4 ms·

> while the urban population continued to skyrocket. Blaming the urban population "skyrocketing" for contention of water usage is ridiculous. 80% of water use

by mlyle 5y ago

> while the urban population continued to skyrocket. Blaming the urban population "skyrocketing" for contention of water usage is ridiculous. 80% of water used by humans in California is used by agriculture. It's about the same share as 1970: cities have increased water consumption slightly (despite a doubling of the population, urban water use has also gotten significantly more efficient), but farmers have also moved towards more water intensive crops... keeping the shares about the same. Meanwhile, farming's share of California's GDP has halved.

ncmncm 5y ago
Golf courses, anyway, have no legitimate reason to continue being allowed unlimited irrigation. Dual-use agriculture + solar PV farms should get priority for water. PV can seriously cut evaporation and water loss while also providing power for (eventually) desalination or (immediately) to displace fossil fuel use. By recent report, almond and pomegranate orchards were being irrigated primarily via stolen water. Cutting that off should be high priority.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  > Golf courses, anyway, have no legitimate reason to continue being allowed unlimited irrigation. Because you find them distasteful? It was the duty of California's political class to continue to provide water for its people and industries, and they decided also for reasons of taste to stop doing that in the 1960s. When Ronald Reagan was governor for eight years, very much a sea change from Jerry Brown's father Pat Brown who was governor from 1959-67 and previous governors and legislators (Jerry "Governor Moonbeam" at the time replaced Reagan). > Dual-use agriculture + solar PV farms should get priority for water. PV can seriously cut evaporation and water loss while also providing power for (eventually) desalination or (immediately) to displace fossil fuel use. This whole topic is about how desalination is not being allowed to alleviate one part of California's water shortages and we can assume in other locations (who else is going to even try after this debacle?). Solar provides neither baseline or peaking power, so if you want real power from it you've got to add $$$ storage systems. Also not sure how you can capture the sun's light for PVs and provide it to growing plants at the same time; what I was able to dig up searching just now is "use on marginal land" and other half measures. California is demonstrably not interested in reducing fossil fuel use when it's forced or is forcing all its nuclear plants to shut down. One article I read not long ago credibly claimed a lack of serious power after the last plant shuts down soon may make it generally impossible to lift water to get to the LA region I think it was. If you chose to deny any of these points, doing the math first will make your case more convincing, if you ignore science and engineering realities, as discussed elsewhere in this subthread you'll hit the brick was of the laws of nature.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Storage is cheap and getting cheaper. Storage cost is plummeting faster than solar or wind ever did. But until we have enough renewable overcapacity to meet demand and also charge up storage, any storage built out would sit empty. You get far more generating capacity for the dollar from renewables than any other means, so that is the obvious place to put money just now. When the time for it does come, the storage will be radically cheaper. Just now, the utility-scale iron-air battery factories are under construction, to be ready for that time. There are dozens of other energy storage options. All of them work, so the only uncertainty is which will end up cheapest, or most useful. Synthetic ammonia and hydrogen have the advantage that they are exportable, so 100% of your overcapacity after filling local tankage generates revenue, an advantage over other modes. California has dozens (hundreds?) of existing high-altitude reservoirs that could be used cheaply for pumped hydro with minor retrofits. California is very aggressively adding renewable generation capacity to displace fossil fuel, so the accusation of "not interested" falls flat. Nukes are not being "forced" down: Diablo Canyon, e.g., will cost $2B to refurbish, but that $2B would pay for more renewable power than Diablo Canyon could produce, and then Diablo Canyon would continue sucking down money to operate that solar would not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect
Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Get back to us with real numbers for non-farm use of water and you may have an argument. Although the urban population numbers have been achieved by water conservation measures that are so strict parts of the SF sewer system stopped working because they assumed a certain minimum flow of water with the waste, none of this is cost free. That other parts of California's economy have gotten really big, high tech rather obviously for the HN crowd, doesn't mean its agriculture sector has become less important for the US and the world. Something we're going to become generally well acquainted with as fertilizer price rises due to unrelated political polices decease yields all over the place. If they've indeed moved towards more water intensive crops, that doesn't change the terms of the original compact made with them and the urbanites that allowed these water systems to be built in the first place. If the rule of law still means something, as noted elsewhere taking their water rights away will not be cheap as it's a "taking" as used in the Bill of Rights, and our diets are going to change as these "more water intensive crops" are no longer available or at their usual prices.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > Get back to us with real numbers for non-farm use of water and you may have an argument. E.g. urban water use was about 6 million acre feet in 1970 and is about 8 million acre feet now-- +33%, but a small share of the total. Agricultural water use was about 30 million acre feet in 1970 and is about 37 million acre feet now-- +23%. So, agricultural uses of water have increased a big fraction of urban increases on a percentage basis, and 3.5 times as much on an absolute basis. > If they've indeed moved towards more water intensive crops Almonds have grown from 100 million pounds a year in 1970 to 3.1 billion pounds in 2020-- +3000%. This is a change in allocation that no one rational would make with the scarcity of water in California, but artificially cheap agricultural water encourages it. > as noted elsewhere taking their water rights away will not be cheap as it's a "taking" as used in the Bill of Rights While occasionally a court has agreed with this argument, for the most part federal judges have rejected this line of argument.
  - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
    > While occasionally a court has agreed with this argument, for the most part federal judges have rejected this line of argument. If you're open to naked theft as so much of the US and world is today, that's going to have long term consequences you won't like. Water rights are a real thing in US jurisprudence, their abrogation by Federal judges, especially I assume in the 9th Circuit doesn't make them any less so. As I said, "if the rule of law still means something...."

by mlyle 5y ago

ncmncm 5y ago

Golf courses, anyway, have no legitimate reason to continue being allowed unlimited irrigation. Dual-use agriculture + solar PV farms should get priority for water. PV can seriously cut evaporation and water loss while also providing power for (eventually) desalination or (immediately) to displace fossil fuel use. By recent report, almond and pomegranate orchards were being irrigated primarily via stolen water. Cutting that off should be high priority.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
> Golf courses, anyway, have no legitimate reason to continue being allowed unlimited irrigation. Because you find them distasteful? It was the duty of California's political class to continue to provide water for its people and industries, and they decided also for reasons of taste to stop doing that in the 1960s. When Ronald Reagan was governor for eight years, very much a sea change from Jerry Brown's father Pat Brown who was governor from 1959-67 and previous governors and legislators (Jerry "Governor Moonbeam" at the time replaced Reagan). > Dual-use agriculture + solar PV farms should get priority for water. PV can seriously cut evaporation and water loss while also providing power for (eventually) desalination or (immediately) to displace fossil fuel use. This whole topic is about how desalination is not being allowed to alleviate one part of California's water shortages and we can assume in other locations (who else is going to even try after this debacle?). Solar provides neither baseline or peaking power, so if you want real power from it you've got to add $$$ storage systems. Also not sure how you can capture the sun's light for PVs and provide it to growing plants at the same time; what I was able to dig up searching just now is "use on marginal land" and other half measures. California is demonstrably not interested in reducing fossil fuel use when it's forced or is forcing all its nuclear plants to shut down. One article I read not long ago credibly claimed a lack of serious power after the last plant shuts down soon may make it generally impossible to lift water to get to the LA region I think it was. If you chose to deny any of these points, doing the math first will make your case more convincing, if you ignore science and engineering realities, as discussed elsewhere in this subthread you'll hit the brick was of the laws of nature.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Storage is cheap and getting cheaper. Storage cost is plummeting faster than solar or wind ever did. But until we have enough renewable overcapacity to meet demand and also charge up storage, any storage built out would sit empty. You get far more generating capacity for the dollar from renewables than any other means, so that is the obvious place to put money just now. When the time for it does come, the storage will be radically cheaper. Just now, the utility-scale iron-air battery factories are under construction, to be ready for that time. There are dozens of other energy storage options. All of them work, so the only uncertainty is which will end up cheapest, or most useful. Synthetic ammonia and hydrogen have the advantage that they are exportable, so 100% of your overcapacity after filling local tankage generates revenue, an advantage over other modes. California has dozens (hundreds?) of existing high-altitude reservoirs that could be used cheaply for pumped hydro with minor retrofits. California is very aggressively adding renewable generation capacity to displace fossil fuel, so the accusation of "not interested" falls flat. Nukes are not being "forced" down: Diablo Canyon, e.g., will cost $2B to refurbish, but that $2B would pay for more renewable power than Diablo Canyon could produce, and then Diablo Canyon would continue sucking down money to operate that solar would not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago

Get back to us with real numbers for non-farm use of water and you may have an argument. Although the urban population numbers have been achieved by water conservation measures that are so strict parts of the SF sewer system stopped working because they assumed a certain minimum flow of water with the waste, none of this is cost free. That other parts of California's economy have gotten really big, high tech rather obviously for the HN crowd, doesn't mean its agriculture sector has become less important for the US and the world. Something we're going to become generally well acquainted with as fertilizer price rises due to unrelated political polices decease yields all over the place. If they've indeed moved towards more water intensive crops, that doesn't change the terms of the original compact made with them and the urbanites that allowed these water systems to be built in the first place. If the rule of law still means something, as noted elsewhere taking their water rights away will not be cheap as it's a "taking" as used in the Bill of Rights, and our diets are going to change as these "more water intensive crops" are no longer available or at their usual prices.

mlyle 5y ago
> Get back to us with real numbers for non-farm use of water and you may have an argument. E.g. urban water use was about 6 million acre feet in 1970 and is about 8 million acre feet now-- +33%, but a small share of the total. Agricultural water use was about 30 million acre feet in 1970 and is about 37 million acre feet now-- +23%. So, agricultural uses of water have increased a big fraction of urban increases on a percentage basis, and 3.5 times as much on an absolute basis. > If they've indeed moved towards more water intensive crops Almonds have grown from 100 million pounds a year in 1970 to 3.1 billion pounds in 2020-- +3000%. This is a change in allocation that no one rational would make with the scarcity of water in California, but artificially cheap agricultural water encourages it. > as noted elsewhere taking their water rights away will not be cheap as it's a "taking" as used in the Bill of Rights While occasionally a court has agreed with this argument, for the most part federal judges have rejected this line of argument.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  > While occasionally a court has agreed with this argument, for the most part federal judges have rejected this line of argument. If you're open to naked theft as so much of the US and world is today, that's going to have long term consequences you won't like. Water rights are a real thing in US jurisprudence, their abrogation by Federal judges, especially I assume in the 9th Circuit doesn't make them any less so. As I said, "if the rule of law still means something...."