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Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds
- nwah1 3y agoWith solar energy prices plummeting, it may make sense during peak production hours to use it to do desalination and/or extract water from the air, depending on where you are.
- cyanydeez 3y agothey're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. Really, what's required for the electric grid is ways to store the energy, and not use it. For places like Arizona, they may need a whole different type of infrastructure of grey water use. Just piping in water ain't gonna be sustainable.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoWater is a lot easier to store than electricity. Desalinate while the sun is shining to fill a reservoir that you can pull from 24/7.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoTrue, but it isn't energy, and desal requires firm generation, so you're not using renewables that would've been curtailed but instead competing with load that needs consistent power. Still hopeful considering the cost decline curve of utility scale storage, but it isn't a silver bullet based on solar being free at noon.
- nosrepa 3y agoBut water in a reservoir is one of the oldest ways of storing energy.
- scythe 3y ago>desal requires firm generation Most existing plants are designed for this, but it is by no means necessary. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011916420305403 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001191642... >This work analyses the long-term performance of a full-scale brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) desalination plant that has been working under intermittent operating conditions for 14 years (~9 h d−1).
- toomuchtodo 3y agoTIL. Appreciate the correction.
- matthewdgreen 3y agoYou combine the desalination with pumped hydro storage. Or you just deploy it with intermittent power, as the other poster pointed out. https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/pumped-storage-hydropower-2666647371 https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/pumped-storage-hydropower-2666...
- mjhay 3y agoWhy do you need to desalinate it to use it for energy storage? Seems like an unnecessary step that would not increase the gravitational potential energy at all.
- 57FkMytWjyFu 3y agoYou really don't want to mix salty water with machines unless you have to.
- mjhay 3y agoIt's done routinely in ships and such. It's certainly much easier than the energy and machinery it would take for desalination.
- 57FkMytWjyFu 3y agoNo, it isn't easier, it's done on ships for lack of choice.
- mr_toad 3y ago> Water is a lot easier to store than electricity. Desalinate while the sun is shining to fill a reservoir that you can pull from 24/7. Cheap to store, expensive to transport. Desalinisation only makes sense if you are near the coast and short of water. Further inland it becomes uneconomical. The Earth is not short on fresh water, the problem is getting fresh water where it is needed.
- nwah1 3y agoPumped storage hydro is a way to store energy, but also can dispense water.
- tedk-42 3y ago> they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. We should be implementing technologies we have now today rather than banking on something that might or might not pan out. I don't hate the idea of piping water throughout areas or creating artificial enclosed canals of sorts. But then I'm on the side of thinking that we should advance and terraform the planet rather than try to be more one with nature and cut back.
- arcticbull 3y agoSo a nuclear power plant adjacent to the ocean and a desal plant?
- zer00eyz 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident We can have safe nuclear power, right after we invent safe people. Till you solve the human problem nukes are bad mmmkay.
- arcticbull 3y agoNobody died in Fukushima, except in a bungled evacuation of the surrounding area. Maybe one person in the fullness of time. Nuclear power is literally the safest power source in deaths per TWh - right between wind and solar. [1] We have safe nuclear power, so I'm pleased to inform you that your concern was mitigated, about 50 years ago. [edit] Also, I would point out the worst nuclear accident in history killed 4000 people according to USCEAR. The next-worst killed 1. The worst hydro accident in history (Bangqiao Dam) killed 240,000, damaged 5 million homes, displaced 10.5 million people and wiped several cities off the face of the earth - yet for some reason it doesn't share the same perception of intense danger. Interesting. [2] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
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- jsbisviewtiful 3y ago> they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. I'm intrigued. Link?
- justinzollars 3y ago> solar energy prices plummeting Shopping for solar in California, prices aren't plummeting. With high interest rates, solar no longer makes economic sense. Its more expensive than ever. Many solar installers are facing bankruptcy because the market has collapsed.
- justinzollars 3y agoPeople are downvoting this, but from Tesla earnings today "Solar deployments declined on a sequential and YoY basis to 41 MW. Downward pressure on solar demand continued into Q4 as interest rates have remained high." This isn't an opinion, this is a fact. You could also compare the cost of capital between 3% and 10% and derive a cost per kwh.
- Veserv 3y agoThe failures of a tiny player like Tesla Solar are totally unrelated to US solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity. From 2021 to 2022 solar PV went from ~161,499 GWh to ~202,080 GWh of net generation (~25.1% increase) [1]. Utility scale went from 112,335 GWh to 140,798 GWh (~25.3% increase) [2] and personal/small scale solar PV went from ~49,164 GWh to ~61,282 GWh (~24.6% increase). New solar PV accounts for 11,058 MW of the total 31,692 MW (~34.8%) capacity additions for 2022 [3] and 24,545 MW of the total 51,490 MW (~47.6%) capacity additions that were planned for 2023 [4]. Tesla Solar accounts for ~1/5 of 1% of solar installation capacity, so it is hardly relevant compared to actual solar energy companies. [1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_03_01_a.html https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_03_01_a.html [2] Utility Scale Solar includes non-PV, Utility Scale PV numbers derived by subtracting Small Scale Solar Photovoltaic from Estimated Total Solar Photovoltaic [3] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_06.html https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_06.html [4] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_05.html https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_05.html
- justinzollars 3y agoWhat is the cost of a $50,000 at 10% interest vs the cost of $50,000 at 2.5% interest over 10 years? Money is not free. Solar is now expensive: [1] https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/high-interest-rates-are-making-solar-leases-more-appealing/ https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/high-interest... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-11-03/investors-sour-on-solar-sector-hurt-by-high-interest-rates https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-11-03/invest... [3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-stocks-get-hit-as-rising-interest-rates-weigh-on-demand-183911358.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-stocks-get-hit-as-risin... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/climate/renewable-energy-inflation-climate-cop28.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/climate/renewable-energy-... [5] https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/high-interest-rates-impede-the-residential-solar-market-boom/ https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/high-interest-rates-imp... [6] https://www.ft.com/content/07443afb-b935-492d-8711-8c47e4353c59 https://www.ft.com/content/07443afb-b935-492d-8711-8c47e4353... [7] https://time.com/6281021/renewable-energy-interest-rates/ https://time.com/6281021/renewable-energy-interest-rates/ [8] https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/01/13/why-solar-energy-stocks-dropped-like-a-rock-last-y/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/01/13/why-solar-energy-s... [9] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2024/01/high-interest-rates-and-other-issues-threaten-the-residential-solar-market/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2024/01/high-interest-... [10] https://www.newsweek.com/high-interest-rates-impact-solar-energy-biden-administration-inflation-reduction-act-1840859 https://www.newsweek.com/high-interest-rates-impact-solar-en...
- darth_avocado 3y agoIt's like trying to use a hammer to screw some bolts. The priority should be sustainable development. We have enough water, just not great usage. The water infrastructure we have today is aged and needs to expand to allow for the population growth the country has seen. On top of that, we are expanding cities in parts of the country where water is scarce. We are growing water intensive crops in parts of the country that does not have water for it. We are also mismanaging the largest watershed in the country: the Missisippi. Just focus on these problems than creating other problems with desalination.
- jvanderbot 3y ago93 billion gallons of fresh water falls on Los Angeles every year. (12 inches / y over the whole surface area[1]) They have ~2 million households[2], and a household uses an average of 3,000 g/m or 36,000 g/y/h or about 80 billion gallons / y for all households. Huge coincidence, that's pretty close to balanced out. And yet, we shuffle the rainfall to the ocean and pray for snowpack in the mountains and protest Nestle and Almond farmers. 1. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%2812+inches+*+los+angeles+surface+area%29+in+gallons+%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%2812+inches+*+los+a... 2. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=households+in+los+angeles https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=households+in+los+angel...
- donkeysquid 3y agoOnly a fraction of that can be captured
- persolb 3y agoI’d agree for a lot of places heavy on greenery… but LA? The city itself seems to have a very small percentage of greenery. I’m assuming the rest is mostly captured via sewers just to prevent flooding.
- jvanderbot 3y agoThis is true. A better designed city could capture more.
- isk517 3y agoCool, out of everything in Star Wars it turns out moisture farming was the thing that would make it to real life.
- voisin 3y agoAnd cover existing canals with solar to reduce evaporation!
- nerdbert 3y agoDesalination means killing some ecosystem, wherever you choose to dump the brine, with waste salt.
- Mistletoe 3y agoI think the future is going to find the past 100 years or so an insane time in history as we used all the fossil fuels and water up in the blink of an eye on the historical time scale.
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- NegativeLatency 3y agoWhy invade another country when you can do such insane things as: - pipeline the Columbia River to the SW Region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_interstate_water_pipelines_to_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_interstate_water_pipe... - tow icebergs for the fresh water they contain: https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/can-icebergs-be-towed-to-water-starved-cities/ https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/can-icebergs-be-towed-t... - pipe water from Alaska to CA: https://www.wired.com/2015/02/california-pipe-water-alaska/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/california-pipe-water-alaska/
- npongratz 3y ago- pipe water shared with Canada out of the Great Lakes, up and over the Rocky Mountains, and down into Phoenix and Las Vegas: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/04/10/great-lakes-water-piped-southwest-our-future-says-nasa-scientist/100301326/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/04/10/g...
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoMove the people, the industry, and the farms... not the water, thank you very much. Lots of good arable land here in the upper great lakes basin.
- Workaccount2 3y agoIF we didn't find fossil fuels, in all likely hood we would still be living in the 18th century.
- snagglemouth 3y agoMeanwhile Nestle is pumping thousands of gallons per minute out of aquifers to put into plastic bottles.
- justrealist 3y agoLiterally 0 impact as compared to farming.
- alan-hn 3y agoAt least farming feeds people rather than taking water from communities purely for profit
- arcticbull 3y agoIn a way - it mostly provides for dairy, which is an incredibly lossy operation. The "alfalfa in the desert" stuff you hear about isn't for salads. It's feed for cattle. A gallon of milk requires [edit](4-5 gallons excluding consumption for growing feed, ~800 gallons, contested, fully realized)[1, 2] and a pound of beef requires somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 gallons. [3] Beef is where the water goes, not Nestle water bottles, which are silly too. You drink about 185 gallons of water per year, meaning 1 pound of beef consumes 10 years worth of your personal drinking budget. Assuming you drank every single drop out of a Nestle water bottle, it really does round to zero compared to agriculture. [1] https://www.watereducation.org/post/food-facts-how-much-water-does-it-take-produce https://www.watereducation.org/post/food-facts-how-much-wate... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1092652/volume-of-water-to-produce-a-liter-of-milk-by-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1092652/volume-of-water-... [3] https://www.watercalculator.org/news/articles/beef-king-big-water-footprints/ https://www.watercalculator.org/news/articles/beef-king-big-...
- Solvency 3y agoDo you realize that the US native buffalo population used to be as high as 30 to 60 million before we decimated them? 30 to 60. million. grazers. Roaming the countryside, eating and pooping and fertilizing our soil. Remember when the US had some of the most fertile, nutrient-rich soil in the entire world? Remember how perfectly balanced our ecosystem was before we ruined it? The issue is not ruminants. It's everything else we've done to this planet throwing everything life carefully manicured into disarray.
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoArticle mentions California a lot. There is absolutely zero reason that California's cities cannot be fed with nuclear heated desalinated seawater or heck, traditionally desalinated sea water. The only thing holding back this engineering solution are NIMBYs, naive greenies, and mountains of legal paperwork. Water doesn't go away and we have the solutions to make freshwater. The problems are political, not technical. Tha solves the city consumption problem which can then allow water run off from the mountains back into the valley where it used to be. That will help restore the aquafiers. Read up on what the California valleys used to look like before the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities. Edit: the replies and downd00ts to this post are precisely why California is in its current state. All whiners and no solutions. Enjoy your mess and desertification!
- parl_match 3y ago> before the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities. Hell, a lot of that wasn't even for cities. Significant and massive lakes, including Lake Tulare, were siphoned away simply to create farmland.
- hehhehaha 3y agoLake Tulare and the Aral sea are both super sad
- mjhay 3y agoThe great majority of water usage in California is for agriculture, not "coastal cities." Things like drip irrigation and not growing alfalfa in the desert are far more realistic (and cheaper) than what you are proposing. This is a solvable problem, even with climate change, but there aren't going to be any silver bullets.
- scythe 3y agoYou're both right. The Owens River Valley was desiccated to ship the water to the Los Angeles region, back when the latter was primarily agricultural in the 1920s.
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- FrustratedMonky 3y agoTechnically, water has been a story for the last few decades already. Not new. It's bit overshadowed lately by other world events. There was even a James Bond movie made about it. Water used to be the biggest concern. Guess other problems caught up to it.
- Moru 3y agoIt's more a question about trying not to concentrate on something that will mean a lot of change for the worse.
- cardamomo 3y agoI'll keep plugging Paolo Bacigalupi's 2015 novel The Water Knife. It's sci-fi, but set against a near-future Southwest US where many contemporary crises have only gotten worse.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> water has been a story for the last few decades already It’s the leading theory for the collapse of civilisation in Mesopotamia, among the ancestral Pueblo/Anasazi and countless other ancient civilisations.
- peteradio 3y agoPresumably they didn't have drills.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoBetween climate change, nuclear war, AI, resource famines, and political instability, we're only missing alien invasion and the return of the AntiChrist to complete the set of possible apocalypses.
- 303uru 3y agoThere may be good news on this front. Most of this water is being used to farm, specifically to grow feed crops for cattle. Anyone that can hearken back to elementary school will remember that you lose a lot of energy in the food chain. It takes an absolute shitton of water to get to a steak, 1800 gallons for one 16oz cut (https://www.denverwater.org/tap/whats-beef-water https://www.denverwater.org/tap/whats-beef-water). But a demographic crises is coming. I was just at the stock show here in Denver and yes, ranchers are very much framing this as a crises. 12% of the population is eating half the beef, males 50-65 (https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/17/3795 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/17/3795). This group is dying off quickly, quicker even than their peers, as increased beef consumption is a big predictor of early mortality. Younger populations are curbing beef consumption for chicken and it's far more water efficient.
- maxglute 3y agoThat is a positive trend, but a few good marketing campaigns can increase eating beef again.
- alwillis 3y ago> That is a positive trend, but a few good marketing campaigns can increase eating beef again. It's not that simple. Millennials don't eat meat in the same quantities as their parents did and that's not going to change any time soon. Also, this generation is basically allergic to typical marketing campaigns. They also get how eating meat is detrimental to the environment, something they care a lot about. "Notable Millennial Food Trends: What Do They Like To Eat?" — https://dfaingredients.com/trends/millennial-food-trends/ https://dfaingredients.com/trends/millennial-food-trends/
- jldugger 3y ago>According to other research sources, a total of 96 percent of millennials say they replace a meal with a snack once a week, and 58 percent say they snack 4-5 times a day! "I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip"
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- taftster 3y agoHuh? Golf courses I assume? Not that I know, but it would be interesting to have a study of water usage for golf courses. I suspect it's mostly minimal impact, even if it's also superfluous use.
- diggan 3y ago> Not that I know, but it would be interesting to have a study of water usage for golf courses. I suspect it's mostly minimal impact, even if it's also superfluous use. I'm guessing it's mostly a emotional reaction, which is 100% understandable. A bit like someone peeing on you while you enter the ocean to swim. I mean yes, I can just wash it off, but it is a tad disrespectful I'd say.
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- sublinear 3y ago> To an outsized extent, the problems identified in the Nature study are — for Americans at least — problems of California, and of the national food systems’ reliance on the fertile Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and the groundwater beneath. This makes it sound like the only sane option is for the rest of the USA to stop being so dependent on California.
- I_Am_Nous 3y agoOne change which would have to be made is here in the Midwest, we grow a lot of soybeans and corn. We feed most of it to animals. There are likely better uses for that land, especially when talking about modern corn as it is so nitrogen hungry that nearly all farmers apply high nitrogen fertilizer...which runs off into the rivers and causes the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. So, so many things could be better if we reduced meat consumption and transitioned to growing food humans actually eat. But...it's unlikely to happen for an equally large number of reasons.
- Fatnino 3y agoA lot of that corn goes into ethanol instead.
- I_Am_Nous 3y agoRoughly 1/3rd of the US corn production is for ethanol[1], 1/3rd for animal feed, and 1/3rd for human food products. Ethanol kind of sucks as a fuel though, because it can't be piped for various reasons[2] including water-induced separation in gasoline-ethanol blends and oxygen induced steel corrosion requiring specialized pipeline construction to mitigate. This means ethanol is usually shipped via train and worse, trucked, increasing diesel usage/emissions on top of the farm equipment emissions to grow and harvest the corn in the first place. So in the end it isn't much better than pure gasoline at best, and is actually overall higher total emissions at worst. Edit: ethanol also doesn't have the same range as gasoline per tank, so vehicles may need to fuel up more often, making the problem worse. 1. https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-largest-crop-2019 https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-lar... 2. https://www.ogj.com/refining-processing/article/17217746/ethanol-pipelines https://www.ogj.com/refining-processing/article/17217746/eth...
- htss2013 3y agoToilets haven't been fundamentally changed in 100 years. We flush unfathomable gallons literally down the toilet because we can't think of a better way to move poop around.
- i386 3y agoWe mandate half-flush systems in Australia. A half flush is 0.8 gallons and a US system uses 1.6 gallons per flush. Easy to retrofit your home if you care about water usage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_flush_toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_flush_toilet https://www.epa.gov/watersense/residential-toilets https://www.epa.gov/watersense/residential-toilets
- ijhuygft776 3y agoI have a toilet that uses probably 5 times less water than one used 30 years ago, and it even flushes better (feels like a power-flush without being one).