5 ms·

Desalination can provide for a lot more, even then, consumer usage is nothing compared to agricultural and industrial use.

newbamboo 5y ago
Yes, plenty of water it’s just up north, not in the places where agriculture needs it. I’m tempted to argue it’s a self correcting problem; pipes and desalination will be built when the costs make it feasible. It’s all politics and special interests. That’s the California way.
- erhk 5y ago
  You're welcome to keep your drought to yourself. Please do not expand the blast radius in an attempt to bail out. Agriculture is 100% the drain, and a pipeline would only make it so that more consumers suffer.
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    It floods up north. Do you like floods? The ocean has a lot of water too. Do the math.
  - 01100011 5y ago
    So it's ok for other regions to buy food produced with California water but it's not ok for California to buy other regions' water? We need a national water grid ASAP, before climate change threatens the food security of the US.
    - mikewarot 5y ago
      >We need a national water grid ASAP That would result in the export and subsidizing of the wasteful water management practices of the west. We could then look forward to a few years of record crops, then no crops as all the water runs out across the grid at the same time.
  - anonuser123456 5y ago
    Agriculture is only a drain if you think eating food is unnecessary. The pragmatic approach would simply be to price water so farmers and consumers are incentivized to use it efficiently.
    - stevenicr 5y ago
      disagree with specific 'only' but not the general sentiment, however; People growing almonds with flood irrigation (and similar high water needy things) in cali or az almonds, pistachios, sugar beets.. these (and others) are taking a toll on california's environment to produce some luxury goods for profit - not to provide food for the starving.
      - anonuser123456 5y ago
        Producing food for the starving is hardly the problem the world faces. In regions that face starvation shipping costs and distribution networks are the bottleneck. And almonds are hardly any more of a luxury food than a 20 minute shower or front lawn. Look at residential water consumption; how much really goes to basic living vs wasted? And how much effort goes into conserving or reusing water efficiently? The point is to price water any let it flow to the most efficient use as determined by the market. When that happens, you’ll find that suddenly farmers stop flooding fields to grow alfalfa for Australian cattle and pick crops that are economically viable with the water constraints we have. Maybe nuts are too expensive to grow here; we don’t really know.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  There are some proposing diverting the Mississippi for California use - like all of it somewhere around Missouri south to be dry. Don't think that will fly but that's the mindset of California for you - makes you remember the imperialism attitude from the Dead Kennedys in "California Über Alles".
zbrozek 5y ago
I'd love to see an east-west transcontinental aqueduct from the southeast to the southwest. Cover it with solar panels and string an HVDC line alongside it to both increase grid transport capacity and to run pumping stations and connect substations along the way. Maybe put it alongside I-40.
- Valgrim 5y ago
  In a possible future, thousands of gargantuan wind turbines, semi-submerged,10-100 Megawatts each, are going to be scattered all across the oceans. Some of them are going to be connected to the global power grid, some of them are going to become charging stations for liquid-air powered cargo ships, and some of them are going to power offshore desalination plants. Those will pump potable water through deep-sea aqueducts, eventually connecting to vast, transcontinental aqueducts providing drinking water to what was once large deserts.

newbamboo 5y ago

Yes, plenty of water it’s just up north, not in the places where agriculture needs it. I’m tempted to argue it’s a self correcting problem; pipes and desalination will be built when the costs make it feasible. It’s all politics and special interests. That’s the California way.

erhk 5y ago
You're welcome to keep your drought to yourself. Please do not expand the blast radius in an attempt to bail out. Agriculture is 100% the drain, and a pipeline would only make it so that more consumers suffer.
- newbamboo 5y ago
  It floods up north. Do you like floods? The ocean has a lot of water too. Do the math.
- 01100011 5y ago
  So it's ok for other regions to buy food produced with California water but it's not ok for California to buy other regions' water? We need a national water grid ASAP, before climate change threatens the food security of the US.
  - mikewarot 5y ago
    >We need a national water grid ASAP That would result in the export and subsidizing of the wasteful water management practices of the west. We could then look forward to a few years of record crops, then no crops as all the water runs out across the grid at the same time.
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  Agriculture is only a drain if you think eating food is unnecessary. The pragmatic approach would simply be to price water so farmers and consumers are incentivized to use it efficiently.
  - stevenicr 5y ago
    disagree with specific 'only' but not the general sentiment, however; People growing almonds with flood irrigation (and similar high water needy things) in cali or az almonds, pistachios, sugar beets.. these (and others) are taking a toll on california's environment to produce some luxury goods for profit - not to provide food for the starving.
    - anonuser123456 5y ago
      Producing food for the starving is hardly the problem the world faces. In regions that face starvation shipping costs and distribution networks are the bottleneck. And almonds are hardly any more of a luxury food than a 20 minute shower or front lawn. Look at residential water consumption; how much really goes to basic living vs wasted? And how much effort goes into conserving or reusing water efficiently? The point is to price water any let it flow to the most efficient use as determined by the market. When that happens, you’ll find that suddenly farmers stop flooding fields to grow alfalfa for Australian cattle and pick crops that are economically viable with the water constraints we have. Maybe nuts are too expensive to grow here; we don’t really know.
xyzzy21 5y ago
There are some proposing diverting the Mississippi for California use - like all of it somewhere around Missouri south to be dry. Don't think that will fly but that's the mindset of California for you - makes you remember the imperialism attitude from the Dead Kennedys in "California Über Alles".

zbrozek 5y ago

I'd love to see an east-west transcontinental aqueduct from the southeast to the southwest. Cover it with solar panels and string an HVDC line alongside it to both increase grid transport capacity and to run pumping stations and connect substations along the way. Maybe put it alongside I-40.

Valgrim 5y ago
In a possible future, thousands of gargantuan wind turbines, semi-submerged,10-100 Megawatts each, are going to be scattered all across the oceans. Some of them are going to be connected to the global power grid, some of them are going to become charging stations for liquid-air powered cargo ships, and some of them are going to power offshore desalination plants. Those will pump potable water through deep-sea aqueducts, eventually connecting to vast, transcontinental aqueducts providing drinking water to what was once large deserts.