4 ms·

According to the graph in the article, the Colorado River is about 5 million acre-feet (per year, i assume) below its benchmark. That's ~6.17 billion cubic metr

by twic 5y ago

According to the graph in the article, the Colorado River is about 5 million acre-feet (per year, i assume) below its benchmark. That's ~6.17 billion cubic metres. If that shortfall was made up by desalination, using 3 kWh/m3 (the low end of the range [1]), that's ~18.5 million MWh per year. California's only operating nuclear power plant produced 18.9 million MWh in 2016 [2]. So this would be a big job, but not an unthinkably big one. Unless i've dropped some orders of magnitude somewhere in there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant

throwaway894345 5y ago
Also interesting to think that, on a global scale, we could put a dent in rising sea levels by desalinating and pumping water inland.
- twic 5y ago
  The oceans have an area of ~89.2 billion acres [0]. Abstracting those 5 million acre-feet would lower sea level by 17 microns. Sea level is rising by ~3.6 mm per year [1], so you would need 211 of these setups to counteract that. Scaling up Diablo Canyon's nameplate capacity of 2256 MW, that is 475 GW. There is currently 390 GW of nuclear power in the world [2]. So, again, not unthinkable, but really quite a lot of work. And i'm not sure what you do with the water. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean [1] https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-14/ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-chan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I'm thinking bigger than the Colorado river. I also think scaling up nuclear power is a good idea--the economics of managing nuclear waste imply that the cost of managing a little bit of nuclear waste is not much lower than the cost of managing a whole lot of nuclear waste, so we're already committed to most of that cost. > And i'm not sure what you do with the water. Use it for agriculture (presently a whole lot of agriculture depends on unsustainable access to water) and desert greening. To be clear lowering the ocean levels is a nice byproduct of producing more water, not the other way around. Nuclear takes a long time to scale up so this certainly isn't feasible in the next 50 years even if we had the political will. It's more of an interesting long term idea.

by twic 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

Also interesting to think that, on a global scale, we could put a dent in rising sea levels by desalinating and pumping water inland.

twic 5y ago
The oceans have an area of ~89.2 billion acres [0]. Abstracting those 5 million acre-feet would lower sea level by 17 microns. Sea level is rising by ~3.6 mm per year [1], so you would need 211 of these setups to counteract that. Scaling up Diablo Canyon's nameplate capacity of 2256 MW, that is 475 GW. There is currently 390 GW of nuclear power in the world [2]. So, again, not unthinkable, but really quite a lot of work. And i'm not sure what you do with the water. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean [1] https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-14/ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-chan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I'm thinking bigger than the Colorado river. I also think scaling up nuclear power is a good idea--the economics of managing nuclear waste imply that the cost of managing a little bit of nuclear waste is not much lower than the cost of managing a whole lot of nuclear waste, so we're already committed to most of that cost. > And i'm not sure what you do with the water. Use it for agriculture (presently a whole lot of agriculture depends on unsustainable access to water) and desert greening. To be clear lowering the ocean levels is a nice byproduct of producing more water, not the other way around. Nuclear takes a long time to scale up so this certainly isn't feasible in the next 50 years even if we had the political will. It's more of an interesting long term idea.