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Maybe they can export their excess freshwater in giant tankers to CA to solve their drought problem. They already produce most of the electronics we consume.

by pmorici 12y ago

dalke 12y ago
If that were reasonable then we would tank water in from Alaska. Or China would buy AK water. If you want to dream big, in the 1980s there were pipe dreams of bringing in water from the Copper or the Stikine through a large off-shore pipeline to California.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  There have been serious proposals to ship Great Lakes water to Asia. This article mentions one: http://www.wbez.org/frontandcenter/2011-06-21/great-lakes-face-increasing-pressure-water-world-own-backyard-88159 http://www.wbez.org/frontandcenter/2011-06-21/great-lakes-fa... There is now an agreement placing tight limits on what happens to the water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes%E2%80%93Saint_Lawrence_River_Basin_Sustainable_Water_Resources_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes%E2%80%93Saint_Lawre...
  - dalke 12y ago
    There's serious and then there's serious. Fiji exports water to the US. I've heard of a bagel company in London which imports its water from New York City. People buy ice that comes from Alaskan glaciers. (Minor note: If you use under 20 tons/year of tidewater glacier ice then you don't need a permit.) So people are willing to pay a lot of money for provenance. Fiji Water is a good comparison. According to its Wikipedia page, it was exporting over 15 million liters/month. According to others, it was a least 3.5 million liters per month. According to http://www.alternet.org/story/101207/the_true_price_of_fiji_water http://www.alternet.org/story/101207/the_true_price_of_fiji_... it was 130 million liters in a year. I'll say it was 5 million L/month or 60 million L/year. According to the Wikipedia page for "Water export", the Great Lakes -> Asia deal was for 600 million liters, or about 10x of what a single well in Fiji can provide. Oil shipping costs something like $1.20/barrel from Qatar to Rotterdam, says https://books.google.com/books?id=cUHAAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA232&lpg=PA232&dq=supertanker+cost+per+barrel&source=bl&ots=wujrW689cS&sig=XSED9PyMmfzcxmwxP0JKv3g-xWw&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=C7UqVeWCFoLmyQPvxoCQAg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=supertanker%20cost%20per%20barrel&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=cUHAAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA232&lpg=... . A barrel is 120 liters, or 1 cent per liter shipping costs. That's about $12 thousand per acre-foot. The price of desal water is under $3,000 an acre-foot. If the goal was to market provenance - the Fiji Water of Asia - then it might be profitable. It otherwise doesn't seem like a serious proposal. If there were a were serious need, then I would expect to see water exports from Alaska, which allows bulk water exports (again, according to the "Water export" page at Wikipedia) and is a lot closer to Asia. Since there isn't, I have difficulties understanding how there's a serious proposal.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      There certainly isn't a serious existing proposal, there is a series of agreements making sure it isn't done. I was just saying that someone had thought about doing it, enough so that they went ahead and got a permit. I wonder what the prices for shipping and desal were in 1997...
      - dalke 12y ago
        Oh, I agree. I was just saying that there's "serious" and there's "serious" http://www.greatlakeswaterwars.com/chapter11.htm http://www.greatlakeswaterwars.com/chapter11.htm says that it was a for-profit "humanitarian effort on behalf of the world’s poor that was also designed to make money". I can't figure out how it was supposed to work. It looks like it comes down to person who wanted to do it was in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and thought of the tons of water in the backyard [paraphrasing]. So he and his partners could have been serious about, but there's no real chance it would work out. It doesn't really matter what the prices were in 1997. Alaska water is closer to Asia than the Great Lakes. If it made sense for Lake Superior, it would make even more sense for water from the Sitka. http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3723&method=full http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/ind... says that around the same time : > A company called Global Water Corp. has announced plans to ship up to 5 billion gallons a year of glacier water by tanker from Alaska, near the port city of Sitka, to the Middle East. The company said on its Internet web site that it has reached agreements with buyers in China, and that it plans to negotiate with interested parties in the southwest U.S. There's a lot of people who talk, in the hopes that someone else will front the money. It's not really a con, because it might actually work. But if things are borderline, it can help to sound serious and express no doubts.
adventured 12y ago
China already imports a vast amount of California's water via produce (eg their consumption of California almonds), so to be accurate it would be more like them sending the water back.

Maybe they can export their excess freshwater in giant tankers to CA to solve their drought problem. They already produce most of the electronics we consume.

by pmorici 12y ago

Maybe they can export their excess freshwater in giant tankers to CA to solve their drought problem. They already produce most of the electronics we consume.

dalke 12y ago

If that were reasonable then we would tank water in from Alaska. Or China would buy AK water. If you want to dream big, in the 1980s there were pipe dreams of bringing in water from the Copper or the Stikine through a large off-shore pipeline to California.

maxerickson 12y ago
There have been serious proposals to ship Great Lakes water to Asia. This article mentions one: http://www.wbez.org/frontandcenter/2011-06-21/great-lakes-face-increasing-pressure-water-world-own-backyard-88159 http://www.wbez.org/frontandcenter/2011-06-21/great-lakes-fa... There is now an agreement placing tight limits on what happens to the water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes%E2%80%93Saint_Lawrence_River_Basin_Sustainable_Water_Resources_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes%E2%80%93Saint_Lawre...
- dalke 12y ago
  There's serious and then there's serious. Fiji exports water to the US. I've heard of a bagel company in London which imports its water from New York City. People buy ice that comes from Alaskan glaciers. (Minor note: If you use under 20 tons/year of tidewater glacier ice then you don't need a permit.) So people are willing to pay a lot of money for provenance. Fiji Water is a good comparison. According to its Wikipedia page, it was exporting over 15 million liters/month. According to others, it was a least 3.5 million liters per month. According to http://www.alternet.org/story/101207/the_true_price_of_fiji_water http://www.alternet.org/story/101207/the_true_price_of_fiji_... it was 130 million liters in a year. I'll say it was 5 million L/month or 60 million L/year. According to the Wikipedia page for "Water export", the Great Lakes -> Asia deal was for 600 million liters, or about 10x of what a single well in Fiji can provide. Oil shipping costs something like $1.20/barrel from Qatar to Rotterdam, says https://books.google.com/books?id=cUHAAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA232&lpg=PA232&dq=supertanker+cost+per+barrel&source=bl&ots=wujrW689cS&sig=XSED9PyMmfzcxmwxP0JKv3g-xWw&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=C7UqVeWCFoLmyQPvxoCQAg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=supertanker%20cost%20per%20barrel&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=cUHAAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA232&lpg=... . A barrel is 120 liters, or 1 cent per liter shipping costs. That's about $12 thousand per acre-foot. The price of desal water is under $3,000 an acre-foot. If the goal was to market provenance - the Fiji Water of Asia - then it might be profitable. It otherwise doesn't seem like a serious proposal. If there were a were serious need, then I would expect to see water exports from Alaska, which allows bulk water exports (again, according to the "Water export" page at Wikipedia) and is a lot closer to Asia. Since there isn't, I have difficulties understanding how there's a serious proposal.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    There certainly isn't a serious existing proposal, there is a series of agreements making sure it isn't done. I was just saying that someone had thought about doing it, enough so that they went ahead and got a permit. I wonder what the prices for shipping and desal were in 1997...
    - dalke 12y ago
      Oh, I agree. I was just saying that there's "serious" and there's "serious" http://www.greatlakeswaterwars.com/chapter11.htm http://www.greatlakeswaterwars.com/chapter11.htm says that it was a for-profit "humanitarian effort on behalf of the world’s poor that was also designed to make money". I can't figure out how it was supposed to work. It looks like it comes down to person who wanted to do it was in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and thought of the tons of water in the backyard [paraphrasing]. So he and his partners could have been serious about, but there's no real chance it would work out. It doesn't really matter what the prices were in 1997. Alaska water is closer to Asia than the Great Lakes. If it made sense for Lake Superior, it would make even more sense for water from the Sitka. http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3723&method=full http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/ind... says that around the same time : > A company called Global Water Corp. has announced plans to ship up to 5 billion gallons a year of glacier water by tanker from Alaska, near the port city of Sitka, to the Middle East. The company said on its Internet web site that it has reached agreements with buyers in China, and that it plans to negotiate with interested parties in the southwest U.S. There's a lot of people who talk, in the hopes that someone else will front the money. It's not really a con, because it might actually work. But if things are borderline, it can help to sound serious and express no doubts.

adventured 12y ago

China already imports a vast amount of California's water via produce (eg their consumption of California almonds), so to be accurate it would be more like them sending the water back.