4 ms·
Why not look at something like nuclear? Since the need is both electricity and heat, a nuclear reactor seems ideal since you don't have to convert power back in
by jarito 12y ago
Why not look at something like nuclear? Since the need is both electricity and heat, a nuclear reactor seems ideal since you don't have to convert power back in to heat - you can just use it directly.
With modern recycling techniques and reactor designs the chance of meltdown and wastes are limited, but that seems better than more coal.
Not an expert on reactor design vs desal design by any means - would love an opinion on the challenges here outside the standard nuclear ones.
- mmoche 12y agoAgreed. Particularly for California which has heavy energy and water needs, nuclear desalination seems like the most future-proof approach, particularly considering the dramatic decrease in aquifer volume as groundwater is extracted to make up for drought-level rainfall.
- hyperbovine 12y agoThis seems to be a common fallacy: desal, which is being considered by a few wealthy urban water districts on the coast, will do absolutely nothing to alleviate overpumping by farmers in the Central Valley.
- mmoche 11y agoI think the goal would be to scale desalination efforts to the point where it can replace groundwater pumping statewide. This would come at a huge cost, sure, but once the groundwater runs out, the economics won't look so bad.
- hyperbovine 11y agoThe largest desal plant I am aware of is in Saudi Arabia and produces about 830 acre-feet of water a day. Irrigation Central Valley averages 110,000 acre-feet a day, although there are significant seasonal differences. Let's (generously) pretend that you somehow had space in coastal California (not exactly something we have a lot of here, and certainly not cheaply) to build ~60 desalination plants, each double the size of the largest plant in existence. Let's completely ignore the multiple gigawatts of additional power you'd need to run these things. Let's pretend that you somehow convinced the Coastal Commission, EPA, DFG, Fish and Wildlife Service, and all the other relevant entities that intake and discharge from several dozen huge new desal plants dotting the coastline would not significantly impact the marine environment. (Ha.) Assuming all that were true, you would still need to pump roughly 40 million acre feet of water a year from the coast, towards the foothills, in the complete opposite direction which nature intended. Never. Going. To. Happen. Sorry to rain on your parade, but this blind, frequently uninformed faith that Technology will save us from anything and everything just gets annoying after a while.
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- allendoerfer 12y agoMany places with water shortage are sunny and hot. In my mind it is the perfect use case for solar thermal power plants. I just love how simple they are. If we build coal or nuclear power plants, we just ditch one problem for another. It is also a great way to smoothen the varying production of renewal energy.
- jarito 12y agoThat's an interesting idea as well. A molten salt reactor or something similar would have the same benefits as nuclear, you just trade reliability for cleanliness. I would imagine that a molten salt set up would be significantly cheaper to build as well, but I could be wrong on that.
- spiritplumber 12y agoA good thing is that you don't care about normalizing usage: if the plant happens to only work during the day, it's fine, you can make fresh water during the day and use your storage tanks at night. Unlike with batteries, there's basically no waste in storing water overnight.
- LiweiZ 12y agoIn my experience working with one of the major players among Chinese nuclear power groups, nuclear power plants have low acceptance rate among local residents, perhaps even local governments, especially after Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. If I recall correctly, there was some big plan in government's 5 year master plan at that time. Well, there are more factors come to play. What I mentioned is just one of them.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]