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If the Casey's interest is in terraforming the American West to support substantial population growth, I would start with the Columbia River Basin and identify
by composter 2y ago
If the Casey's interest is in terraforming the American West to support substantial population growth, I would start with the Columbia River Basin and identify the bottlenecks to growth there.
The Columbia River drainage basin is larger than the Great Basin (670k km2 [1] vs 541 km2 [3]), it's the 4th largest river in the US by flow [1], and there are already existing megaprojects like the Columbia Basin Project [2] that have unmet potential.
If the growth Casey envisions isn't happening and/or won't happen with the easy access to substantial volumes fresh water of the Columbia River then it's very unlikely to occur in the scenario they envision with desal + pumping water into the Great Basin.
- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River
- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Basin_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Basin_Project
- [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin
- prpl 2y agoYeah this is the place to do it. Much less competition with established places. I think Bend and Boise are likely to experience rapid expansion in the next 20 years on the west coast, especially as winters grow milder.