The problem is that it’s essentially a desert and farmers have for a century just been digging wells and aggressively draining the ground water while simultaneously removing the various catchments and watering inefficiently (seriously drive through the Central Valley and they’re all watering crops in the middle of the day when the temp is 100/40+. That’s part of the problem with the various nut milks: it’s not just that they use a huge amount of water, but that unlike cows you have to grow them in specific environments - like the middle of the CA desert.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

Solar will never scale.