4 ms·

Also pipelines are already proven via oil and natural gas. You can transport oil from remote areas in Canada to western Texas with little effort. Very trivial

Also pipelines are already proven via oil and natural gas. You can transport oil from remote areas in Canada to western Texas with little effort. Very trivial to extend the idea to routing water from any of the thousands of lakes in Canada. Vegas had a plan to do just that (though from Reno). These ideas aren't pursued because water is not scarce enough for them to be economically justified yet. If the time comes, they will do it and likely cheaper than you think. If renewables eventually take over, we can even repurpose the existing oil pipelines. Likely need to widen them, but much cheaper than land use/zoning legal battles.

arbitrary_name 5y ago
Not trivial at all. It's billions of dollars, huge amounts of energy to pump water up and down mountain ranges, many years of construction, many more years of litigation... And why on earth would Canada give us their water? There was a plan to pipe water to California from the Pacific north west, and the projected costs for that were insane. By the time the high price of water justifies projects on this scale, there will be blood in the streets, not water in aqueducts.
- FredPret 5y ago
  These problems will tend to evaporate when water starts running low enough to impact people's daily lives. Civilization adapts quickly once somebody pokes the bear.
  - 7373737373 5y ago
    I would love to see a historical survey of what circumstances and processes made large scale projects like these happen
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Most shortages of water are caused by an inability to build and maintain infrastructure, not an inherent scarcity of water.
  - nostrademons 5y ago
    An inability to build & maintain infrastructure is a common feature of times of scarcity. It's hard to organize people toward a common goal when there's an imminent threat to survival. Sure, in theory there's plenty of water on the globe, and it's just a matter of getting it to population centers. In theory all we have to do to avert global warming in the first place is reduce our CO2 emissions. In practice both of those goals are essentially impossible, because it's a coordination problem and coordination problems are significantly harder than technological and economic problems.
- Retric 5y ago
  Billions of dollars isn’t actually that expensive for governments. Such projects are only considered expensive because water is not currently a problem.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  Billions is peanuts vs abandoning trillions of dollars of real estate and uprooting millions of people's lives. Sorry, doomsday abandonment scenario is a complete fantasy, void of any logic. People talk about colonizing Mars, yet suggest we can't pump water from point A to B
  - arbitrary_name 5y ago
    No abandonment fantasy: but how are the states and federal government going to come up with billions of dollars that are going to make life easier for a handful of farmers and rich Californians? You think the the constituents of the southern and eastern states will vote for 100s of billions of tax money to be spent on something they see as helping liberal coastal dwellers? How much is all that central valley land worth with ongoing saltwater intrusion? Where will you get the gigawatts needed to run all the water pumps? New hydro dams? You are throwing out a solution as if it's easy and feasible. It is certainly not easy, and feasibility , well... We shall see.

arbitrary_name 5y ago

Not trivial at all. It's billions of dollars, huge amounts of energy to pump water up and down mountain ranges, many years of construction, many more years of litigation... And why on earth would Canada give us their water? There was a plan to pipe water to California from the Pacific north west, and the projected costs for that were insane. By the time the high price of water justifies projects on this scale, there will be blood in the streets, not water in aqueducts.

FredPret 5y ago
These problems will tend to evaporate when water starts running low enough to impact people's daily lives. Civilization adapts quickly once somebody pokes the bear.
- 7373737373 5y ago
  I would love to see a historical survey of what circumstances and processes made large scale projects like these happen
HPsquared 5y ago
Most shortages of water are caused by an inability to build and maintain infrastructure, not an inherent scarcity of water.
- nostrademons 5y ago
  An inability to build & maintain infrastructure is a common feature of times of scarcity. It's hard to organize people toward a common goal when there's an imminent threat to survival. Sure, in theory there's plenty of water on the globe, and it's just a matter of getting it to population centers. In theory all we have to do to avert global warming in the first place is reduce our CO2 emissions. In practice both of those goals are essentially impossible, because it's a coordination problem and coordination problems are significantly harder than technological and economic problems.
Retric 5y ago
Billions of dollars isn’t actually that expensive for governments. Such projects are only considered expensive because water is not currently a problem.
adam_arthur 5y ago
Billions is peanuts vs abandoning trillions of dollars of real estate and uprooting millions of people's lives. Sorry, doomsday abandonment scenario is a complete fantasy, void of any logic. People talk about colonizing Mars, yet suggest we can't pump water from point A to B
- arbitrary_name 5y ago
  No abandonment fantasy: but how are the states and federal government going to come up with billions of dollars that are going to make life easier for a handful of farmers and rich Californians? You think the the constituents of the southern and eastern states will vote for 100s of billions of tax money to be spent on something they see as helping liberal coastal dwellers? How much is all that central valley land worth with ongoing saltwater intrusion? Where will you get the gigawatts needed to run all the water pumps? New hydro dams? You are throwing out a solution as if it's easy and feasible. It is certainly not easy, and feasibility , well... We shall see.