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> People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of population centers, which is not rooted in any k

> People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of population centers, which is not rooted in any kind of reality. I have never heard this. Where are you reading that? Disappearing water sources are a reality. Time and time again, long pipelines like what you suggest just aren't viable. I'd suggest you enjoy some fact-based reporting on the topic: https://grist.org/agriculture/drought-water-pipeline-cost-west-solution-infrastructure/ https://grist.org/agriculture/drought-water-pipeline-cost-we... The near- and medium-term solutions we need are solely in use reduction. Period.

adam_arthur 4y ago
Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These two TSMC fabs are $40B alone So much fearmongering from economically illiterate people. Use your brain
- tony_cannistra 4y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but your "economically illiterate people" might actually understand some fundamental social and political realities that you've not yet had the chance to reckon with. Not to mention the physical realities of water resources. Your comparison to oil pipelines is nonsense. Where to start: privatization, a global commodity market, relative scarcity, massive extractive capex.... Sure, we built oil pipelines easily in the past. How difficult has it become? Surely the capital exists. Why don't we build more? Nobody is talking about abandoning real estate. The tragedy of people like you is that you provide a half-compelling distraction. People (cities/farmers/industry) need to use less water. The longer it takes to get people to realize this, the harder it is to fix.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    Why would we practice conservation when we can spend $30-50B in capex amortized over 50 years via marginally higher taxes on the populace with minimal opex to solve the problem permanently? Thats why they are economically illiterate. The obvious and more cost effective choice will win in the end, and it doesn’t involve austerity and suffering and repentance for high water use
    - tony_cannistra 4y ago
      Because it wouldn't solve the problem permanently. The folks who wrote the Colorado River Compact thought they were solving the problem of dividing the river's water permanently, too. They made it worse. I don't disagree that economics are a critical part of this conversation. But I don't understand how you're making the argument that enabling more water use, not less, is cost effective. Even amortized across 50 years, $30B is more than the $0B required if we just use less water. None of this even comes anywhere near discussing the potential deleterious ecological (and economic!) impacts of draining water-rich ecosystems by piping their water elsewhere. Look to the phase-out of leaded gasoline as a great example of how externalities matter.
      - throwntoday 4y ago
        I don't think you appreciate just how much water the northern part of the continent has.
        tony_cannistra 4y ago
        Actually, I do. I've lived there. Generally speaking, substantial alterations to hydrological regimes can cause deleterious cascading ecological effects. Just look toward the literature on the hydrological (and consequential ecological) effects of dams (necessary to divert water) for examples. One of particular interest is dams' tendency to reduce the frequency and severity of flooding events, which are characteristically necessary for much of the functioning of floodplain ecosystems such as those you're describing. Such reductions can wreak havoc on biodiversity in these regions.
  - achenatx 4y ago
    water problems are actually energy problems. With cheap energy, you can clean all water from residential areas and you can pipe water in from where it is plentiful. Water is not usually created/destroyed it is moved around and contaminated.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    Over the years, I've learned that "fundamental social and political realities" are often salesmanship driven solely by agendas. There is the reality and there is fantasy. The reality is we walk over more water (1000x) than there is in all of our rivers and lakes. Humans need water. We don't need to use less of it. We need more of it and there is plenty of it. For example, farms need water to grow food. Humans need food (and water) or we die. And water isn't going anywhere. It doesn't get destroyed. As you probably know, there is a water cycle. It falls out of the sky, bubbles up from the ground, and can be found by drilling for it, just like our most critical energy sources.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  >>Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. For oil. Water has far lower value density.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    For water. Its proven we can build many thousand miles of pipeline for 10s of billions. Which is vastly cheap enough and sufficient to solve this problem. Much cheaper than alternatives
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      I love how arm chair engineers have solved the water crises in the south by suggesting people "just build pipelines!". Just the lack of understanding of like 15 different aspects of the problem with that idea and the confidence to defend regardless is kind of amazing.
      - adam_arthur 4y ago
        You're right, piping water from point A to B is perhaps one of humanity's most challenging problems. What's really sad is that so many people are brainless enough to believe that this is not possible to solve, and easily so, once incentives drive it forward. Your comment does remind me of many of the 0.1-0.5x engineers I've worked with though. We need hundreds of people to maintain a mobile client, it's not possible to do it with a handful!
        mikeyouse 4y ago
        I'm sure those "0.1x" engineers found you a treat to work with. One of the more impressive combinations of abject ignorance and misplaced confidence I've seen in a long time. Believe it or not, but there are indeed people who've designed large volume water piping systems on Hackernews..
    - selectodude 4y ago
      Where is the water coming from? It’s not coming from the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River. Where are these enormous volumes of untapped water that we can pump over the Rocky Mountains?

adam_arthur 4y ago

Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These two TSMC fabs are $40B alone So much fearmongering from economically illiterate people. Use your brain

tony_cannistra 4y ago
I hate to break it to you, but your "economically illiterate people" might actually understand some fundamental social and political realities that you've not yet had the chance to reckon with. Not to mention the physical realities of water resources. Your comparison to oil pipelines is nonsense. Where to start: privatization, a global commodity market, relative scarcity, massive extractive capex.... Sure, we built oil pipelines easily in the past. How difficult has it become? Surely the capital exists. Why don't we build more? Nobody is talking about abandoning real estate. The tragedy of people like you is that you provide a half-compelling distraction. People (cities/farmers/industry) need to use less water. The longer it takes to get people to realize this, the harder it is to fix.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Why would we practice conservation when we can spend $30-50B in capex amortized over 50 years via marginally higher taxes on the populace with minimal opex to solve the problem permanently? Thats why they are economically illiterate. The obvious and more cost effective choice will win in the end, and it doesn’t involve austerity and suffering and repentance for high water use
  - tony_cannistra 4y ago
    Because it wouldn't solve the problem permanently. The folks who wrote the Colorado River Compact thought they were solving the problem of dividing the river's water permanently, too. They made it worse. I don't disagree that economics are a critical part of this conversation. But I don't understand how you're making the argument that enabling more water use, not less, is cost effective. Even amortized across 50 years, $30B is more than the $0B required if we just use less water. None of this even comes anywhere near discussing the potential deleterious ecological (and economic!) impacts of draining water-rich ecosystems by piping their water elsewhere. Look to the phase-out of leaded gasoline as a great example of how externalities matter.
    - throwntoday 4y ago
      I don't think you appreciate just how much water the northern part of the continent has.
      - tony_cannistra 4y ago
        Actually, I do. I've lived there. Generally speaking, substantial alterations to hydrological regimes can cause deleterious cascading ecological effects. Just look toward the literature on the hydrological (and consequential ecological) effects of dams (necessary to divert water) for examples. One of particular interest is dams' tendency to reduce the frequency and severity of flooding events, which are characteristically necessary for much of the functioning of floodplain ecosystems such as those you're describing. Such reductions can wreak havoc on biodiversity in these regions.
- achenatx 4y ago
  water problems are actually energy problems. With cheap energy, you can clean all water from residential areas and you can pipe water in from where it is plentiful. Water is not usually created/destroyed it is moved around and contaminated.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  Over the years, I've learned that "fundamental social and political realities" are often salesmanship driven solely by agendas. There is the reality and there is fantasy. The reality is we walk over more water (1000x) than there is in all of our rivers and lakes. Humans need water. We don't need to use less of it. We need more of it and there is plenty of it. For example, farms need water to grow food. Humans need food (and water) or we die. And water isn't going anywhere. It doesn't get destroyed. As you probably know, there is a water cycle. It falls out of the sky, bubbles up from the ground, and can be found by drilling for it, just like our most critical energy sources.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
>>Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. For oil. Water has far lower value density.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  For water. Its proven we can build many thousand miles of pipeline for 10s of billions. Which is vastly cheap enough and sufficient to solve this problem. Much cheaper than alternatives
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    I love how arm chair engineers have solved the water crises in the south by suggesting people "just build pipelines!". Just the lack of understanding of like 15 different aspects of the problem with that idea and the confidence to defend regardless is kind of amazing.
    - adam_arthur 4y ago
      You're right, piping water from point A to B is perhaps one of humanity's most challenging problems. What's really sad is that so many people are brainless enough to believe that this is not possible to solve, and easily so, once incentives drive it forward. Your comment does remind me of many of the 0.1-0.5x engineers I've worked with though. We need hundreds of people to maintain a mobile client, it's not possible to do it with a handful!
      - mikeyouse 4y ago
        I'm sure those "0.1x" engineers found you a treat to work with. One of the more impressive combinations of abject ignorance and misplaced confidence I've seen in a long time. Believe it or not, but there are indeed people who've designed large volume water piping systems on Hackernews..
  - selectodude 4y ago
    Where is the water coming from? It’s not coming from the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River. Where are these enormous volumes of untapped water that we can pump over the Rocky Mountains?