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A lot of the western US has been in drought nearly my entire life. They have been using the underground rivers nearly to depletion (Kansas) or importing water v
by michaelbrave 7y ago
A lot of the western US has been in drought nearly my entire life. They have been using the underground rivers nearly to depletion (Kansas) or importing water via massive pipelines from other states (California). It's been completely mismanaged even down to choice of crop (I.E. Almonds aren't drought friendly and should not be grown in places that have them).
I imagine if things get even slightly worse it could help lead to a collapse.
- symplee 7y agoAre these repurposed oil pipelines? Or dedicated fresh water pipelines built specifically to replenish water supplies? I'd imagine as oil declines, the pipelines from the gulf might be able to send desalinated water back inland. Not sure how feasible this would be, thoughts?
- readmodifywrite 7y agoThe issue there is desalinating the water in an environmentally responsible way. It's hugely energy intensive.
- symplee 7y agoThere have been some encouraging results recently. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22269115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22269115 In any case, the time frame we're talking about is 10-20 years from now. Lots of time for even more breakthroughs.