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Desalinating Water Is Becoming "Absurdly Cheap"
- dsq 2y agoDesalination is a blessing but it also increases the dependence of the population on technical infra for daily survival. If something were to happen to the desalination plants, that's no water, immediately (in the UAE case, for example).
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoThe same is true about electricity or gasoline. Once the pumps stop working and the trucks stop supplying the supermarkets, you have maybe two weeks.
- eulgro 2y agoWe could decrease our dependence our electricity and gasoline too. Who knows, it might even be beneficial for the environment.
- 10u152 2y agoIf the municipal pumps stop there will be 20 mins of water or so from the gravity header tank. No difference.
- throwawayffffas 2y agoThere's 70 plants, it's unlikely something would happen to all of them at the same time.
- jupp0r 2y agoExcept something like an EMP or other large scale breakdown of infrastructure.
- 082349872349872 2y agoReducing dependence on technical infra doesn't always work out either; the story of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family suggests that for any long-term attempts at autarky, N should be >6. (how much greater?)
- whycome 2y agoThe pipes themselves are the vulnerable infrastructure. Calgary just had an emergency situation for a few weeks because of a broken pipe.
- 1jbdg 2y agoSimply not true for the UAE with numerous dams and they are also refilling aquifers to store water.
- Sol- 2y agoWhere does all the brine go currently? The countries most dependent on desalination currently at least seem to have plenty of desert space available to dump it, but I do wonder if it might reach volumes that are difficult to manage once desalination becomes more widespread. Though perhaps dumping it back into the ocean is the correct thing to do, because the extracted fresh water will eventually also stream back into the ocean via the normal water cycle.
- mangamadaiyan 2y agoI seem to remember reading that dumping the brine byproduct from desalination in the ocean can screw up marine life. I don't have a reference ready, will look for one. I guess there might be a "right" way of dumping brine in the ocean without harming marine life, but I have no idea what that would be.
- 1jbdg 2y agoPlan it to be combined with waste water treatment or other cooling water from power plants to dilute it, or disperse it over a larger area. It goes into the ocean currently.
- jupp0r 2y agoYou can also dilute it with lots of seawater
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y agoIt would cause areas of higher salt concentrations where it is dumped. They only way to not cause this (for large volumes of brine) would be to dilute it first and of course that defeats the purpose of salination.
- throwawayffffas 2y agoYou can dilute with treated waste water.
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- dmazin 2y ago“HumanProgress.org is a project of the Cato Institute“
- petard 2y agoGood catch. From their website "Promoting an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations."
- 082349872349872 2y ago"Absurdly Cheap" compared with what? They give desal cost (not final price!) as USD 0,75 / m3. USD 250 / acre-foot for delivered water in the San Joaquin Valley is USD 0,20 / m3. So I'll grant them "cheap", but at more than 3x, defo not "absurdly" so. https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/News/Files/FINAL-12-14-2023---The-Economy-of-the-State-Water-Project.pdf https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/News/File...
- shmeeed 2y agoAbsurdly cheap to a billionaire who's never given AF about ordinary, let alone poor, people.
- trilbyglens 2y agoThis is still about 1/3 the price of city water is lots of the EU. People make less than half that of Americans and people manage. People will just use less damned water, which is a good thing. It _should_ be stupidly expensive to keep your yard green in Tx in the summer. Americans are living with artificially low prices for so many things.
- carlosjobim 2y agoThere is no lack of natural drinkable water and never will be. But it's an important agenda to convince people that there is. Why? I don't know, probably for power over other people. I'm from a pace where there's an absurd amount of naturally occurring clean water and even there they are pushing this false agenda. If people decide to live where there is no water, that's not a global problem, that's a people problem.
- Synaesthesia 2y agoThe problem is people can simply up and migrate to places with lots of space, drinking water, because of the way the globe is going these days.
- 082349872349872 2y ago> Water flows uphill towards money —old Californian proverb see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars
- CharlieDigital 2y agoYou've missed the plot. People have always had to live where there is access to water. It's that the water where people decided to live decades or even centuries ago is starting to disappear due to a variety of factors (population growth, overuse, natural cycles, and yes, climate change). This then leads to a variety of short term instability and social issues like mass migrations and conflict because humans need water.
- carlosjobim 2y agoWater is in no way disappearing in the place where I'm from, yet there are media and political campaigns about coming water shortages there. Even though it's geologically impossible. It's comparable to creating a big scare about tropical diseases in some place like Iceland. And everybody has to pretend that all science and evidence in front of your eyes is moot. Has the human mind deteriorated now to the extent that people cannot understand that some issues are local? I am reminded of the Soviet days, when they changed farming techniques with disastrous results, because they had "new knowledge". The scientific knowledge in question was "I god damned said so" from the rulers. Anybody who disagrees is a traitor, sent into exile, or down voted by hackers.
- gcanyon 2y agoSome quick googling says that the average person in the U.S. uses about 100 gallons per day directly, and about 1,000 gallons per day total (including all usage). That means the U.S. could replace all water usage for less than $1 billion per day. In particular, that means the U.S. could solve the Colorado river allocation issue for about $10 billion per year.
- 082349872349872 2y agowhich would likely be more than all the Colorado river water is going for now? see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40881819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40881819 EDIT: redoing that calculation for 15'000'000 acre-feet/yr (7,5 upper + 7,5 lower) yields only 3,75 billion USD/yr. EDIT2: also neglected: that only one of the seven states in the compact has easy access to salinated water.
- gcanyon 2y agoThat may be, but the fact remains that the Colorado is over-allocated by some ridiculous amount, and the states and Mexico are arguing over it. Some non-zero amount is spent making e.g. Las Vegas and Phoenix more water-efficient to help alleviate the issue.
- jmclnx 2y agoEven if $20 billion per year, it is worth it. It could generate a lot of revenue for people and industry. Probably more than the cost of maintenance of these plants. But the Federal Gov, when controlled by a specific party, does not want to pay for anything will help society.
- TheCoelacanth 2y agoDoes this account for all water usage or only domestic water use? Most of the biggest water users are agricultural or industrial.
- gcanyon 2y agoDomestic seems to be about 100 gallons per day, per capita 1,000.
- donatj 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kkfx 2y agoWell... The issue is that produced water is not much healthy to drink, not "salty" but "near salty". The "full desalination" it's much more expensive and limited in output, also involving washed clean sand to produce good mineral water...