6 ms·

Maybe we need to look at cloud-seeding or other rainmaking solutions like the UAE is doing

by tomc1985 5y ago

KittenInABox 5y ago
This means water will be taken away from other areas, unpredictably, we may not know where. Removing water from the atmosphere above Utah may have wide reaching national, if not international consequences.
downrightmike 5y ago
It works, but it requires tons of precious metals to get to work and we could never recover the amount of water or even the metals themselves to make it efficient. Do-able, just going to cost money like no tomorrow. Literally the definition of throwing money at the problem. When you have a uber rich oil state with plenty of cash to burn, it'll work until they run out of cash or desire.
- VLM 5y ago
  The UAE does not have a Mississippi river. One side of the country is a desert unsuitable for growing crops, naturally stubborn Americans grow crops there anyway at staggering economic and environmental cost. Meanwhile on the other side of the Mississippi, where I live, we get around three to four feet of rain per year for free, and corn grows pretty well most years without artificial irrigation. It makes a lot more sense to move the farmers and their farms than to move the water or implement other hyper-high tech nonsense. The UAE of course has no choice so best of luck to them, but it probably won't work as well as simply moving the farms. "We" do something similar with cows. In some states it costs 100000 gallons of irrigation water per pound of produced beef or whatever nonsense. In my state, we just call it rain water, and its free, LOL. Americans being Americans naturally we go to enormous expensive effort to make sure we grow cows where cows should not be grown, rather than simply moving the cows. "We" also do something similar with humans. There's nothing special about a job done by humans in a desert, other than its an environmental, and eventually economic, disaster. Americans being Americans, we will spend everything we got and then some, to make sure that people can work from home in an uninhabitable unimaginably expensive desert rather than working from home in a nice easy place to live. We'll destroy the entire planet before we make people move from Vegas to Chicago. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding)
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    > We'll destroy the entire planet before we make people move from Vegas to Chicago. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding) If you took everyone in Vegas and put them in Chicago, you'd be pretty close to the Chicago population in 1960. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding)
  - buzzert 5y ago
    > Americans being Americans, we will spend everything we got and then some, to make sure that people can work from home in an uninhabitable unimaginably expensive desert rather than working from home in a nice easy place to live. By my recent calculations, it is significantly cheaper to live in Arizona (my home state) than pretty much anywhere in California (a "nice place to live"). And yes, cost of living includes food.
  - downrightmike 5y ago
    Why do they need to move water there into the desert for their crops when they are growing crops here in America? https://gulfif.org/arizona-arabia-alfalfa-lessons-from-the-gulf-for-a-southwestern-water-crisis/ https://gulfif.org/arizona-arabia-alfalfa-lessons-from-the-g... So they may not have a Mississippi river, but they are using the Colorado.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I just read an article (maybe on HN) that they are doing so with drones that shoot electricity or something like that No heavy metals or consumable materials needed? https://www.iflscience.com/environment/fake-rain-the-uae-thanks-cloud-seeding-for-its-recent-rain-downpours/ https://www.iflscience.com/environment/fake-rain-the-uae-tha...
simiones 5y ago
Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water - and jump to a high-tech, unknown impact, expensive, complex, expensive solution. What could go wrong?
- giantg2 5y ago
  "Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water" I agree that it's a demand-side issue, but the solutions are not "simple".
  - SamBam 5y ago
    Large federal grants/subsidies to stimulate farming in the Northern states, coupled with a progressive/tiered taxes on using more than [edit] xx million gallons of water in places like California and Colorado? ...I could see how the residents of those latter states would not be too happy with that solution, though. But it's not like the Federal Government isn't already constantly picking favorites for subsidies (see ethanol, oil, etc.).
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      Why punish individuals for their water consumption? That's not exactly the low hanging fruit, the vast majority of water in California is used for farming.
      - SamBam 5y ago
        I wasn't suggesting taxing individuals but large-scale farming. That's why I said x thousand gallons, though I guess I ought to have said xx million gallons. Edited.
        rootusrootus 5y ago
        Ah, okay, that makes sense. I read the thousand gallons combined with the following 'won't make residents too happy' and assumed you were thinking of individuals.
giantg2 5y ago
If the goal is just for human use, then that might make sense. This article also includes the ecosystem. Increasing the rainfall in the region could alter the other aspects of the ecosystem. The real issue is on the demand side with ever increasing populations.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  The issue is with ever increasing consumption. For water conservation a change in diet to move away from water intensive calories like almonds and beef could be replaced with less water intensive crops like poultry and peanuts.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I had a typo saying "supply" when I meant "demand". At a high level we are saying roughly the same thing. Even poultry and peanuts would provide only a temporary solution. The root of the issue is building cities in the desert (and the agriculture and industry that goes with them). The population will continue increasing until the peanuts and poultry fix no longer provide enough savings. Not to mention, any new found "surplus" of water might just be used by farmers to expand the poultry or peanuts that they would be producing (lower margins would suggested a needed increase in volume).
8note 5y ago
I imagine that pushes the problem to a downwind state, until California is the only state that has rain?

Maybe we need to look at cloud-seeding or other rainmaking solutions like the UAE is doing

This means water will be taken away from other areas, unpredictably, we may not know where. Removing water from the atmosphere above Utah may have wide reaching national, if not international consequences.

downrightmike 5y ago

It works, but it requires tons of precious metals to get to work and we could never recover the amount of water or even the metals themselves to make it efficient. Do-able, just going to cost money like no tomorrow. Literally the definition of throwing money at the problem. When you have a uber rich oil state with plenty of cash to burn, it'll work until they run out of cash or desire.

VLM 5y ago
The UAE does not have a Mississippi river. One side of the country is a desert unsuitable for growing crops, naturally stubborn Americans grow crops there anyway at staggering economic and environmental cost. Meanwhile on the other side of the Mississippi, where I live, we get around three to four feet of rain per year for free, and corn grows pretty well most years without artificial irrigation. It makes a lot more sense to move the farmers and their farms than to move the water or implement other hyper-high tech nonsense. The UAE of course has no choice so best of luck to them, but it probably won't work as well as simply moving the farms. "We" do something similar with cows. In some states it costs 100000 gallons of irrigation water per pound of produced beef or whatever nonsense. In my state, we just call it rain water, and its free, LOL. Americans being Americans naturally we go to enormous expensive effort to make sure we grow cows where cows should not be grown, rather than simply moving the cows. "We" also do something similar with humans. There's nothing special about a job done by humans in a desert, other than its an environmental, and eventually economic, disaster. Americans being Americans, we will spend everything we got and then some, to make sure that people can work from home in an uninhabitable unimaginably expensive desert rather than working from home in a nice easy place to live. We'll destroy the entire planet before we make people move from Vegas to Chicago. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding)
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  > We'll destroy the entire planet before we make people move from Vegas to Chicago. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding) If you took everyone in Vegas and put them in Chicago, you'd be pretty close to the Chicago population in 1960. Which I guess says something about Chicago (LOL just kidding)
- buzzert 5y ago
  > Americans being Americans, we will spend everything we got and then some, to make sure that people can work from home in an uninhabitable unimaginably expensive desert rather than working from home in a nice easy place to live. By my recent calculations, it is significantly cheaper to live in Arizona (my home state) than pretty much anywhere in California (a "nice place to live"). And yes, cost of living includes food.
- downrightmike 5y ago
  Why do they need to move water there into the desert for their crops when they are growing crops here in America? https://gulfif.org/arizona-arabia-alfalfa-lessons-from-the-gulf-for-a-southwestern-water-crisis/ https://gulfif.org/arizona-arabia-alfalfa-lessons-from-the-g... So they may not have a Mississippi river, but they are using the Colorado.
tomc1985 5y ago
I just read an article (maybe on HN) that they are doing so with drones that shoot electricity or something like that No heavy metals or consumable materials needed? https://www.iflscience.com/environment/fake-rain-the-uae-thanks-cloud-seeding-for-its-recent-rain-downpours/ https://www.iflscience.com/environment/fake-rain-the-uae-tha...

simiones 5y ago

Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water - and jump to a high-tech, unknown impact, expensive, complex, expensive solution. What could go wrong?

giantg2 5y ago
"Sure, let's ignore the simple solution - stop consuming so much water" I agree that it's a demand-side issue, but the solutions are not "simple".
- SamBam 5y ago
  Large federal grants/subsidies to stimulate farming in the Northern states, coupled with a progressive/tiered taxes on using more than [edit] xx million gallons of water in places like California and Colorado? ...I could see how the residents of those latter states would not be too happy with that solution, though. But it's not like the Federal Government isn't already constantly picking favorites for subsidies (see ethanol, oil, etc.).
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Why punish individuals for their water consumption? That's not exactly the low hanging fruit, the vast majority of water in California is used for farming.
    - SamBam 5y ago
      I wasn't suggesting taxing individuals but large-scale farming. That's why I said x thousand gallons, though I guess I ought to have said xx million gallons. Edited.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        Ah, okay, that makes sense. I read the thousand gallons combined with the following 'won't make residents too happy' and assumed you were thinking of individuals.

giantg2 5y ago

If the goal is just for human use, then that might make sense. This article also includes the ecosystem. Increasing the rainfall in the region could alter the other aspects of the ecosystem. The real issue is on the demand side with ever increasing populations.

jdavis703 5y ago
The issue is with ever increasing consumption. For water conservation a change in diet to move away from water intensive calories like almonds and beef could be replaced with less water intensive crops like poultry and peanuts.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I had a typo saying "supply" when I meant "demand". At a high level we are saying roughly the same thing. Even poultry and peanuts would provide only a temporary solution. The root of the issue is building cities in the desert (and the agriculture and industry that goes with them). The population will continue increasing until the peanuts and poultry fix no longer provide enough savings. Not to mention, any new found "surplus" of water might just be used by farmers to expand the poultry or peanuts that they would be producing (lower margins would suggested a needed increase in volume).

8note 5y ago

I imagine that pushes the problem to a downwind state, until California is the only state that has rain?