5 ms·

Georgia has coast access and plenty of sun, right? Sounds like a problem a desalination plant and a pipeline would solve :) I'm always down for a good mega-en

Georgia has coast access and plenty of sun, right? Sounds like a problem a desalination plant and a pipeline would solve :) I'm always down for a good mega-engineering project.

bluGill 6y ago
Using fresh water is far cheaper than any desalination scheme we have so far. I'm surprised they have issues getting enough fresh water without a river though, but I'm don't care to look into why.
- csharptwdec19 6y ago
  On the other hand, given the direction everything else in the world is going, maybe it would be better to build a desalination plant NOW and before the problem gets critical... There's only so much fresh water you can take from a natural source before you have an impact on wildlife order(s) of magnitude greater than what we've already done.
Arrath 6y ago
That was my thought in response to the proposed pipeline to take water from the Columbia river all the way down to California.
- SllX 6y ago
  Speaking as a Californian, don’t let that crap happen. California can take care of itself, we just have a crap government.
  - pkaye 6y ago
    Most of California water consumption is agriculture. Seems like we just need to dial back agriculture a bit in California if we are hurting for water.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      What are you going to eat then? Most of California water goes to the sea. Of the remainder agriculture is the majority, but agriculture is also paying the most attention to water conservation overall. (though you personally might not water your lawn or golf, enough others do as to cancel out private residences)
      - sbierwagen 6y ago
        https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ Dairy Products, Milk — $7.34 billion Almonds — $6.09 billion Grapes — $5.41 billion Cattle and Calves — $3.06 billion Strawberries — $2.22 billion Pistachios — $1.94 billion Lettuce — $1.82 billion Walnuts — $1.29 billion Floriculture — $1.22 billion Tomatoes — $1.17 billion Not seeing wheat or rice on this list. Sue me for saying this, but I don't think strawberries are critical to survival.
        specialist 6y ago
        Thanks. Your comment got me to wondering about the almond harvest's impact. Quick inference from the top hits: almonds use 10% of the water to generate 12% of the revenue compared to rice, almonds use 40% more water and generate x3 the dollar per acre-foot. https://fruitgrowers.com/what-california-crops-use-the-most-water/ https://fruitgrowers.com/what-california-crops-use-the-most-... https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-U... So while growing almonds in California is insane ecologically, it's pretty damn good economically.
        nradov 6y ago
        Yes the largest use of water in California is alfalfa and other feed for dairy cattle. If you want to reduce your personal water consumption then instead of taking shorter showers or letting your lawn die the most effective measure would be consuming less local dairy products. Or seek out dairy products from regenerative agriculture farms if you can find them.
      - pkaye 6y ago
Veserv 6y ago
Desalination is not cost-competitive compared to piping [1]. The bulk pricing of desalination is between $0.50-$1.00 per m^3, which is approximately a ton. In contrast, piping is ~$0.05 per m^3 per 100 km, so it is cheaper to pipe water somewhere between 1000km - 2000km rather than desalinating. To put this into perspective, it would cost about to same to desalinate water in Georgia as it would to pipe it from the Great Lakes and it is only barely cheaper to desalinate water than it would be to pipe water directly from the Colorado river. [1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2004WR003749 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200...
- Retric 6y ago
  That’s from 2005, desalination costs have fallen significantly in the last 15 years. It’s still generally cheaper to pipe water from somewhere else, but that assumes you can legally do so.
  - Veserv 6y ago
    My research indicates it has not dropped significantly. Here is a report from last year on a winning bid to construct a new massive state-of-the-art desalination plant in Israel for a very low bid of NIS 1.45 or ~$0.44/m^3 [1] which this article [2] indicates is NIS 0.65 lower than the existing lowest prices (existing prices would be ~$0.64 by that count). This is a little lower than my lower number, but this is significantly lower than the prevailing number which is in range and is being done at scale in Israel, one of the leaders in the field, so should probably not be viewed as globally representative. Here are a few other random sources of unknown credibility which corroborate: https://www.advisian.com/en/global-perspectives/the-cost-of-desalination https://www.advisian.com/en/global-perspectives/the-cost-of-... https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/carlos-cosin/evolution-rates-desalination-part-i https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/carlos-cosin/evolution-... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263468292_Optimization_of_Integrated_Seawater_Desalination_Salt_Production_Environmental_Engineering_Project https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263468292_Optimizat... [1] https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/27/2039505/0/en/IDE-Technologies-Secures-the-Sorek-B-Tender.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/27/203950... [2] https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalination-tender-after-us-pressure-1001330178 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalina...

Georgia has coast access and plenty of sun, right? Sounds like a problem a desalination plant and a pipeline would solve :) I'm always down for a good mega-engineering project.

bluGill 6y ago

Using fresh water is far cheaper than any desalination scheme we have so far. I'm surprised they have issues getting enough fresh water without a river though, but I'm don't care to look into why.

csharptwdec19 6y ago
On the other hand, given the direction everything else in the world is going, maybe it would be better to build a desalination plant NOW and before the problem gets critical... There's only so much fresh water you can take from a natural source before you have an impact on wildlife order(s) of magnitude greater than what we've already done.

Arrath 6y ago

That was my thought in response to the proposed pipeline to take water from the Columbia river all the way down to California.

SllX 6y ago
Speaking as a Californian, don’t let that crap happen. California can take care of itself, we just have a crap government.
- pkaye 6y ago
  Most of California water consumption is agriculture. Seems like we just need to dial back agriculture a bit in California if we are hurting for water.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    What are you going to eat then? Most of California water goes to the sea. Of the remainder agriculture is the majority, but agriculture is also paying the most attention to water conservation overall. (though you personally might not water your lawn or golf, enough others do as to cancel out private residences)
    - sbierwagen 6y ago
      https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ Dairy Products, Milk — $7.34 billion Almonds — $6.09 billion Grapes — $5.41 billion Cattle and Calves — $3.06 billion Strawberries — $2.22 billion Pistachios — $1.94 billion Lettuce — $1.82 billion Walnuts — $1.29 billion Floriculture — $1.22 billion Tomatoes — $1.17 billion Not seeing wheat or rice on this list. Sue me for saying this, but I don't think strawberries are critical to survival.
      - specialist 6y ago
        Thanks. Your comment got me to wondering about the almond harvest's impact. Quick inference from the top hits: almonds use 10% of the water to generate 12% of the revenue compared to rice, almonds use 40% more water and generate x3 the dollar per acre-foot. https://fruitgrowers.com/what-california-crops-use-the-most-water/ https://fruitgrowers.com/what-california-crops-use-the-most-... https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-U... So while growing almonds in California is insane ecologically, it's pretty damn good economically.
      - nradov 6y ago
        Yes the largest use of water in California is alfalfa and other feed for dairy cattle. If you want to reduce your personal water consumption then instead of taking shorter showers or letting your lawn die the most effective measure would be consuming less local dairy products. Or seek out dairy products from regenerative agriculture farms if you can find them.
    - pkaye 6y ago

Veserv 6y ago

Desalination is not cost-competitive compared to piping [1]. The bulk pricing of desalination is between $0.50-$1.00 per m^3, which is approximately a ton. In contrast, piping is ~$0.05 per m^3 per 100 km, so it is cheaper to pipe water somewhere between 1000km - 2000km rather than desalinating. To put this into perspective, it would cost about to same to desalinate water in Georgia as it would to pipe it from the Great Lakes and it is only barely cheaper to desalinate water than it would be to pipe water directly from the Colorado river. [1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2004WR003749 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200...

Retric 6y ago
That’s from 2005, desalination costs have fallen significantly in the last 15 years. It’s still generally cheaper to pipe water from somewhere else, but that assumes you can legally do so.
- Veserv 6y ago
  My research indicates it has not dropped significantly. Here is a report from last year on a winning bid to construct a new massive state-of-the-art desalination plant in Israel for a very low bid of NIS 1.45 or ~$0.44/m^3 [1] which this article [2] indicates is NIS 0.65 lower than the existing lowest prices (existing prices would be ~$0.64 by that count). This is a little lower than my lower number, but this is significantly lower than the prevailing number which is in range and is being done at scale in Israel, one of the leaders in the field, so should probably not be viewed as globally representative. Here are a few other random sources of unknown credibility which corroborate: https://www.advisian.com/en/global-perspectives/the-cost-of-desalination https://www.advisian.com/en/global-perspectives/the-cost-of-... https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/carlos-cosin/evolution-rates-desalination-part-i https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/carlos-cosin/evolution-... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263468292_Optimization_of_Integrated_Seawater_Desalination_Salt_Production_Environmental_Engineering_Project https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263468292_Optimizat... [1] https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/27/2039505/0/en/IDE-Technologies-Secures-the-Sorek-B-Tender.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/27/203950... [2] https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalination-tender-after-us-pressure-1001330178 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalina...