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> 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 Compar
by 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 agoAn 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 agoWhat 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