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That Wikipedia article quotes critics describing > "the sheer arrogance and imperial ambitions of the modern hydraulic West" and > "the most outlandish water

by wahern 4y ago

That Wikipedia article quotes critics describing > "the sheer arrogance and imperial ambitions of the modern hydraulic West" and > "the most outlandish water development scheme to emerge in the past 50 years". Yet the Chinese South-North Water Transfer Project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Transfer_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Tran...) currently underway is (or at least was at inception) intended to move nearly half as much water--44.8 billion cubic meters vs 93 billion cubic meters. While still under construction, it's already moving 7 billion cubic meters per https://window-to-china.de/2022/02/20/china-reports-progress-in-the-south-to-north-water-diversion-project/ https://window-to-china.de/2022/02/20/china-reports-progress... That's only about 1/5 of their planned volume, but IIUC the final, western diversion would provide more water to be diverted for the first two completed (?) routes. On the face those criticisms might still stand, but the context seemed to be an explanation for why NAWPA was an utter failure from inception, in which case they may soon seem merely short-sighted or at least myopic.

labrador 4y ago
There is a documentary on it somewhere that I watched many years ago. The main sticking point was the use of nuclear blasts to carve out water channels. For a brief time after WW2 this seemed like a good idea, but upon further reflection fell out of favor.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  But why? The Trinity test site was open to the public in 1953, less than 10 years after the blast took place. Nowadays, the radioactivity there is only 10 times the average natural radioactivity [1]. That may seem like a lot, but there are places in the world with much, much higher background radiation, and epidemiological studies failed to determine an increase in cancer rates or other health issues [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)#Site_today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)#Site_to... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030667/
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    Would they wait for 70 years to let water in, to still get it irradiated 10x the normal background radiation? So that everybody, including small babies would drink it eventually? Or just say fuck it, progress is priority #1 and let the water in immediately, let the future generations solve the issues. Yeah, I really wonder why even Chinese decided to not go that way...
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      Considering that the CCP didn't sign the PTBT and conducted atmospheric nuclear tests until 1980, I doubt they give an f about that.
  - deepsun 4y ago
    There's no such thing as relative comparison of "radioactivity". You cannot describe a radionuclide contamination by a single number. For starters, radioactive emissions come in three forms (alpha, beta, gamma), all with different properties. Different nuclides accumulate differently in living tissues too. There can be almost no elevated gamma background, but nevertheless harmful to live there (e.g. Chernobyl).
  - thombat 4y ago
    Part of the answer is that atmospheric explosions generate a lot less fallout precisely because they move less dirt: that first link states that a 30m high tower was used in large part to minimise fallout and left a crater with maximum depth of 140cm. So "Trinity" 75 years later isn't a very good indicator of how atomic civil engineering on a short timescale will fare. It's interesting and perhaps a little reassuring that the 2009 review of natural background exposure didn't find conclusive effects other than for radon, but the enthusiasm in the US for peaceful nuclear explosions had already ebbed more than 40 years earlier after some quite cavalier experiments, so it's not so much "why is it unpopular?" as "why couldn't the topic be reconsidered in the light of newer research and less as a cheerleading exercise for nuclear weapons development?". Probably it's hard to judge the economics of PNEs Vs conventional civil engineering since the nuclear industry is quite coupled to the military.
shadowofneptune 4y ago
The Wikipedia article for the S–N Water Transfer Project states that nearly a third of a million people were forced out of their homes, environmental devastation is resulting, and that it could end up with large evaporation issues. Living in the US Southwest myself, any program to reshape the hydrology of a large region does seems myopic and arrogant, as the problems start to really show after decades of use. The destruction of the Aral Sea is another example. Just because it can be built does not make it a success.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  The water transfer project is also unsuccessful in the sense that the south also has a water shortage, and much of the water being pumped is polluted.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by wahern 4y ago

labrador 4y ago

There is a documentary on it somewhere that I watched many years ago. The main sticking point was the use of nuclear blasts to carve out water channels. For a brief time after WW2 this seemed like a good idea, but upon further reflection fell out of favor.

credit_guy 4y ago
But why? The Trinity test site was open to the public in 1953, less than 10 years after the blast took place. Nowadays, the radioactivity there is only 10 times the average natural radioactivity [1]. That may seem like a lot, but there are places in the world with much, much higher background radiation, and epidemiological studies failed to determine an increase in cancer rates or other health issues [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)#Site_today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)#Site_to... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030667/
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  Would they wait for 70 years to let water in, to still get it irradiated 10x the normal background radiation? So that everybody, including small babies would drink it eventually? Or just say fuck it, progress is priority #1 and let the water in immediately, let the future generations solve the issues. Yeah, I really wonder why even Chinese decided to not go that way...
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    Considering that the CCP didn't sign the PTBT and conducted atmospheric nuclear tests until 1980, I doubt they give an f about that.
- deepsun 4y ago
  There's no such thing as relative comparison of "radioactivity". You cannot describe a radionuclide contamination by a single number. For starters, radioactive emissions come in three forms (alpha, beta, gamma), all with different properties. Different nuclides accumulate differently in living tissues too. There can be almost no elevated gamma background, but nevertheless harmful to live there (e.g. Chernobyl).
- thombat 4y ago
  Part of the answer is that atmospheric explosions generate a lot less fallout precisely because they move less dirt: that first link states that a 30m high tower was used in large part to minimise fallout and left a crater with maximum depth of 140cm. So "Trinity" 75 years later isn't a very good indicator of how atomic civil engineering on a short timescale will fare. It's interesting and perhaps a little reassuring that the 2009 review of natural background exposure didn't find conclusive effects other than for radon, but the enthusiasm in the US for peaceful nuclear explosions had already ebbed more than 40 years earlier after some quite cavalier experiments, so it's not so much "why is it unpopular?" as "why couldn't the topic be reconsidered in the light of newer research and less as a cheerleading exercise for nuclear weapons development?". Probably it's hard to judge the economics of PNEs Vs conventional civil engineering since the nuclear industry is quite coupled to the military.

shadowofneptune 4y ago

The Wikipedia article for the S–N Water Transfer Project states that nearly a third of a million people were forced out of their homes, environmental devastation is resulting, and that it could end up with large evaporation issues. Living in the US Southwest myself, any program to reshape the hydrology of a large region does seems myopic and arrogant, as the problems start to really show after decades of use. The destruction of the Aral Sea is another example. Just because it can be built does not make it a success.

bobthepanda 4y ago
The water transfer project is also unsuccessful in the sense that the south also has a water shortage, and much of the water being pumped is polluted.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]