3 ms·

Instead of oil pipelines, let's build water pipelines. And let's start pricing water to reflect its real value.

beached_whale 5y ago
California is full of them. But it’s better to live within the means of the area you live. Not growing things that need a lot of water in a desert is a good start.
- refurb 5y ago
  That’s silly. If you have a ton of water in one place and can move it to a more useful place you should do it.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    A desert is by definition not a useful place where agriculture is concerned.
    - satori99 5y ago
      It's not that simple. Semi-arid areas where water can be provided consistently, can have agricultural advantages like more sunlight and fewer pests.
      - s0rce 5y ago
        I don't think people understand that large rivers can flow through deserts and provide water.
        betwixthewires 5y ago
        Not only am I aware of this fact, I have actually been to a river in a desert! And there's still a reason not much grows there. You start piping the water from that river into the desert and grow tropical fruit orchards you wind up with problems, such as those we see in southern california, which you might be surprised to find out is what we are actually discussing, water shortages caused by trying to grow tropical fruit orchards in a desert with rivers flowing through it.
        s0rce 5y ago
        That's not universally true though the Nile river delta and the Columbia basin have tons of agriculture and I'm not aware of water shortages, although large dams can cause issues.
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        But water can't be provided consistently, hence them being arid. And when men try to engineer that problem away, you wind up with problems such as depleted aquifers...
        satori99 5y ago
        Oh, generally I agree. I live in Australia. We, like much of the developed world, have built our cities and suburbs on the fertile parts of the country and drain our rivers to irrigate semi-arid farmlands. We only have one long river system, and we have nearly killed it outright via this behavior.
    - s0rce 5y ago
      Tell that to the Columbia River basin.
  - beached_whale 5y ago
    To what end and when that runs out, what do you do? Also, there is an ocean's worth of water right there.
    - refurb 5y ago
      To what end? Growing food? And one should use it in a sustainable way, so hopefully it doesn't run out. And yeah, the ocean has water, but you can't use it unless you desalinate. Seems smarter to use water that's already useable and readily available?
    - Nasrudith 5y ago
      I thought the point of a water pipeline was to even out floods and droughts across an area or allow for superior planting locations to be utilized for more systemic efficiency than just local growth, heretical as the last notion may be.
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    In California they doo'd it. Something around 70% of the water that flows in rivers and streams is spoken for.
dmckeon 5y ago
> California's farmers probably will pump an additional six to seven million acre-feet of water from their wells this year, above what they normally use Compare that volume to the historic/nominal annual flow of the Colorado River at 16.5 million acre feet (per a 100 year old compact). That would be a big pipeline or canal to build or pump. Electric, heat, and carbon costs for desalinization plants would be equally infeasible. Yes, price water at market values, drive aquifer mining done to zero, and beyond to replenish, and let the market decide if almonds or pistachios are more valuable than other choices.
- pstuart 5y ago
  An interesting second opinion -- https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/an-interstate-water-system-could-fix-the-wests-water-woes https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/an-interstate-wat... It posits that 10GW would be required to move the water (and I guess a fair amount of power could be recovered as hydro power). If a large land turbine can do 4MW, then 2500 such turbines would do the trick. Of course this wouldn't be cheap, but it would be a worthy investment in the future of the country. Much better than the $2T we set on fire in Afghanistan. Todays market is already artificially skewed by prior collective interventions (damming, canals, etc) -- let's do the next round a bit differently.
  - PaywallBuster 5y ago
    What benefit does it bring to support unbounded growth? California is reaching the limits of population and agriculture it can support. People and farms are free to relocate
masonic 5y ago
The alternative to oil pipelines is moving oil in tank cars by rail to ships burning bunker fuel, which is a huge negative net impact on the environment. Demonizing pipelines does nothing on the demand side.

California is full of them. But it’s better to live within the means of the area you live. Not growing things that need a lot of water in a desert is a good start.

refurb 5y ago
That’s silly. If you have a ton of water in one place and can move it to a more useful place you should do it.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  A desert is by definition not a useful place where agriculture is concerned.
  - satori99 5y ago
    It's not that simple. Semi-arid areas where water can be provided consistently, can have agricultural advantages like more sunlight and fewer pests.
    - s0rce 5y ago
      I don't think people understand that large rivers can flow through deserts and provide water.
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        Not only am I aware of this fact, I have actually been to a river in a desert! And there's still a reason not much grows there. You start piping the water from that river into the desert and grow tropical fruit orchards you wind up with problems, such as those we see in southern california, which you might be surprised to find out is what we are actually discussing, water shortages caused by trying to grow tropical fruit orchards in a desert with rivers flowing through it.
        s0rce 5y ago
        That's not universally true though the Nile river delta and the Columbia basin have tons of agriculture and I'm not aware of water shortages, although large dams can cause issues.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      But water can't be provided consistently, hence them being arid. And when men try to engineer that problem away, you wind up with problems such as depleted aquifers...
      - satori99 5y ago
        Oh, generally I agree. I live in Australia. We, like much of the developed world, have built our cities and suburbs on the fertile parts of the country and drain our rivers to irrigate semi-arid farmlands. We only have one long river system, and we have nearly killed it outright via this behavior.
  - s0rce 5y ago
    Tell that to the Columbia River basin.
- beached_whale 5y ago
  To what end and when that runs out, what do you do? Also, there is an ocean's worth of water right there.
  - refurb 5y ago
    To what end? Growing food? And one should use it in a sustainable way, so hopefully it doesn't run out. And yeah, the ocean has water, but you can't use it unless you desalinate. Seems smarter to use water that's already useable and readily available?
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    I thought the point of a water pipeline was to even out floods and droughts across an area or allow for superior planting locations to be utilized for more systemic efficiency than just local growth, heretical as the last notion may be.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  In California they doo'd it. Something around 70% of the water that flows in rivers and streams is spoken for.

dmckeon 5y ago

> California's farmers probably will pump an additional six to seven million acre-feet of water from their wells this year, above what they normally use Compare that volume to the historic/nominal annual flow of the Colorado River at 16.5 million acre feet (per a 100 year old compact). That would be a big pipeline or canal to build or pump. Electric, heat, and carbon costs for desalinization plants would be equally infeasible. Yes, price water at market values, drive aquifer mining done to zero, and beyond to replenish, and let the market decide if almonds or pistachios are more valuable than other choices.

pstuart 5y ago
An interesting second opinion -- https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/an-interstate-water-system-could-fix-the-wests-water-woes https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/an-interstate-wat... It posits that 10GW would be required to move the water (and I guess a fair amount of power could be recovered as hydro power). If a large land turbine can do 4MW, then 2500 such turbines would do the trick. Of course this wouldn't be cheap, but it would be a worthy investment in the future of the country. Much better than the $2T we set on fire in Afghanistan. Todays market is already artificially skewed by prior collective interventions (damming, canals, etc) -- let's do the next round a bit differently.
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  What benefit does it bring to support unbounded growth? California is reaching the limits of population and agriculture it can support. People and farms are free to relocate

masonic 5y ago

The alternative to oil pipelines is moving oil in tank cars by rail to ships burning bunker fuel, which is a huge negative net impact on the environment. Demonizing pipelines does nothing on the demand side.