4 ms·

I crave an industrial megaproject to solve this. Specifically: A pipeline from the ocean. But alas, only China has a social structure capable of getting project

I crave an industrial megaproject to solve this. Specifically: A pipeline from the ocean. But alas, only China has a social structure capable of getting projects of this scale done anymore. So I guess I'll keep tracking the AQI and keeping my kids indoors when it's bad.

justinator 3mo ago
It would probably be better in the long run if we all drove less and walked more, then built a 1,000 mile aqueduct from the ocean to (and I can't believe I'm typing this) replenish the Great Salt Lake.
- eco 3mo ago
  I'm trying to figure out how driving less and walking more would result in the Great Salt Lake getting an extra million acre feet of water into it per year. One might argue that would accelerate the collapse of the Great Salt Lake because the vast majority of diverted water is used for agriculture and increasing everyone's caloric requirements would result in more agriculture.
  - justinator 3mo ago
    Driving cars releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere (per car). There are 300 million cars on the road in the States. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. 75% of U.S. adults are considered overweight, I would think that walking would first help this problem, as well as be a catalyst to other beneficial habits, including eating less meat and more vegetables, which would further reduce the amount of CO2 released from agriculture, as well as slim people's waistlines.
    - eco 3mo ago
      Ok, but this isn't climate change driven problem. Climate change will keep making this problem harder to manage, but the problem is excessive diversions of water feeding the Great Salt Lake. If climate change were solved tomorrow, this would still be a problem. I'm not saying we shouldn't be working on climate change, but the solution for this problem must be much sooner and more local than a giant worldwide effort.
Aurornis 3mo ago
> Specifically: A pipeline from the ocean. The environmental cost of building a pipeline 750 miles across the country and then expending all of the energy needed to pump that water would completely outweigh any benefits. You also don't need ocean water. Salt doesn't evaporate. It's still there. The water could be sourced from anywhere. They could just buy up water rights from farmers and other heavy users and divert the water in the direction of the lake. A million times easier.
- spwa4 3mo ago
  Moving farms to next to the ocean does seem like the far superior option.
eco 3mo ago
I always like the idea of megaprojects and several Utah legislators suggested this. It's kind of a dumb idea, though, when you think about it because the vast majority of Utah's diverted water is going towards farming alfalfa to feed livestock, so we could much more easily solve the problem by just importing these end products from a region that is better suited to their production than a desert.
- adjejmxbdjdn 3mo ago
  Or even better eliminating or at least reducing animal agriculture that aside from the ethical, health and global warming concerns, is a massive user of local resources relative to the non animal resources.
- purplerabbit 3mo ago
  Doesn’t scratch the itch, but I will concede that this is a fair point
  - scythe 3mo ago
    If you want to do a megaproject, just cover a significant amount of the lake in reflective material. This will reduce evaporation, increasing the lake level. It would be very bad for the ecosystem, though, since it depends on sunlight.
    - quotemstr 3mo ago
      Sounds like the northern part of the lake doesn't have much of an ecosystem anyway, so why not start there?
lizknope 3mo ago
There have been some ideas to do this from the Salton Sea to the Gulf of California in Mexico but that is about 125 miles and would still cost billions.
- blackguardx 3mo ago
  To drain the Salton Sea or replenish it? The Salton Sea was created in its present form from a man-made environmental disaster.
  - lizknope 3mo ago
    To replenish it. I know it was made by accident but agricultural runoff kept it from drying out. Now it is full of fertilizer and pesticide residue and the farms have gotten better at using water so less flows into the Salton Sea. As it dries up toxic dust clouds are blown over the cities nearby. California is trying to stop the dust. One idea is to fill it with sea water from the Gulf of California from Mexico. I am not saying this is a good idea, only that it is an idea.
McKayDavis 3mo ago
I think the idea is a huge waste, but the Utah State Legislature already considered exactly this in 2022 (building a massive pipeline to the Pacific Ocean). https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/05/19/utah-legislature-consider/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/05/19/utah-legi... (archived non-paywall version: http://archive.today/GzuUD http://archive.today/GzuUD)
- hunter-gatherer 3mo ago
  We really should just figure out how to be sustainable. I also think there is a hard reality people don't want to even consider talking about, which is the Southwest US is too overpopulated and overleveraged for the natural water resources available to it.
  - jakebol 3mo ago
    The southwest isn’t really over populated with people, it’s overpopulated with cows which require tremendous land and water resources.
ungreased0675 3mo ago
The US is crisscrossed with gas and oil pipelines, many of them quite long. It’s imagination that constrains us mostly, not technology.
- jakebol 3mo ago
  Imagination applies also to how we organize society and “rights” we hold over nature and natural resources. Reforming outdated water law is the true fix no pipeline needed.
Hasz 3mo ago
Disappointing to see you downvoted on hacker news of all places. Cmon, have some ambition. A bunch of people here have no idea how bad the water crunch is. The oogala has been overdrawn for decades, and is a major source of agriculture water for much of the west and Midwest. CO, UT, AZ, CA, NV etc all dramatically overdraw the Colorado river snopack and will have a reckoning soon enough. The west is also prone to mega droughts, making the problem much worse Building a $100bn pipeline to irrigate the west absolutely should happen. We can pump it with miles of solar power, build enormous desalination plants, dramatically increase agricultural productivity and provide water to fight the heating effects of global warming.
- lispisok 3mo ago
  The water crunch only seems bad because everybody is trying to maintain the status quo and it's egregiously wasted on things we dont need to. 25% of the Colorado river is used to just grow alfalfa [0]. We over subsidize corn and soy so much we have to invent uses for it. We dont need corn ethanol in our fuel and we dont need to use the precious water in the West to grow alfalfa for Saudi Arabia [1] [0] https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/04/research-colorado-river-water-use-cherish-hamburger/ https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/04/research-colorado-river-w... [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...
jjulius 3mo ago
I crave more attempts to find a way to live in harmony with the natural world in a way that still supports us all as best as possible. If, as I've read in other comments here, the problem around Salt Lake is due to man diverting the flow of water to it for their own purposes, I only see diverting ocean water to it as more of the exact same type of hubris that got us to this point.

justinator 3mo ago

It would probably be better in the long run if we all drove less and walked more, then built a 1,000 mile aqueduct from the ocean to (and I can't believe I'm typing this) replenish the Great Salt Lake.

eco 3mo ago
I'm trying to figure out how driving less and walking more would result in the Great Salt Lake getting an extra million acre feet of water into it per year. One might argue that would accelerate the collapse of the Great Salt Lake because the vast majority of diverted water is used for agriculture and increasing everyone's caloric requirements would result in more agriculture.
- justinator 3mo ago
  Driving cars releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere (per car). There are 300 million cars on the road in the States. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. 75% of U.S. adults are considered overweight, I would think that walking would first help this problem, as well as be a catalyst to other beneficial habits, including eating less meat and more vegetables, which would further reduce the amount of CO2 released from agriculture, as well as slim people's waistlines.
  - eco 3mo ago
    Ok, but this isn't climate change driven problem. Climate change will keep making this problem harder to manage, but the problem is excessive diversions of water feeding the Great Salt Lake. If climate change were solved tomorrow, this would still be a problem. I'm not saying we shouldn't be working on climate change, but the solution for this problem must be much sooner and more local than a giant worldwide effort.

Aurornis 3mo ago

> Specifically: A pipeline from the ocean. The environmental cost of building a pipeline 750 miles across the country and then expending all of the energy needed to pump that water would completely outweigh any benefits. You also don't need ocean water. Salt doesn't evaporate. It's still there. The water could be sourced from anywhere. They could just buy up water rights from farmers and other heavy users and divert the water in the direction of the lake. A million times easier.

spwa4 3mo ago
Moving farms to next to the ocean does seem like the far superior option.

eco 3mo ago

I always like the idea of megaprojects and several Utah legislators suggested this. It's kind of a dumb idea, though, when you think about it because the vast majority of Utah's diverted water is going towards farming alfalfa to feed livestock, so we could much more easily solve the problem by just importing these end products from a region that is better suited to their production than a desert.

adjejmxbdjdn 3mo ago
Or even better eliminating or at least reducing animal agriculture that aside from the ethical, health and global warming concerns, is a massive user of local resources relative to the non animal resources.
purplerabbit 3mo ago
Doesn’t scratch the itch, but I will concede that this is a fair point
- scythe 3mo ago
  If you want to do a megaproject, just cover a significant amount of the lake in reflective material. This will reduce evaporation, increasing the lake level. It would be very bad for the ecosystem, though, since it depends on sunlight.
  - quotemstr 3mo ago
    Sounds like the northern part of the lake doesn't have much of an ecosystem anyway, so why not start there?

lizknope 3mo ago

There have been some ideas to do this from the Salton Sea to the Gulf of California in Mexico but that is about 125 miles and would still cost billions.

blackguardx 3mo ago
To drain the Salton Sea or replenish it? The Salton Sea was created in its present form from a man-made environmental disaster.
- lizknope 3mo ago
  To replenish it. I know it was made by accident but agricultural runoff kept it from drying out. Now it is full of fertilizer and pesticide residue and the farms have gotten better at using water so less flows into the Salton Sea. As it dries up toxic dust clouds are blown over the cities nearby. California is trying to stop the dust. One idea is to fill it with sea water from the Gulf of California from Mexico. I am not saying this is a good idea, only that it is an idea.

McKayDavis 3mo ago

I think the idea is a huge waste, but the Utah State Legislature already considered exactly this in 2022 (building a massive pipeline to the Pacific Ocean). https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/05/19/utah-legislature-consider/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/05/19/utah-legi... (archived non-paywall version: http://archive.today/GzuUD http://archive.today/GzuUD)

hunter-gatherer 3mo ago
We really should just figure out how to be sustainable. I also think there is a hard reality people don't want to even consider talking about, which is the Southwest US is too overpopulated and overleveraged for the natural water resources available to it.
- jakebol 3mo ago
  The southwest isn’t really over populated with people, it’s overpopulated with cows which require tremendous land and water resources.

ungreased0675 3mo ago

The US is crisscrossed with gas and oil pipelines, many of them quite long. It’s imagination that constrains us mostly, not technology.

jakebol 3mo ago
Imagination applies also to how we organize society and “rights” we hold over nature and natural resources. Reforming outdated water law is the true fix no pipeline needed.

Hasz 3mo ago

Disappointing to see you downvoted on hacker news of all places. Cmon, have some ambition. A bunch of people here have no idea how bad the water crunch is. The oogala has been overdrawn for decades, and is a major source of agriculture water for much of the west and Midwest. CO, UT, AZ, CA, NV etc all dramatically overdraw the Colorado river snopack and will have a reckoning soon enough. The west is also prone to mega droughts, making the problem much worse Building a $100bn pipeline to irrigate the west absolutely should happen. We can pump it with miles of solar power, build enormous desalination plants, dramatically increase agricultural productivity and provide water to fight the heating effects of global warming.

lispisok 3mo ago
The water crunch only seems bad because everybody is trying to maintain the status quo and it's egregiously wasted on things we dont need to. 25% of the Colorado river is used to just grow alfalfa [0]. We over subsidize corn and soy so much we have to invent uses for it. We dont need corn ethanol in our fuel and we dont need to use the precious water in the West to grow alfalfa for Saudi Arabia [1] [0] https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/04/research-colorado-river-water-use-cherish-hamburger/ https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/04/research-colorado-river-w... [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...

jjulius 3mo ago

I crave more attempts to find a way to live in harmony with the natural world in a way that still supports us all as best as possible. If, as I've read in other comments here, the problem around Salt Lake is due to man diverting the flow of water to it for their own purposes, I only see diverting ocean water to it as more of the exact same type of hubris that got us to this point.