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What is the problem with droughts in California?
Why are ppl complaining about the droughts? Seems like you have all the ingredients for desalination: sun + seawater.
Am I missing something?
- PeekPoke 12y agoThat's not desalination, that's salt production. :)
- dalke 12y agoDesalinization is expensive. A lot of the places undergoing severe drought aren't near the coast. Transporting water uphill is even more expensive, both in energy costs to pump and in construction, right-of-way, and repair costs. The new cost model is not compatible with some of the current economic systems. Cattle ranching requires a lot of water. It's not obvious that the cost of building a replacement system is justified. You might as well as "why are ppl complaining? Why don't they just move?" Both are expensive, though the latter also has emotional and civic costs that are harder to measure than desal water.
- bazzargh 12y agoScale. Building all of the 17 planned desalination plants would decrease the water deficit by 0.54 million acre-feet (MAF), but the actual shortfall is around 10 times that. It'll also take years to bring those online. You can try out solutions like that here, in the 'California Water Challenge' game: http://www.cawaterchallenge.org/responses http://www.cawaterchallenge.org/responses