California Looks To the Sea For a Drink of Water

HughPickens.com writes Justin Gillis writes in the NYT that as drought strikes California, residents can't help noticing the substantial reservoir of untapped water lapping at their shores — 187 quintillion gallons of it, more or less, shimmering invitingly in the sun. Once dismissed as too expensive and harmful to the environment desalination is getting a second look. A $1 billion desalination plant to supply booming San Diego County is under construction and due to open as early as November, providing a major test of whether California cities will be able to resort to the ocean to solve their water woes. "It was not an easy decision to build this plant," says Mark Weston, chairman of the agency that supplies water to towns in San Diego County. "But it is turning out to be a spectacular choice. What we thought was on the expensive side 10 years ago is now affordable."

Carlsbad's product will sell for around $2,000 per acre-foot (the amount used by two five-person U.S. households per year), which is 80 percent more than the county pays for treated water from outside the area. Water bills already average about $75 a month and the new plant will drive them up by $5 or so to secure a new supply equal to about 7 or 8 percent of the county's water consumption. Critics say the plant will use a huge amount of electricity, increasing the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, which further strains water supplies. And local environmental groups, which fought the plant, fear a substantial impact on sea life. "There is just a lot more that can be done on both the conservation side and the water-recycling side before you get to [desalination]," says Rick Wilson, coastal management coordinator with the environmental group Surfrider Foundation. "We feel, in a lot of cases, that we haven't really explored all of those options."

Comments

But not to Nestle.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Nestle has been bottling the California water, which it takes at some abysmally low cost and ships it out. May be it would be cheaper for California to just buy the entire output of Nestle at market prices than to embark on this desalination process.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost per bottle

Re:But not to Nestle.

[the_humeister]

Wouldn't help much. They bottle about 500 million gallons of water a year. California residents use about 1 trillion gallons a year (about 10% of California's yearly water usage). To put that into perspective: almond farms use about 1.2 trillion gallons a year; alfalfa farms use about 1.5 trillion gallons a year.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Rei]

Agriculture is the big culprit, taking 80% of the state's water (and in return ag and mining together only make up 2% of the economy). Its a totally unsustainable situation that has to be remedied sooner or later.

That said, I do have hope for the future of desalination. Not with current techs (as with the one in the article, they're energy hungry and expensive), but potentially with new techs that don't rely on electricity as their power source. One I find interesting is this one. Basically, it relies on evaporation, which isn't unique... but *not* by capturing the evaporated water. It's just concentrated salt solution that's desired, which means that you don't need some sort of elaborate vapor capture system and sealed tanks, just simply any sort of open area that can hold water - even an endoherric basin or jettied-off chunk of ocean. Far, far cheaper.

Concentrated brine is turned into freshwater via ion bridges: it's connected to two tanks of normal seawater, one by a positive ion bridge and the other by a negative ion bridge. The brine greatly wants to dilute into the normal seawater, but it can't because the ions would be imbalanced in the two side tanks. So these two side tanks are connected to a third tank of seawater with the opposite ion bridges, so that salt can dilute from the brine into the two seawater tanks, but only if they also "suck" the opposite ion out of the final seawater tank. Since the brine concentrated brine wants to dilute so much, the action is energetically favorable and continues until there's no salt left in the third tank - aka, it's freshwater. (An actual implementation would be a continuous process, not fixed tanks, of course)

Apart from basic pumping needs, there's no electricity needed. The energy source is just "sun falling on any water chunk of seawater that's not free to circulate with the open ocean". You might even be able to have it filled automatically in some places via the tides or waves breaking over a jetty without having to pump new seawater in, leaving the only pumping needs for distribution.

Of course, the main tech limitation right now is making the salt bridges have high enough throughput and reliability to justify the capital costs.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not helping.

What they nee to do is stop selling subsidized water to farms. Especially almond and alfalfa. Let them pay market rates.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Applehu Akbar]

Since existing desalination methods produce brine as their "waste" product, couldn't we use this technology to increase the freshwater output of desal plants in sunny areas?

And the whole idea that desalination destroys the environment somehow is an example of why I have zero respect for environmentalists and will not listen to anything they say (to me, a real environmental problem is one pointed out by scientists working in their own fields). No human activity destroys water; it just gets shuffled around in non-natural ways before resuming its original form. Desalination produces brine that can be fed back at some careful rate into the ocean or retained onshore for the salt and minerals. One way or another, all of the freshwater and brine produced by man becomes the original seawater eventually.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[gtall]

Unless you pump the excise brine directly back into the ocean and kill all the life around the pump outlet. Similar thing happens with CO2. I've head the specious argument we don't have to worry because we're just recycling CO2 by burning coal, oil, and gas. Yes, that's true. However, it is important to note that all the sequestered CO2 put into the atmosphere isn't mere recycling.

As in everything, it is important to have a sense of proportion. Math is your friend.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[pixelpusher220]

don't rely on electricity as their power source

Why wouldn't we use the single most abundant energy source on the planet to power something that is energy intensive? Oh and said energy source has no fuel costs?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[MightyMartian]

Desalination on the level being talked about here would produce huge amounts of salt and other minerals. Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat. So while some objections may be hyperbolic, the underlying concern of serious environmental harm is justified. Getting rid of that salt has to be part of the plan, and not just a "oh well, we'll figure something out".

Re:But not to Nestle.

[ShanghaiBill]

And the whole idea that desalination destroys the environment somehow is an example of why I have zero respect for environmentalists

The environmental problem with desalination is not that it "uses up" water, but that it is a voracious consumer of energy. It is idiotic for San Diego to produce expensive and energy intensive desalinated water, when a short distance away in the Imperial Valley, farmers are receiving water for a hundredth the cost. Central planning has been a failure everywhere, and it is failing in California. The government should not be picking winners and losers, or segmenting the market into favored certain sectors. Instead they should just let the market set the price for water. The alfalfa and rice farms will disappear from the desert, and the desalination plants will not be necessary. We don't have a shortage of water, we have a surplus of stupidity.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[drinkypoo]

Desalination on the level being talked about here would produce huge amounts of salt and other minerals. Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat.

Are you serious? You are aware that sea salt is a thing, right? Even if it's not suitable for human consumption, you can still use it to grit the walk.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Ichijo]

The brine won't kill anything if it's sufficiently disbursed.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[MightyMartian]

What exactly is your criticism of my post? Your's is so bizarre and confused it's difficult to tell.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your use of the apostrophe is bizarre and confused.
yours -> already possessive
your's -> doesn't exist

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Crashmarik]

What exactly is your criticism of my post? Your's is so bizarre and confused it's difficult to tell.

I was perfectly able to understand his post. He pointed out that there are commercial uses for salt. On the other hand your post and attitude seems to scream of a lack of thought. I have no idea how anyone can write this line

Desalination on the level being talked about here would produce huge amounts of salt and other minerals

As if it is some sort of problem.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Solandri]

Why wouldn't we use the single most abundant energy source on the planet to power something that is energy intensive? Oh and said energy source has no fuel costs?

Because it's stupid to collect solar energy with PV cells, which convert it to electricity, which gets stored chemically in a battery, which gets converted back to electricity, which gets converted to rotational mechanical energy in a motor, which gets converted to linear mechanical energy in pumps which, which gets converted to pressure mechanical energy for the desalination reverse osmosis filters to operate. All those energy conversions absolutely kill your efficiency. Why bother with all those conversions if you can come up with a way for sunlight to directly drive your desalination?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize what that could mean to the starving nations of the earth?

They'd have enough salt to last forever!

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Desalination on the level being talked about here would produce huge amounts of salt and other minerals. Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat.

Are you serious? You are aware that sea salt is a thing, right? Even if it's not suitable for human consumption, you can still use it to grit the walk.

Sea salt is fit for human consumption and probably suitable for horse licks and cow licks (salt blocks for the unknowing among us). Wendy's was running a promotion a few months ago advertising sea salt on their French fries. Very tasty.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Applehu Akbar]

If you return the salt to the sea, it's not hard to disperse it into deep-sea currents so you don't get superconcentrations of salt in one place. All of that salt came from the sea, and all of the separated freshwater will return to it also.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[penix1]

I can see another aspect besides the waste in electricity... The microscopic life in the ocean that is the foundation of the food chain that will eventually lead to us is not considered in the environmental assessments. They are only worried about the higher multi-cellular life. The ocean is one of the most diverse places on Earth. I can see us fucking up that diversity much like we fucked up everything else we touched in nature.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Applehu Akbar]

The high cost of desalination is for the current reverse osmosis process, which requires high pressure to force the water through separation membranes. Now that graphene manufacturing is starting up (watch for the brand name Perforene), the cost of desal will fall off a cliff.

We may also see the output brine become a revenue stream. Because it represents a superconcentration of minerals, we're going to see industrial minerals extracted from brine in addition to the salt itself, which has been an industrial commodity since ancient times. We may see a lot less salt returned to the sea than we take from it.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we form it into salt bullets and shoot baby seals with them?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the environmentalists will not listen to anything you say, because you are busy chasing a straw man to justify closing your own ears.

The brine is a problem that has to be addressed, you may believe that it's something that can be managed, industry sources may say it, but isn't it worth being sure? To have a plan? To consider things?

Or would you rather just go with the leaded gasoline solution?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Applehu Akbar]

The CO2 comparison makes no sense because a desalination system separates salt from water now, for use now and then reuniting them in the sea a relatively short time from now. Most of our CO2 comes from the burning of fossil fuels that were laid down millions of years ago. The CO2 will return as coal and oil more millions of years from now.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Hognoxious]

Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat.

Form it into blocks and build houses with it. It doesn't rain that often down there, does it?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

California residents use about 1 trillion gallons a year (about 10% of California's yearly water usage). To put that into perspective: almond farms use about 1.2 trillion gallons a year; alfalfa farms use about 1.5 trillion gallons a year.

Not the past few years......farmers have been getting 50% (or less) of their normal amount of water. This year, for example, an almond farmer near Manteca who is used to getting 48 inches a year will be lucky to get 18 inches.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[mspohr]

"A hundred billion gallons of water per year is being exported in the form of alfalfa from California," Robert Glennon, a professor at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, told the BBC, which claims it's now cheaper to send alfalfa from Los Angeles to Beijing via ship than to truck it from the Imperial Valley to the Central Valley."

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird, I was assured that asteroids are where our resources will be coming from.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

Agriculture is the big culprit, taking 80% of the state's water (and in return ag and mining together only make up 2% of the economy). Its a totally unsustainable situation that has to be remedied sooner or later.

That isn't true, and hasn't been true for years. Farmers are promised 80% of the state's water, but even in good years they haven't been getting that for a while. This year farmers are getting less than half the water that they've been promised.

Incidentally, the water fights between urban and rural dwellers have been going on for well over a century, and will probably continue far into the future. "Stupid farmers, taking all the water." "Stupid city slickers, what are they going to eat?"

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

They could sell the salt to governments that use large quantities of it for their roads in the winter. Since it is a byproduct it can be cheaper than mined salt. Salt miners might not like it, but less mining could be ecologically beneficial.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[ProfessionalCookie]

Couldn't you dilute the brine with seawater (just pump seawater into the discharge pipe) before its final discharge, or discharge at low pressure over a large area.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[ShanghaiBill]

The high cost of desalination is for the current reverse osmosis process, which requires high pressure to force the water through separation membranes. Now that graphene manufacturing is starting up (watch for the brand name Perforene), the cost of desal will fall off a cliff.

The high pressure is not because of the membrane resistance, but because of the osmotic pressure. That is not going away, unless some fundamental physical laws are repealed, including the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Better membranes can make a small difference, but not much. Also, for some weird reason, oceans tend to be located in low lying areas, so you need to factor in the cost of pumping the water uphill to the users. Pumping water already uses 10% of all the electricity generated in California.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Rei]

Let's just take this at face value, and let's falsely pretend that the water shortages aren't also causing cutbacks by residential consumers. Then that's 40% of the state's water to provide a fraction of 2% of the GDP, in drought conditions.

Even in your scenario, do you think this is appropriate?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

Let's just take this at face value, and let's falsely pretend that the water shortages aren't also causing cutbacks by residential consumers. Then that's 40% of the state's water to provide a fraction of 2% of the GDP, in drought conditions.

Personally? I think you're a moron for using GDP as a valid way to allocate water resources. Seriously? Where did that idea even come from?......When a residential consumer drinks water, they are producing 0% of GDP.....You need to think a little more before responding.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Greyfox]

The FDA recommends that you have no more than 2.3 grams of salt a day. Three hundred fifty million Americans could therefore consume 805000 kg of salt on a daily basis. So... just put it on the fries!

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

I get so sick of right ring talking points. The sad part is people believe them. It is based around the idea that you will get the most efficient outcome based purely on capitalism. Pure capitalism optimizes to make money, and thats it. Worse, it tends to only look at what profit can be made in say the next year or so. Doing the kinds of things required to address the water shortage is likely to not be a money maker, at least not that quickly. It is also likely to involve considerable risk. Government may cnoose for the long term good to take those kinds of risks with government money, since their job is to serve the people, not the shareholders. At any rate central planning, or rather planning period is not the problem. Bad planning, on the other hand may be, but then you have to work to better elect competent people to positions of power so they don't screw up. Of course, given that it may be profitable for a corporation to bankroll indirectly candidates that will screw up in useful ways, well that is another kettle of fish... That being said...

I do agree about the market setting the price for water though. Also, while I don't see a need to privatize who maintains our water system, since that would just increase the costs by having to factor in profit, I do think that the people selling the water should simply increase water costs as necessary to address the shortage, and then, if they have enough money, why not put in desalination solutions? That way the market will have spoken. In the short term though, yes, setting some limits on water usage also makes sense. You have to deal with the reality you have, not the one you want and it is probably cheaper for the consumer and users of water to first set some reasonable limits but prices have to go up as well to reflect reality and with something like water you probably don't want to distort the market by subsidising it from the general tax base, since that would have regular users increasing the profits of farms, which would be stupid. (A case where it makes sense to do projects out of the general tax base would be something like roads or probably even internet access.)

Re: But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

I admire your Fox News take on the situation. It's hilarious and very clever. Why didn't you end it by saying that the carbon in a few million years would end up as sparkly, beautiful diamonds or pencils for schoolchildren?

Right now, the carbon would return as acidified oceans which harbor less life.

Re: But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

You think we put table salt on our roads? Wrong kind of salt, kid.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAC, Kuwait, and many other desert countries have this problem solved for decades, and disperse the high salt brine in one of the larger currents, and relative to the water in that current, the added salt is like the added smoke from a candle affecting the atomosphere.

The problem with California is NIMBY and eco-perfection. So many times I read that someone comes up with a "good" solution, but because it is not 100% perfect, it gets tossed. Look how for a decade, California had brownouts and other power problems, and absolutely nothing was done. It took Enron's collapse for reliable power to come back to that state. Now it is water, and people rather live in a wasteland than bother to lift a finger with a working (though not 100% eco-perfect) solution.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[drinkypoo]

What exactly is your criticism of my post?

You're so ignorant and/or so deliberately disingenuous that you appear to be completely off your nut.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Disbursing over a trillion gallons of brine each year is a huge problem. Not that it could not be done... but the salinity levels in the ocean would certainly rise in the vicinity of the dispersion field, and make the are potentially hazardous for aquatic life...

Re:But not to Nestle.

[cjsm]

It is idiotic for San Diego to produce expensive and energy intensive desalinated water, when a short distance away in the Imperial Valley, farmers are receiving water for a hundredth the cost. Central planning has been a failure everywhere, and it is failing in California. The government should not be picking winners and losers, or segmenting the market into favored certain sectors. Instead they should just let the market set the price for water.

The core problem here isn't 'leftist' central planning by the government, it is wealthy right-wing farmers, businessmen and corporations corrupting the government to do their bidding. The rich farmers and corporations will fight for their water 'rights' with millions in campaign contributions and assorted bribes, both legal and illegal. If these were poor immigrant Mexican farmers their water would have been taken long ago.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[topology]

Let's just take this at face value, and let's falsely pretend that the water shortages aren't also causing cutbacks by residential consumers. Then that's 40% of the state's water to provide a fraction of 2% of the GDP, in drought conditions.

Personally? I think you're a moron for using GDP as a valid way to allocate water resources. Seriously? Where did that idea even come from?......When a residential consumer drinks water, they are producing 0% of GDP.....You need to think a little more before responding.

*scratches head* Um.... a person needs to drink water to live. A person needs to live in order to work... GDP requires human work.... So we could take the average of GDP generated per person in the population and then average GDP per drink of water per person in the population and come up with a more legitimate value of GDP / drink of water than 0$. Perhaps you are the person needing to think a little more? Even taking into account the distribution of GDP across all the other necessities, food, housing, etc. the GDP per glass of water is still not $0. 0 Glasses of water per person for 7 days, and GDP will be at 0 from there on out.

Re: But not to Nestle.

[Sique]

Actually, yes. At least here the salt for deicing roads is mainly sodium chloride.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dump it on the salt flats. Problem solved.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Robert Heinlein wrote a book about that, but he called it the Moon instead of California and they were exporting to India instead of China.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[drinkypoo]

Sea salt is fit for human consumption

Oh yes, there's a variety of sea salts available at most grocery stores in California. But there is some question about the wisdom of concentrating the goodies in the modern sea and then putting them in your food. Mined salt is also sea salt, it's just ancient sea salt. As an added bonus, it often contains other interesting minerals which offer their own flavor components.

My point was that even if what you got out of a desal plant wasn't good for human consumption, that it would still have substantial commercial purpose, and that therefore its production would be a boon and not a bane.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[blindseer]

Agriculture is the big culprit, taking 80% of the state's water (and in return ag and mining together only make up 2% of the economy). Its a totally unsustainable situation that has to be remedied sooner or later.

That's only relevant if the people of California do not eat or buy products made of metals, like automobiles, washing machines, computers, pots & pans, or canned foods & beverages.

Would you prefer that California's economy relied 80% on farming and mining? It could mean that California reverts to an economy of the gold rush days where most everyone was a miner or rancher. California could make agriculture and mining use only 2% of the water. It could mean driving mining and agriculture out of the state, driving up prices for nearly everything we buy.

Be careful what you wish for.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[ixidor]

sell it to the east coast for winter road salting?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[amber_of_luxor]

Southern California can either use the Salton Sea as a dumping ground for the brine, or build a canal from the Salton Sea to the Pacific Ocean, reflood the Salton Sea, and build desalination plants on the Salton Sea, dumping the brine right back into the Salton Sea.

Counter-intuitively, dumping brine into the Salton Sea will reduce the amount of salt in it.

Building a canal from the Salton Sea to the Pacific Ocean, could be enough to trigger a jump in real production of goods in California. (Part of it is from demolishing existing structures, including the flood plain, and part of it is from building replacement structures.) Worst case scenario is that it promotes local jobs, in a fashion that few other government programs are capable of doing.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[amber_of_luxor]

I take it that you are not aware of the desalination plants that are solar powered, and distill the water.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[climb_no_fear]

10-20% energy savings according to manufacturer
http://lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/ms2/documents/Perforene-datasheet.pdf

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

How much water do you think we're going to desal and hold out of the ocean at any given time? It seems like you have no sense of the various magnitudes involved here. The ocean is big. Our fresh water needs are negligible. Humans couldn't case a measurable change in ocean salinity if we devoted the combined resources of every one on the planet to nothing else. You might be able to push it up a little locally if you dump the salt in a harbor or something... soooo... don't do that. duh.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[pixelpusher220]

I'm all for whatever works. The Ion Bridge method described above requires vast areas of water separated from other areas. So the basic problem is the same as hydro power. It's great but not scaleable to meet the needs of more than the relative local area. From the descriptions & googling it doesn't seem quite ready to supply water for LA.

The thing about solar to electricity to batteries to whatever is not that there is loss along the way. Basically any system has that. It's that efficiency is significantly less of an issue when your fuel is free.

It's why US cars in the 50s got 7 mph and nobody really cared. Gas was plentiful and cheap. Now imagine if it was free and fell on your own land? You can draw the power for the current tech desalination plant from all over the city.

Come up with a better desal process? Great! in the meantime LA needs water right now and solar can easily supply the needs of current tech with very little planning.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

The brine concentrate could be spread out over large Salt evaporation ponds. Since it has a higher concentration of salt then sea water it would make the ponds more efficient per acre. Also, There could be a ion bridge stage the used the brine concentrate and concentrated it further followed by another stage and so on until it just didn't pay to ad stages in which case you dumped out over a large flat area to sun dry. Yummy Sea Salt!

If this really took off there might be too much salt being produced. If that's the case then we can dump it back into the salt mines.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

So......is your point that we should use 'contribution to GDP' as the method for allocating water? Otherwise I'm not sure what you're saying.

Also, you are using a different method for making the calculation, including indirect effects. If you're going to calculate it like that, then contribution of farmers to GDP is much higher too, so fix your numbers.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Rei]

*I'm* saying that when people and businesses are struggling to get water, and there's *one* industry out there that's only a tiny portion of the economy that's making everyone else suffer, then it's a situation that ought to be remedied.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

So, you ARE saying that GDP is a reasonable way of distributing water.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[toadlife]

You're not counting groundwater. Nut crops are so profitable that farmers can afford to drill million dollar wells to make up for their lack of surface water allocations and still make money.

California's groundwater is completely unregulated and at this moment, and our aquifers, which take thousands of years to build up, are being irreparably damaged.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[toadlife]

Thank you.

I live down in Kings County, which affectionately call "Mississippi, CA."

Recently, the state passed the first groundwater regulation in CA's history, only to fuck it up by placing the job of regulation in the hands of local municipalities.

The problem with that?

Farmers hold the vast majority of political offices here.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[ShanghaiBill]

I take it that you are not aware of the desalination plants that are solar powered, and distill the water.

No sane person would build a large modern desalination plant using distillation, and that is not what San Diego is doing.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

The best way to replenish an aquifer is through flood irrigation.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[penix1]

Who said anything about salinity change as the only thing doing the damage? The whole process ignores microscopic organisms from the intake to the filters to the osmosis process.

You might be able to push it up a little locally if you dump the salt in a harbor or something... soooo... don't do that. duh.

And that is exactly what they will do because it is the cheapest option that the lowest bid waste contractor has. It wouldn't be the first time humans created a toxic waste dump...

Re:But not to Nestle.

[AK Marc]

Unless you pump the excise brine directly back into the ocean and kill all the life around the pump outlet.

You just dilute it. Pump in raw seawater/brine at a 10:1 ratio. The 10% brine solution will not be nearly as bad as the people who assume a single pipe outlet will be pumping out pure brine. You also pump it out in a long pipe with small adjustable vents along the length, with smaller amounts from each vent.

The total impact on the environment is negligible. As in, outside a sensor in the brine outlet, you won't be able to reliably detect it.

There's no overall effect on the ocean. The "pure" water removed will make it back shortly as rain or runoff. And if you like, you can process a portion the brine into salt. In a desert like CA, the process shouldn't take too long. And will reduce the total salinity of the ocean to offset any increase by the brine.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[MobSwatter]

Meh... Offshore oil wells, oil spills, dead and dying sea life. How about them keys to the palace for Tahoe with enough fresh water to cover Cali a foot deep? I have them. Place is a shithole anyway.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[rtb61]

People are often fooled when it comes to potable water. Those 'basic' pumping needs are the huge problem when it comes to desalination. The first thing to do is lower the plant. The lower the plant in relation to sea level, the less energy is wasted on pumping waste water (typically desalination have an efficiency rating around twenty percent, meaning five times as much water needs to be pumped as potable water is produced). Next up you have to push all that water up hill, tons and tons of it up from sea level to the level at which it will be used and the pressure you get will be defined by gravity, the number of metres of fall (that pressure should be a sharp reminder of how much energy is required to move that water up hills, from sea level). We use lots of it and moving it around is the big cost, not removing undesirable impurities.

So reducing demand is the biggest improvement. The obvious thing is the promotion of industrial scale aquaponics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... to reduce water consumption, with the added benefits of, year round localised employment and, very close proximity of production to demand. So large scale research and application of process, to substantively alter socio economic methods in times of environmental stress.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[toadlife]

Flood irrigation with water from where? There is no surface water left.

Ground water? Do you believe in perpetual motion machines too?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[AK Marc]

Yes. It's actually hard to run a plant as bad for the environment as the environmentalists are calling for. It's almost all strawmen.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

Flood irrigation with water from where? There is no surface water left.

There will be next year, or maybe the year after. It's just a matter of prioritizing it.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Cyberax]

Perhaps you don't understand how HUGE is the ocean. A typical storm evaporates more water (thus increasing the salt content of the surface water) than all desalination plants in California could ever hope to do. With zero effects on the wild life. Moreover, natural salt content varies quite a lot completely naturally.

Plus, there's a strong current along the Californian coast, so dispersing the little bit of brine which is going to be produced is extremely easy.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Applehu Akbar]

If all porous materials required high osmotic pressure, MIT woud never have suggested graphene as an alternative membrane in the first place. This paper cites drastically reduced pressure requirements with nanoporous graphene:
http://scitation.aip.org/conte...
The highest hurdle to production is not pressure, but manufacturability of the nanoporous graphene itself.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Rei]

On the decision of whether to sacrifice an industry to provide the substance that people need to live, then YES.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Rei]

You're mistaken. The main reason desal plants consume so much energy in pumping is not due to sea level changes, it's to provide sufficient osmotic pressure for the membranes. Freshwater is in a higher energy state than saltwater, and that energy must be provided in some way or another. In the brine desalination system, it's provided by the sun evaporating seawater to brine. In a conventional osmotic system it's electricity running pumps.

Sunlight is free**. Electricity is one of the most expensive forms of energy commonly used by humans.

** - Apart from your capturing system. But the beauty part here is how incredibly cheap the capture system is vs. how much solar energy it captures.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

what ? http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/sel-marin-de-guerande-french-grey-sea-salt. or is pacfic salt too radioactive these days ?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[bingoUV]

If you're going to calculate it like that, then contribution of farmers to GDP is much higher too, so fix your numbers.

No. Farmers sell their produce to "city dwellers". Once sold, produce (food) belongs to the city dwellers and their eating it and producing wealth doesn't contribute to farmers' contribution to GDP at all.

Farmers are free to raise the price of their produce and hence increase their contribution to GDP.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[tehcyder]

will be lucky to get 18 inches

fnarr fnarr

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Andy Dodd]

"Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat."

Huh?

http://www.foodiemoment.com/20...

There are large facilities dedicated to simply evaporating seawater to generate salt...

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

I see. By your logic, we should just get rid of farmers altogether, since they are such an insignificant part of GDP.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[bingoUV]

No, you don't seem to understand my logic at all. Or economics, for that matter.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[lightbounce]

Agriculture is the big culprit, taking 80% of the state's water

Nonsense. In the first place, half the state's ground water flows to the sea and is never tapped for various reasons (e.g., recreational and environmental). Agriculture does take 80% of what's left, which means it only uses 40% of the state's water. You have to treat the recreational and environmental uses of water as part of the overall issue. They reflect choices by the state's population, just as having a green lawn does. The environment won't collapse if the delta smelt gets trapped in irrigation pumps, preserving it instead is a choice made by others.

While this has been the worst drought on record, in the past agriculture and the state's urban areas have always managed to get by during previous droughts. What's seldom mentioned, for example, is that California's population has grown since the last major drought, and there have been more mandated environmental diversions. But of course, nobody ever considers these as part of the problem.

If you want food, it takes plenty of land, plenty of sunshine, and plenty of water. It happens that California has some of the best land and sunshine in the world for growing crops. Water was always an issue. But to say that agriculture "wastes" water is nonsense. Even when it's subsidized, it's still a major cost to any Californian farmer. There have always been incentives to reduce its use. I grew up on a California farm from the '60s to the '80s, and saw the advent of drip irrigation, sophisticated monitoring, and other advances. The state even metered the wells in our area in the '80s and eventually started charging for water.

It's easy for people who have never been on a farm to point fingers. But how many of them run the faucets while they shave or brush their teeth, never turn off the shower while they soap up, and over-water their lawns? This is just the tyranny of the majority over a minority -- one which provides a product essential to life.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[MooseTick]

"our aquifers, which take thousands of years to build up"

A few decades of missing water is not going to affect a process that takes millennia to happen

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

could it be used to make pickles?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we use all the excess salt to form a tomb for all of our nuclear waste and bury it somewhere in the Nevada desert?

Re:But not to Nestle.

[david_thornley]

Under normal circumstances, a few decades of missing water isn't going to affect a millennia-long process. However, when we're not only not replenishing the ground water but sucking it out at a frightening rate, a few decades can have a major impact.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[rtb61]

Once pressure is established it is easy to maintain, you just replace what you have produced and pressure can obviously be maintained with water head http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H..., again shifting water about. The only reason to have the plant as low as possible is to minimise energy lost in waste water. Shifting water hundreds of metres up hill chews up huge amounts of energy and the problem is, all that energy is lost and in fact even more energy is required to remove the waste water produced at the point of use because sewer systems can not function based upon falls alone (the falls required become hugely excessive) and also require pumping. Rivers fall to the sea and cities drawing their water from a dam higher than the average city elevation save huge amounts of energy. You could run an reverse osmosis filtration plant on gravity alone if the source contaminated water was higher than the required delivery point for potable water and the height difference required is not as great as you seem to think.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[mattack2]

Pure capitalism optimizes to make money, and thats it. Worse, it tends to only look at what profit can be made in say the next year or so. Doing the kinds of things required to address the water shortage is likely to not be a money maker, at least not that quickly.

(I agree with you a tiny tiny bit regarding needing environmental laws to slightly temper the "pure capitalism" tendencies, if one is to dump their sewage in the river behind the factory.)

Yet Tesla & Space-X are both for profit companies, making big long term gambles on huge industry changing goals.

Also, while it's not the same, recently I've heard of the exact opposite, charity, being done quantitatively. Some people are finally looking at the investment/reward "payback" of various charities.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[phantomfive]

It's not very good logic.

The importance of food is not measurable through GDP. Your attempts to do so are moronic.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[bingoUV]

Importance of exportable food is, idiot. US is one of the biggest exporters of food. Almonds bring discussed here are mostly exported.

Re:But not to Nestle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nestle has been bottling the California water, which it takes at some abysmally low cost and ships it out. May be it would be cheaper for California to just buy the entire output of Nestle at market prices than to embark on this desalination process.

these come from bad deals by municipalities that sold out their water rights a long time ago but now hurts people outside the municipalities. What needs to be done for things like this is to tax the hell out of water bottled in California. There is no way to break the contract but you can make it not worth it for them to use it. If you taxed it like tobacco - it would keep the profits from stealing the water - or you can use the $ for desalinization or water purchase.

Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

California and many other states are draining their rivers, and aquifers dry (killing not only the water life but everything around for miles)... way better to try and pull their water needs from the ocean.

Re:Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Rei]

I wonder if they could help increase the economic picture via value-added product recovery from the discharge brine. The oceans have an interesting mix of dissolved minerals and there's already interest in recovery of a number of them; perhaps the concentration of the discharge brine could help improve their economics a bit.

(of course, what I find a more interesting possibility for recovery is mining the pacific garbage patch for minerals that have over the course of years soaked up into the plastic from the seawater)

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tell Californians that brine makes skin look younger and more vibrant and see how fast they build brine production plants on the coast.

On a more serious note, if we were more willing to build proper nuclear energy plants the electrical usage would be less of an issue. On top of that brine seems to be useful for storage of nuclear waste. Win-win?

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Rei]

Nuclear power is expensive. Desalination water is expensive because of the electricity cost. Are you proposing to raise the cost even further?

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[sjames]

Nuclear power is cheap. The political process is expensive.

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Desalination can be done using the waste heat from high temperature reactors like LFTR, so the power is essentially free. Even if using electricity from conventional reactors though, it is still cheaper than the alternatives.

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear power plants create a lot of waste heat that could at least in part power the desalination plants.

Different AC.

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[amber_of_luxor]

In the short term, nuclear energy is cheap.

In the long term, nuclear energy is the most expensive option that is available.
Hint: After factoring in all of the costs, it currently cost one trillion dollars to produce one watt of electricity from nuclear power. That figure climbs at around two percent per month, and will continue to do so, for then dozen millennia.

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Rei]

All thermal power plants (which make up the vast majority of power plants) can do that, so that buys you nothing in favor of nuclear in particular.
 

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[sjames]

Citation very much needed!

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that nuclear is the only reliable non-carbon emitting option.

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Your math seems a bit off there... Care to share how you came up with those numbers?

Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison

[Rei]

Solar thermal doesn't count? Biomass doesn't count? Geothermal doesn't count?

Also, on the other side of the spectrum, captured industrial heat doesn't count?

I agree that the world needs to do more with waste heat. But it's not much of an argument for nuclear because heat in general is widely available but thrown away across the board as it stands. Tons and tons of heat, very little usage. And it is possible to economically use, mind you. Here in Iceland for example we use the waste heat from our geothermal plants for all sorts of things - and that's not even as high temperature as most thermal plants' waste heat. We have a whole municipal hot water distribution system running to the lion's share of homes and businesses in the country.

Just in time!

[Anonymous Coward]

In about 9 months, Solaren will be supplying California's PG&E with space-based solar power, so the whole carbon dioxide thing will be moot.

I mean with private space and 3D printing, surely 9 months is plenty of time to build the whole thing and launch it, just as promised? Space will save us, right?

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3019...

Sure, all the news is from 2009, surely they have been working in "Stealth" mode all the more to surprise the species?

Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

The environmental groups are right. American families use a lot more water than those in other countries with a similar quality of life. It's always cheaper to save water or save energy, the problem is that people are unwilling and take it as some kind of assault on their way of life and freedom to waste. It's dumb because it just costs them more money.

Re:Lifestyle

[the_humeister]

Except California's water usage per capita is one of the lowest (if not the lowest) in the country.

Re:Lifestyle

[alen]

in america we are expected to shower daily

Re:Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

Low for the US. Not low by the standards of other developed nations with similar or better quality of life.

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Just 20% of water usage in California comes from residents and non-ag businesses. 80% of water usage comes from agriculture. Almonds alone (70% of which are exported out of the country) account for about the same amount of water as all residences in the state.

People could switch to a two-minute shower once a week and it wouldn't make a measurable difference. Flood irrigation in a desert is the real problem, and until that's universally recognized, nothing will be solved.

If you retrofitted all almond groves to use drip irrigation, you could maintain the same crop output at less than half the water usage. Why not? Because it costs money, and growers would rather just pull more from their wells. The aquifers in California are a true Tragedy of the Commons.

Re:Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Except California's water usage per capita is one of the lowest (if not the lowest) in the country.

Except nowhere else on the planet do 50 million people live in what's effectively a desert while demanding all kinds of "free" services.

Re: Lifestyle

[the_humeister]

Citations? Here're mine:

USA uses about 1500 m3/capita/year, which is similar to New Zealand (1200 m3/capita/year) and Canada (1400 m3/capita/year). Compare with California alone, we're at 178 gallons/capita/day which is 245 m3/capita/year. That's lower than most countries.

Re: Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

You link puts the US in the very highest bracket, along with countries near the equator. If you compare with similar developed nations on similar latitudes like those in Europe the US uses 4-5x as much water per person.

Re: Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

Almonds alone (70% of which are exported out of the country) account for about the same amount of water as all residences in the state.

That's why in other countries they have made farmers switch to more suitable crops that don't need so much water, or do as you suggest and use more efficient watering methods. Almonds are nice and all but is it really a good idea to use so much of your limited water supply on them?

That's why I mean by lifestyle. Not just showing less (FYI we shower just as much in Europe), changing what you eat, what you grow, what industries you allow to use massive amount of water. Ask yourself why almonds continue to be grown, even though it is causing so many problems.

Re:Lifestyle

[trout007]

It's always cheaper to save water or save energy,.

That's not true at all. There are diminishing returns.

Re: Lifestyle

[TheGavster]

I think that the 70% export figure indicates that while "other countries" have switched which crops they grow, they haven't changed their almond consumption rate. Similar to how the western world has eliminated the environmentally destructive extraction techniques necessary for rare earth metals, but still buys cell phones because China is willing to take the hit.

Re: Lifestyle

[Intrepid imaginaut]

It was pretty clear what you meant and you weren't making a point about farming. This kind of econut proselytising is why people are not inclined to listen to environmentalist activist groups.

Not just showing less (FYI we shower just as much in Europe)

Not even showering less. Get the memo, the lifestyles of the citizenry aren't the problem.

Re: Lifestyle

[the_humeister]

How does that explain Canada then?

Re: Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

I don't know, but to hazard a guess I'd say either they don't have a water supply problem due to geography or they suck only slightly less than US does.

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is a moot point, since we're talking about California, which is less than 1/5 the US average water usage. It's even further rendered moot by the fact that individual water use is only 10% of the overall water usage.

Re: Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

I don't have data for almond consumption rates, but Europe does have the Regulation of Hazardous Substances directive (RoHS) which means that China has had to clean up products it exports to us, so it's not true that simply export our environmental problems elsewhere. It's the same with carbon rules, if a company moves manufacturing to China then the CO2 released in China still counts. If it uses rare earth metals the carbon released mining them still counts, even if it was released overseas.

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ask yourself why almonds continue to be grown, even though it is causing so many problems."

Because people want to eat almonds?

Life would be so much simpler without agriculture.

Re:Lifestyle

[Bing Tsher E]

You say that like it's a good thing.

Do you know what the end result is of making sure you flush off all the oils and body waxes that our bodies have evolved to emit to protect our skin and organs from invasive organisms?

It's fairly similar to the process where the growth medium is 'sterilized' when you prepare petri dishes to grow cell cultures. A 'squeaky' clean body is a body 'shrieking' in terror, to put it succinctly.

Fuck you, soap and cosmetic companies. There is a balance to be arrived at, and the symbiotic organisms on and in our bodies are not our enemies, no matter how much of a profit you make by scaring people into buying your chemical products.

Re: Lifestyle

[pipingguy]

California using that much less per capita than NZ or Canada (1200 vs. 245?) makes no sense.

Re: Lifestyle

[SkOink]

Citations? Here're mine:

USA uses about 1500 m3/capita/year, which is similar to New Zealand (1200 m3/capita/year) and Canada (1400 m3/capita/year). Compare with California alone, we're at 178 gallons/capita/day which is 245 m3/capita/year. That's lower than most countries.

I'm (reasonably) sure that number the 178 gallons/person/day figure is the "urban" per-capita, not the per-capita of the entire state.

The state's per-capita water use is more like 1390 gallons/person/day.

Re: Lifestyle

[Thomas Miconi]

Citations? Here're mine:

USA uses about 1500 m3/capita/year, which is similar to New Zealand (1200 m3/capita/year) and Canada (1400 m3/capita/year). Compare with California alone, we're at 178 gallons/capita/day which is 245 m3/capita/year. That's lower than most countries.

Look, dude...

Your 1st link is total consumption. Agricultural + municipal + industrial.

In your 2nd link, the "178 gallons/day" figure is for municipal use only.

Pro-tip: when you get such massive discrepancies (1 to 6 !) between two similar populations, especially when one includes the other, it's worth checking it up a bit more carefully.

Re: Lifestyle

[drooling-dog]

It appears you're comparing total water consumption (including industrial and residential use) in other countries with residential use in California. I don't know how Cali stacks up against other states statistically, but the average you quote (178 g/day) is about 2.5X my own experience (2 person household) in Michigan.

Re:Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

And that balance is achieved at showering twice a day. Or at least before you leave the fucking house.
You don't need to assault the rest of us with your rotten cheese stench because of your precious germ culture growing in you armpits.

Re:Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah let's better be with happy, smelly bodies. Have you even read what you wrote? Maybe in your cozy office job you don't break a sweat, but a lot of the population has to, and that is not good in closed spaces, where it produces bad smell. I am respectful enough to not subject third parties to it. You apparently aren't.

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Next you're going to accuse him of comparing apples to oranges...

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Also that's still a very high number.

I use 70 litres per day and I'm pretty wasteful. The 178 gallons you spoke of is over 800 litres. That's a completely insane amount of water. What are you lunatics doing with it? Do you just fill a swimming pool, take one swim and empty it "Ugh, dirty, let's start over" ?

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

And...? You're saying that California deserves some moral credit for taking the environmental hit for growing almonds, after everyone else has given up?

No. All that means is that you have perverse economic incentives in place. Stop growing the almonds, let the world supply and demand of un-subsidised almonds determine a fair market price, and then let them be grown wherever that works best. Doesn't even have to be envirnomentally destructive. There has to be somewhere almonds grow naturally, they're not an invented thing, so if California stops depressing the price by growing them wastefully, maybe growers there will be able to make a better living at it.

Re: Lifestyle

[weilawei]

How big is a 55 gallon drum? About the size of a bathtub? Asked Google, and it told me:

Many drums have a common nominal volume of 208 litres (55 US gal; 46 imp gal) and nominally measure just under 880 millimetres (35 in) tall with a diameter just under 610 millimetres (24 in) and differ by holding about thirteen gallons more than a barrel of crude oil.

178 gallons / 55 gallons/drum ~= 3.24 drums

How big is a bathtub?

The capacity of an average, US, standard run-of-the-mill built in bathtub filled up to the very bottom of the overflow, which is as full as you can get it is approx. 42 gallons

Let me clarify. All the standard size American Standard tubs are 42 gallons. I also went to the Kohler site and they are the same.

178 gallons / 42 gallons/bathtub ~= 4.24 bathtubs

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots o moose and snow, eh!

Re:Lifestyle

[david_thornley]

Where I live, the water is taken out of the Mississippi River and purified for our use. After that, the waste water is treated and released back into the river. Given that, I don't see why I should be all that careful of my water use. There are nearby municipalities that rely on ground water, and if I lived in one of them I'd be more careful.

Re:Lifestyle

[fatwilbur]

Do you know what the end result is of making sure you flush off all the oils and body waxes that our bodies have evolved to emit to protect our skin and organs from invasive organisms?

Sigh.... only on Slashdot.

Really? Have any studies to back that up? Is it kind of like how the "protective" oils that trap bacteria on your face causing infections, and for some, lifelong scarring? Your premise that bathing exposes the organs to invasive organisms doesn't pass a basic logic sniff test, pun fully intended.

Re: Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe does have the Regulation of Hazardous Substances directive (RoHS) which means that China has had to clean up products it exports to us, so it's not true that simply export our environmental problems elsewhere. It's the same with carbon rules, if a company moves manufacturing to China then the CO2 released in China still counts. If it uses rare earth metals the carbon released mining them still counts, even if it was released overseas.

You are living in a fantasy world.

The RoHS is quite limited in its effect. You appear to have a very superficial understanding of just what this legislation does. Further, despite whatever the rules may say, in reality, Europe has very limited power to measure or compel environmental compliance in other places.

The modern world is an enormously complex place, requiring tools to make tools to make tools to make products. There are plenty of environmental issues caused by substances involved in the complex sequences of mining, refining, fabrication, test, and processing steps required to make those final products. These substances may not end up in consumer goods in measurable amounts, which means they won't end up in your house or yard (in a perfect world), but they still exist and have to be dealt with.

While there is some effort to replace some of the more difficult compounds, that hasn't happened in many cases because the replacements can't do the job as well as the originals.

So, yes, you are exporting your environmental problems. You simply don't understand technology well enough to realize that is the case.

It's amusing the way Europeans delude themselves into thinking they are better than everybody else, but probably quite harmful to the human race over the long run.

Re:Lifestyle

[AmiMoJo]

Energy is required to pump and purify the water. You should care because it costs you money and contributes to damaging your environment, which you need to live and stay healthy.

I think we just need to get burned.

[Foxhoundz]

Let's be honest here. The rate and methods by which we are consuming resources from environment is akin to a clueless child playing around the stove. Sometimes we need to get burned by the stove to learn not to touch it again. And the drought in California is natures way of telling us our hand is currently roasting on said stove.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[dale.furno]

Sounds like time to depopulate the earth.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[Bing Tsher E]

Who is this 'we' and 'us' you refer to? I've been pumping excess flood water off my land all weekend. I have a 2" pump and it's working hard to keep a corner of my property dry, what with all the rain.

The county I live in used to be a huge supplier of tomatoes to the whole eastern half of the country, but now all I have around me is cornfields, presumably because of the artificial increase in corn prices that 'environmentalists' spurred with alcohol-as-a-fuel initiatives.

Whatever the political incentives there are that caused so much arid land in California to be converted to farmland (there are certainly said political factors at play- there always are) should be reviewed and removed. It doesn't make sense to grow crops in a desert if the real market forces at play would make it impossible if the water costs for farmers weren't distorted by politics.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

"presumably because of the artificial increase in corn prices that 'environmentalists' spurred with alcohol-as-a-fuel initiatives."

I dont disagree with most of your post, but two things about this statement are wrong. One, if you remember your history of the last 40 years, corn turning into alcohol was a problem that BUSH (not an environmentalist) pushed as a political solution to foreign oil. Not to mention that because "corn must go in everything", the US produced way more corn than it could ever use. Those two reasons are why corn is turned into ethanol in the usa. You may want to look into the history of big business and sugarcane as well in the USA. There are a few reasons that americans produce much corn*, but predominantly because it is cheaper;

"The use of HFCS in the United States is partially attributable to government tariffs that maintain domestic sugar prices at above the global price and subsidies to corn growers that lower the cost of the primary ingredient in HFCS, corn."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

9 out of 10 environmentalists you meet I am sure will tell you that they absolutely do not want food being turned into fuel for cars. They want to reduce peoples dependance on cars and that involves using LESS fuel, not more. Do you know any "environmentalists" at all?

*( the paranoid part of me thinks that the government wants you to eat more corn sugar so that you will get fatter. Fat people dont start revolutions )

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[scottbomb]

Wow, you guys are so "progressive".

Re: I think we just need to get burned.

[Anonymous Coward]

World hunger doesn't exist because I just ate.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[X0563511]

The water doesn't go away. You realize most of it ends up in your toilet, which leads back out (eventually) to sea (or at least the groundwater somewhere nearby)?

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[readin]

Bush isn't an environmentalist? News to me. But you're right that the ethanol thing was not done to help the environment. It hurt the environment.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[Anonymous Coward]

But you're right that the ethanol thing was not done to help the environment. It hurt the environment.

Oh horseshit.

It was a choice between synthesizing a carcinogen that would end up in the water (MTBE)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether
or funneling some of those petro dollars to corn farmers.

I'd guess that that's better for the environment

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[RubberDogBone]

Well that is the unspoken elephant in the room: we have people trying to live in arid areas never before used for habitation, and we have farmers and ranchers trying to make a go of their businesses in areas never before suitable for that kind of thing, all thanks to supplied sources of water which are now dwindling.

The simple answer is that all these people should pack up and leave, Nobody is promised they can live in any particular place. And some places are just not meant for it. But people hate to do that. They'd rather fight and protest and pay lots of money to truck in water, etc. And struggle for years trying to make it work.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[Creepy]

I can count Bush's environmental policies on two fingers - banning of incandescent light bulbs (which, honestly, was going to happen eventually) and banning CFC asthma inhalers to support the Montreal Treaty, even though those were one of the tiniest contributors to ozone depletion and seriously impacted asthmatics (for one, it was the only over the counter asthma remedy, for two, the replacement, HFA inhalers, were patented, prescription only, and were only tested on healthy adults in the FDA's "fast track" program, which is the same thing they do to test GMOs, and 3/4 of the manufacturers used an allergen, alcohol, as part of the propellant, so that went over poorly...).

If there's one president I wish had failed to get into office, it's Bush, though Obama has cut it close a few times (both of them have TERRIBLE financial policy, IMO - defund Obamacare? Only the assistance to the poor was unfunded - Bush's Medicare D wasn't funded AT ALL)...

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[AK Marc]

Population's fine. Wealth distribution and population growth aren't.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[readin]

I wasn't very impressed with either Bush the Younger or Obama the Unready. The last president I thought was qualified for the job both mentally and morally was Bush the Elder. And although Clinton had his moral problems, nothing he did is as bad as the combination of Bush and Obama. Bush invaded thinking we would have an easy victory and was horribly wrong. But he made the best of it by sticking it out and finding a way to get the country mostly stabilized and with a bit of support still needed. Then Obama came along and through the hard won results away.

It's like a family where one spouse buys a house with a 30 year mortgage for $50,000 and after signing all the papers finds he misread and the actual amount is $500,000, far more than the house is work. So the guy slaves and sacrifices for 29 years and 8 months to pay off the mortgage, in part to get the house and in part to maintain the family credit rating. Then with 4 months to go he dies, so his heir look at the house, sees there is still $10,000 left of the mortgage, stops payments and burns the house down, simultaneously destroying both the family reputation and the house that was almost paid off.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, thank you for telling me to pack up and leave. I'll do that, for sure, with the crippling student debt and the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. I didn't come here for California, I was born here and just try to survive how I can. Oh yes, people hate to live in places not meant for living. We'll fight and protest rather then leave.

Why don't you just pack up all your shit and go live somewhere else just because "it's not feasible to live there in the long run"? Oh, and do that without any money while you're living on what you can earn per month, renting a shitty apartment while people lambast you for the poor life choices they assume you made when you "chose" to live there.

Sincerely, fuck you.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do these kinds of replies always think that the OP they reply to was talking to them personally. Newsflash: he's not talking to you personally. It's a problem for the entire demographic and has to do with proper planning on where future human populations would be able to sustain themselves based on available resources and what needs to happen with existing populations in areas that are not able to sustain them any longer (in this case due to dwindling water supplies).

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[MooseTick]

Eventually, they may have to move anyway. They will either pay $10/gallon for water there, or move elsewhere where it is $0.005 a gallon. There won't be any jobs or businesses if water is unavailable or too expensive. Then, southern CA will go the way of Detroit.

Re: I think we just need to get burned.

[cthulhu11]

Agreed. Corn to ethanol makes sense only as whiskey if at all. Anyone with an environmental clue knows that there is very little energy gain. Consider the water squandered on animal agriculture, including the huge fraction on grain production fed to livestock.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[david_thornley]

You seem to be ignoring the economic collapse at the end of the Bush presidency, when blaming Obama for throwing away what semblance of financial stability Bush had created. Obama came in at a very bad time. I'm not real impressed with how he handled it, but the differences in the economy between when Bush was inaugurated and when Obama was are massive.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[mattack2]

You mean wealth *redistribution*, right?

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[fatwilbur]

I agree, and the long term effects of this on the economy will be interesting. I don't have the specifics (maybe someone can chime in), but California is the majority supplier of agricultural goods to many far flung places. Hell, I live in Canada and most of the produce you find in the grocery store here came from California or Mexico.

Why? It's cheaper - California has a climate that allows for growing fruits/vegetables/nuts year-round at costs we could never do without energy-intensive warming systems. California gets all that for free from the sun. But yes, I think they've been writing a check their ass can't cash when it comes to the water they've been diverting to do so.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[AK Marc]

Yes. Wealth is generated by the poor and redistributed to the rich. Distribution/redistribution is the same thing.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[mattack2]

No, it's not the same thing.

"Wealth distribution" often is used to describe the "income gap" between the rich and the poor... That is, simply describing the situation as it is now.

"Wealth redistribution" is (mandated) Robin Hood-ing, taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[readin]

You misunderstand. I was speaking metaphorically about the situation in Iraq, not about the American economy.

I don't say much about specific items in the economy because I realize I don't know enough and am probably not smart enough to understand things like why the economy crashed in the final year of Bush the Younger. Instead, when voting, I look at the things I believe I do understand - that certain rules always win out in the long run. Supply and Demand, there's no free lunch, tragedy of the commons, etc..

I believe deficit stimulus spending is like an addictive drug. It creates a temporary high but the crash that follows leaves us worse off than before, which causes the government to use more stimulus with each attempt requiring more money but achieving less effect. The Bush/Obama stimulus may have prevented a depression but it didn't create a recovery. What does seem to have create a slow recovery - like an addict who starts giving up a drug faces - is the sequester.

It's not that deficit spending can't be good. When used to build a road or a port to allow increased economic activity it can be very good. But it can also be used to build an unneeded road or port and simply be a waste of money. It is the thing that gets built that matters, not the fact that the government is the one spending the money. If the money is going to be poorly spent by the government it would be better not to spend it at all than to spend it simply for the sake of stimulus.

Why? Because every time the government spends money, whether borrowed or not, it sucks money from the rest of the economy and prevents growth of other economic activity. The government hired 50 programmers to build a pretty website that does nothing? Some would call it a stimulus; I would call it 50 programmers who aren't available to build a app to make a factory more efficient.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[AK Marc]

Taking from the wealth extractors and giving to the wealth generators.

Re:I think we just need to get burned.

[david_thornley]

I don't think the sequester had anything to do with economic recovery. I've read that it increased government spending rather than reduce it, due to the screwy legalities.

Government spending can do good things. It can produce useful things (roads for one example). If the economy is depressed, it can loosen things up and bring it up to speed. In your example, if the government was willing to pay the programmers, and the factory wasn't, government spending is one way to get more purchasing power (effective demand) into the economy and increasing supply (at which point the factory managers would be willing to spend more money to become more efficient).

Energy use

[itzly]

This seems like a perfect project to power with solar energy. You can easily store the fresh water in times of peak solar production, and draw from reserves when solar output is low.

Re:Energy use

[silas_moeckel]

They should not be using electricity in the first place. Desalination is a perfect pairing for cogeneration with Gen IV fission plants. Added benefit is you can put the entire output to desalination when demand is low to avoid using peeking plants.

Re:Energy use

[itzly]

Solar isn't nearly efficient enough to do that without pretty much paving over the entire southwest with solar facilities

Bullshit. The Ivanpah Solar Power facility is only 1% of the Mojave desert area, and can produce enough energy for several of those desalination plants.

Re:Energy use

[Applehu Akbar]

Desalination is an ideal use for fluctuating power sources in general. Instead of spending trillions to put wind and sun on the grid, use them to provide water for California and Texas. At the same time, we won't be using energy-intensive R-O forever. Cheaper desalination tech improves the equation.

Re:Energy use

[angel'o'sphere]

Without giving any numbers it is safe to assume your claim is wrong :)

Re:Energy use

[rworne]

They had a nuclear power plant in San Diego. San Onofre.

They're shutting it down instead of refitting/repairing it because the operators figured there would be too much trouble jumping regulatory hurdles and endless delays from the government and environmental groups that had little interest in, or were openly hostile to letting the plant operate.

Re:Energy use

[ScentCone]

Right. And it's the environmentalists that are screaming about the Ivanpah facility killing birds.

Re:Energy use

[Solandri]

Ivanpah is CSP - concentrated solar power. Basically big mirrors which track the sun and focus it on a heating element (usually a salt bath), which turns water to steam, which drives a turbine to generate power. CSP usually has a capacity factor around 30%, and is a viable (efficient) power source albeit roughly double the cost of coal/nuclear/wind per kWh.

OP was referring to photovoltaic solar. PV solar panels have a capacity factor around 14% (18% in the desert southwest). And their unsubsidized cost per kWh is still about 3-5x that of coal/nuclear/wind.

CSP would actually work for desalination. Reverse osmosis is the most energy efficient method of desalination. The problem with RO is that nearly all of that energy needed is electrical. And with CSP you're converting sunlight to thermal energy, which is converted into mechanical energy to drive a generator, which converts it to electrical energy, which is sent to the RO plant, where it's converted back to mechanical energy in motors used to drive pumps, whose pressure forces the water through the RO filters. All those energy conversions are murder on your overall efficiency.

Thermal energy is usually abundant as a byproduct of other energy production or consumption, so can be obtained much more cheaply than electrical energy. So in terms of cost, thermal desalination can actually be competitive with RO even though its overall energy use is higher. If that thermal energy was just going to be vented into the environment anyway as waste heat, then it's essentially free. CSP solar would be much better than PV solar in that respect since it can produce thermal energy directly. The problem being the best source for water to be desalinated is the ocean, while the best location for CSP is the desert. Moving the CSP plant to the ocean shore is probably not the best idea since the shoreline tends to be clouded over every morning til almost noon. And piping corrosive seawater to the desert would make the Keystone pipeline seem like child's play.

Re:Energy use

[Mr D from 63]

They should not be using electricity in the first place. Desalination is a perfect pairing for cogeneration with Gen IV fission plants. Added benefit is you can put the entire output to desalination when demand is low to avoid using peeking plants.

High temperature gas reactor are very well suited for this purpose, even present generation PWRs would work well. You still need electricity for the process, you don't have to use electrolysis, but it still takes a lot of power. Reactors are a good choice because they produce the needed electricity within a small footprint, and the excess heat from the reactor can be used to increase the process temperature where it becomes much more efficient.

Getting a CSP plant big enough near the water source and keeping the system going 24/7 makes that technology much less attractive. And, since this is an energy intensive process, energy returns on energy invested (EROI) becomes an important consideration;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

Re:Energy use

[Mr D from 63]

Desalination is an ideal use for fluctuating power sources in general..

Not true. It takes a lot of energy to re-start the process. It is much more energy efficient to keep the process going.

Re:Energy use

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the operators of Enron decided it was too much trouble to keep their electric plants running in California, so they'd shut them down for spurious reasons, and then make a killing on selling outside power to the state?

Yeah, don't believe the nuclear industry BS where they whine about government oppression, the power companies would shut all the country's nuclear reactors down and extract money in other ways if they could. But see, they got caught up in their advertising about nuclear power being cheap, so their profit ratios couldn't be too high, and so they need somewhere to sink costs. Thankfully for them, blaming the government is ALWAYS popular.

Unless you're not rich and powerful, of course.

Re:Energy use

[dfenstrate]

Like the operators of Enron decided it was too much trouble to keep their electric plants running in California, so they'd shut them down for spurious reasons, and then make a killing on selling outside power to the state?

Yeah, don't believe the nuclear industry BS where they whine about government oppression, the power companies would shut all the country's nuclear reactors down and extract money in other ways if they could. But see, they got caught up in their advertising about nuclear power being cheap, so their profit ratios couldn't be too high, and so they need somewhere to sink costs. Thankfully for them, blaming the government is ALWAYS popular.

Unless you're not rich and powerful, of course.

You know nothing about San Onofre.

Re:Energy use

[michael_cain]

For various reasons, added nuclear is a political non-starter in the American West broadly and California specifically. The states in the Western Interconnect are down to six commercial reactors. If it were put to a vote, Washington would almost certainly close the reactor at the Columbia Generating Station; similarly, California would likely vote to close the two reactors at Diablo Canyon. PG&E, the operator at Diablo Canyon, has put the license renewal on hold while they look at the impact of California's new thermal pollution standard. Since conforming would likely require adding (large unsightly) cooling towers at a price of $2-4B, I suspect that the renewal application will eventually be withdrawn, and Diablo Canyon will shut down when its current licenses expire in 2024 and 2025.

Re:Energy use

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Sure, get some water now, and create waste that lasts for 100,000 years. Exactly the same kind of thinking that got everyone into the current environmental mess we are in, pass the buck to future generations.

Nuclear being safe power is a myth.

I for one don't want to fuck the future.

I really think that conservatives think; things are fucked up in the now, there is no hope for the future, so who cares about the lives of future generations! Similar to how religious people can write people off as "sinners" and dismiss them as real people. It is a pessimistic, myopic viewpoint driven by a false glorification of the past, and a true hatred of the now that they're afraid that they are not a part of.

Re:Energy use

[spauldo]

The Russians have designed an interesting nuclear-powered desalination setup using floating nuclear plants set off the coast. Here's the wikipedia article on it.

It might be a good option for California, depending on how deep the ocean is off the coast. If placed in deep enough water (and assuming the shoreline isn't shaped wrong), it's almost immune to earthquakes and tsunamis.

I'm sure the US could come up with a similar setup (we did, in the 60s), but the Russians have done most of the legwork already and could have it deployed in a much shorter timeframe.

Re:Energy use

[currently_awake]

A nuclear reactor converts radiation into power. If you reprocess the spent fuel rods you can put the radiation back into the reactor, eliminating the long term storage problem.

Re:Energy use

[Applehu Akbar]

As lower-pressure membranes succeed R-O, this will become less of a problem.

Re:Energy use

[Fire_Wraith]

I generally support Nuclear power, but in reference to old plants shutting down? Good. Old reactor designs need to be retired, because quite frankly they're not safe enough compared to what's available now.

No, the problem isn't that older plants which have seen significant wear and tear face too many regulatory hurdles to continue operating - it's that NEW plants, using more advanced, safer technology, are facing too many legal hurdles in most cases to get built. We're talking about Passively Safe fourth-gen reactors, the sort that would be able to survive even something like Fukushima without a meltdown. We can't get these old plants replaced with new ones, so the old ones keep running with increasingly creaky equipment? That strikes me as downright crazy.

Re:Energy use

[ScentCone]

Sure, get some water now, and create waste that lasts for 100,000 years

Or not, if you use technology that isn't 50 years old. What's your agenda, that you're objecting based on completely out-dated information? You can't be ignorant of current options, so that means you're hoping that other people are when you spout deliberate misinformation like that. Really - who are you hoping to fool? What's your purpose?

Nuclear being safe power is a myth.

See above.

I really think that conservatives think ... there is no hope for the future, so who cares about the lives of future generations ... write people off as "sinners" and dismiss them as real people

Wow, you've really got some hang-ups, don't you?

It is a pessimistic, myopic viewpoint driven by a false glorification of the past

This, from someone who appears to be reliving a "No Nukes" rally from the 1970's? Did you get some bad mushrooms or something at one of those events, and haven't been able to shake it off since?

a true hatred of the now that they're afraid that they are not a part of

Again, this from someone who is clearly stuck (or wants to be) in a decades old complaint, and who's using a cartoon villain fantasy version of "conservatives" as his main take on those who think contemporary nuclear technology, including reprocessing and new fail-to-safe designs, is a useful tool? The person with the fixation on the past and delusions about the "now" and the future, here, is you. Hyping those delusions here is fairly harmless, since people here understand that what you're complaining about is just nonsense. But please don't do things like vote, OK? The future thanks you.

Re:Energy use

[Prune]

The Ivanpah plant kills lots of birds, with endangered species among them, by literally cooking them while in flight. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Nuclear doesn't have this problem. Also, note that nuclear also causes the least number of human deaths per terrawatt-hour generated of any power plant technology: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/...

Re:Energy use

[FlyHelicopters]

For various reasons, added nuclear is a political non-starter in the American West broadly and California specifically.

While I agree with you, your read of the situation is accurate, it just goes to show the flaws in our political system.

People have no clue about stuff, everyone has an opinion, but most people aren't informed enough for that opinion to be worth anything.

Sadly, most people think they know more than they do, "everyone is an expert", so to say.

Re:Energy use

[FlyHelicopters]

Right. And it's the environmentalists that are screaming about the Ivanpah facility killing birds.

The environmentalists seem to scream about everything...

Are they actually FOR anything?

This is why I've really tuned them out. They might have a point from time to time, but it gets lost in the "cry wolf" they keep doing.

Re:Energy use

[Uberbah]

They're shutting it down instead of refitting/repairing it because

Because nuclear power is a bad, bad joke. There isn't a plant on this planet that rolls the full cost of construction, security, insurance, maintainance, or decommission into the rates it charges, much less storing the radioactive waste for thousands of years.

Re:Energy use

[michael_cain]

I'm a westerner, and biased, but the West has more cause than other regions to say, "Let's watch and see if this next-gen stuff works somewhere else before we try it." Ranging from open-air nuclear tests in Nevada to Hitachi screwing up a billion-dollar repair to New Mexico fining the feds $54M for sloppy practices at WIPP, and a whole bunch of things in between.

Re:Energy use

[StikyPad]

Who cares? They are birds.

I'm not trying to troll; I really cannot understand why people are upset over a few dead birds. Nuclear kills fish. Coal kills everything. Nothing has a zero environmental impact. Is the benefit worth the cost? It seems like it is. Glass windows kill birds too. I'm not losing any sleep over it, except when they wake me up by flying into my windows.

Re:Energy use

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you don't know much about San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). It was retrofitted in 2004 with new steam generators. They were supposed to extend the power plant's life by something like 20 years. However, a year after the retrofit was completed, severe cracks were found in the coolant pipes. The plant was shut down. A study revealed that the steam generators from Mitsubishi were the cause. It was far too expensive to source new steam generators and fix the pipes. Various owners of the plant backed out of salvaging the situation, and the plant is now scheduled for decommission.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/13/local/la-me-07-14-san-onofre-tic-toc-20130714

I live very close to SONGS and am very disappointed to see 2GW of electricity production leave the grid. I'm also unhappy that California is happy to sustain itself on gas and coal plants.

Re:Energy use

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said anything about environmentalists?

The obvious answer

[DrXym]

Start whacking industries who use the most water with a levy to pay for the plants. e.g. almond growers. If they are suddenly motivated to develop ways to save water then fine, if then don't then it's still a new plant.

Re:The obvious answer

[Billly Gates]

That's socialism!! I signed my pledge not to raise taxes etc

Re:The obvious answer

[LifesABeach]

Obvious? These faceless ag farmers are drilling down and draining the aquafers. Smaller farmers do not have that kind of access. But no one hears about accessing the worlds largest body of water as an irrigation source. But then again, developers are grinning at drying up the Kings River.

Re:The obvious answer

[DrXym]

Agriculture is an industry. If that wasn't clear enough, I gave almond growers as a specific example.

Re:The obvious answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Start whacking industries who use the most water with a levy to pay for the plants. e.g. almond growers. If they are suddenly motivated to develop ways to save water then fine, if then don't then it's still a new plant.

So, make food more expensive?

Who winds up paying for that?

Re:The obvious answer

[DrXym]

Who winds up paying for that?

All those pretentious hipsters who created the heightened demand for almonds in the first place because dairy / wheat is oh-so bad (it isn't).

Re:The obvious answer

[oobayly]

I think you'll find that a disturbing amount of people think that agriculture is a hobby, whilst being completely ignorant of where their food comes from.

Re:The obvious answer

[mrlibertarian]

Start whacking industries who use the most water with a levy to pay for the plants. e.g. almond growers. If they are suddenly motivated to develop ways to save water then fine, if then don't then it's still a new plant.

Or better yet, let the market set the price for water. The California water shortage is just another example of what happens when we allow the government to manage resources.

Re:The obvious answer

[caseih]

As far as industries go, farming is in a rather unique situation. Manufacturing and processing plants, which can use a fair amount of water, simply pass on their increased costs to the consumer. Water conservation increases somewhat, which is good, while overall prices go up. Farmers, on the other hand, cannot pass on their costs to consumers. They are price takers. So simply making farmers pay more for water may help somewhat, but ultimately it will just drive farmers out of business. If enough farmers are driven out of business and production plummets (a likely scenario), supply will dwindle and prices will go up, which benefits the farmers who help on by the skin of their teeth. But overall it's a huge negative to everyone.

It's unfortunately that urban and rural areas are beginning to clash over water. More and more urban populations are so far removed from food production that they don't realize that cutting off farmers entirely is cutting off their own food supply, at least in part. CA is in a position where a lot of water is virtually exported in the form of exported foods, which is a problem (although a lot of food gets imported as well), but if consumers are willing to pay for it, farmers can and will switch to growing foods exclusively for local consumption.

Currently, as far as I can tell, most cities don't recycle water very much. They are dependent on a fresh source (hence the desalination plant), which goes through the city, and is then treated and released. There's very little technical reason why nearly 100% of the water that isn't lost to runoff or evaporation can't be recycled and put back into the potable supply. Surely if people are willing to shut farmers down they should be willing to recycle their own waste water, including sewer water. Maybe only 25-30% of water can be recycled, but that'd be a good help.

Re:The obvious answer

[GLMDesigns]

That's not socialism. No laissez-faire capitalist would ever say that an industry should be given a handout. Now, mercantilist / corporate-cronists might argue that these subsidies are "needed" but that's one reason why laissez-faire capitalists are for less regulation. (Regulation can, and often does, include handouts to politically connected companies.

Removing these subsidies is PRECISELY what laissez-faire capitalism is all about.

And, to continue this, no Libertarian or small-government type of any stripe would consider this to be a raise in taxes.

But you know all this don't you?

Re:The obvious answer

[Solandri]

That's socialism!! I signed my pledge not to raise taxes etc

The problem isn't socialism nor capitalism. The problem is industry collusion with the politicians calling the shots. The agricultural industry in California has deep political ties stemming back nearly two centuries. Consequently, we've got the opposite of socialism (government regulation for the betterment of society). We've got corruption.

Water is sold to agriculture for a bit over $100 per acre-foot. Looking at my latest residential water bill, the lowest price tier (enough for a family of 4 at 55 gal/person-day) is $3.41 per 100 cubic feet. Which is $1488.47 per acre-foot.

All of California's water problems would disappear if agriculture had to pay the market rate for water. Instead you've got this corrupt pricing scheme where the group using 80% of the water has pushed the vast majority of the water cost onto the other 20%. That regulatory price distortion is what leads to ridiculous situations like alfalfa farmers flooding their fields with water while residential homeowners are told to let their lawns die in order to conserve water.

Re:The obvious answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Only socialists believe that refusing to steal/tax more of people's and companies' own money from them is the same as giving them a handout. It's their money, not yours, and if anyone is getting a "handout" it's the government taking a "handout" for itself.

Re:The obvious answer

[Billly Gates]

My point of me being a jackass is the dumb politicians and voters and corrupted influences who will say it is a government takeover and a RINO move as a tax increase when you want to charge more for a scarce resource.

This is what needs to happen but it won't as the agriculture community has too much power and will run fancy ads agaisn't you in the elections as a socialist if you dare charge them more for water.

You would need to repeal the water give away. That won't happen. So the other step is actually creating a tax to limit consumption which will brand you as a socialist until all the water runs out and we have a crises where everyone including the agricultural industry all lose. We are heading towards that right now. 2/3's of the state senate is needing for this and no politician on the right will dare do this to avoid not being re-elected.

Re:The obvious answer

[Goldsmith]

That's a good description of the problem. I don't know many people who would be happy to see the price of an InNOut burger jump by $5 when their locally sourced ingredients are in short supply.

We're going to pay for water around here, one way or another.

There are some great models of water recycling and responsible water management in southern California. The small city of Poway incorporated essentially to handle their own water. They now have a well-managed water recycling/reservoir system (Including sewer recycling). Many of the larger cities around here have started incorporating the waste water recycling practices Poway has used for a few decades.

Building the desalination plant may seem like an extreme step, but building out recycling to the 24 water agencies that make up the local district and the 1000 square miles or so covered by the district would also be pretty extreme. They've been digging up the old 1940s era sewer and stormdrains in my small neighborhood for the last 3 years to modernize it. I don't know that it's practical to drastically speed up sewer modernization, but I'd be happy to see an additional $5 on my water bill to try.

Re:The obvious answer

[pixelpusher220]

Nope, remove the subsidies the agriculture industry is getting. You have a problem with paying a fair share for water?

Fresh water is a scarce resource...

Re:The obvious answer

[sjames]

What market? There is none.

The farmers are paying an assessed fee for withdrawing water from the aquifer under their own land using their own well. "The market" would charge them nothing. Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't give a crap about our concepts of property and the aquifer runs under a LOT of land so one man's pumping on his own land depletes other people's wells on their own land.

So please tell us, what market?

Re:The obvious answer

[WorBlux]

Just the water rights are sold, the farmer actually has to operate a well or dig a trench to the nearest canal system.

Retail prices include treatment, long distance transport, and last mile piping, not just the water rights.

And you show your ignorance of water law, first to draw/settle has the highest rights. Urbanized centers without local sources of water actually have to go out and buy up existing rights. In the end Agriculture isn't able to pay the same price so urban can always displace Ag water use, but until it is actually purchased the 80% have the legal right to continue to draw a share of water at cost.

Lawns in places where there isn't enough water to support them is a silly notion in the first place. Kids and people nowadays are hardly outside anyways xeroscaping for the Win!. (Yet you do probably eat milk, hence are a downstream consumer of alfalfa) And the right varieties of grass won't die in low water situations, they just go dormant, and will perk back up when favourable conditions return.

What a wonderful unit!

[HuskyDog]

At first I thought that the 'Acre-Foot' sounded like a joke unit, but obviously it is the amount of water that one hundred and twelve horses need to drink if they are each to plough eight hundred furlongs of furrow in a fortnight!! Honestly, you Americans just crack me up with your wacky units. So much more fun than being stuck with boring old litres!

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Black Parrot]

We're trying to modernize acre-feet to Manhattan-fathoms, but the traditionalists won't have anything to do with it.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[SuricouRaven]

The acre-foot may seem an odd unit, but it makes calculations much simpler when you have to work with either catchment or agriculture. It's much like the use of kilowatt-hours in the electrical industry: A unit of convenience.

It'd be more convenient still if they went to hectare-meters, then the engineering and policy sides wouldn't have to convert units every time they spoke.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[quenda]

For the older Americans, 1 acre foot = 5,172 hogsheads.
Its also equal to 9.7 cubic rods, or 325,851.429 US gallons.
For the Aussies, that is 2 micro-Sydney-Harbours.

So remind me, what is the problem you guys have with metric?

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[eastlight_jim]

It's great isn't it? Google says 1 acre foot is around 1.23 megalitres (reference) or 1230 m^3.

The more astounding bit once you do the conversion is that according to TFS the average individual Californian living in a 5 person household uses well over 300 litres per person per day (reference). I'm from the UK, a place with over twice the rainfall of California, and yet our typical usage per person in a five person household is only 100L/person/day (reference). Even our "high usage" households only use 135L/person/day, only just over 1/3 of the *typical* California usage. What are they doing with it all?

I know the Californians like to blame agriculture for using the majority of the water (true) but these stats are just examples of the monumental waste of water that occurs, both industrially and residentially. If these waste problems were solved, I'd imagine there wouldn't be a shortage of water at all.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[itzly]

The acre-foot may seem an odd unit, but it makes calculations much simpler

If you use metric, the calculations are always simple. Large volumes of water are typically measured in cubic meters, and 1000 cubic meters is a hectare-decimetre.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Anonymous Coward]

The acre-foot may seem an odd unit, but it makes calculations much simpler when you have to work with either catchment or agriculture.

It is simpler only to Americans. The rest of the civilized world use litres (L), which easily converts to cubic metres (=1000L) for large volumes, and trivially works with land distances (km) and rainfall (mm) measurements.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in the UK you're probably used to it raining on 70% of days in the average year. In California I imagine it's closer to 7%.
The idea of someone in the UK setting up and garden sprinkler and watering the garden is probably absurd.
How many people in the UK have a backyard pool to escape the heat?
Not to cave in to clichés, but how many times a week does the average UK resident have a shower or bath? People in cold climates, where working up a sweat is rare, generally don't need to bathe anywhere near as much as people who come from warmer climates.
Personally I'm surprised it's only 3x more.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[youn]

But more importantly, how many libraries of congress is that?

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[jpapon]

Actually it's even worse than that 178 gallons per capita per day ~ 670 liters. A lot of that is probably due to watering lawns though, something you don't need to do much in the UK I imagine. Swimming pool evaporation is another one you don't have much of.

I wonder where the rest of the difference goes? Less efficient clothes and dish washing machines maybe?

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[aliquis]

At first I thought that the 'Acre-Foot' sounded like a joke unit, but obviously it is the amount of water that one hundred and twelve horses need to drink if they are each to plough eight hundred furlongs of furrow in a fortnight!! Honestly, you Americans just crack me up with your wacky units. So much more fun than being stuck with boring old litres!

It's about 35.773 nano distance light travel in vacuum over a period of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom cubed for you Europeans out there!

I'm too European.

(Or little over 1,200 cubic meters.)

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[MightyMartian]

If Americans adopt metric... then Communism!!!

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[aliquis]

Also:
"Yeah. I see how the SI way of measuring it is so much more intuitive and understandable!" ;D

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[aliquis]

But more importantly, how many libraries of congress is that?

None.

The idea is to convert sea water to tap water.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[eastlight_jim]

I appreciate some of your points. I had to look up how many days it rains here (not easy to guess) and it turns out to about 30% of days (reference).

I can't give stats for everyone in the country but in my house, with 2 people, we each cycle a lot and take a shower every day with at least one bath a week. We do a couple of loads of laundry and all the normal washing/cooking/toilet flushing you expect. We collect rain for usage in the garden but importantly we have plants adapted to the local climate. We use 60L/person/day i.e. less than one sixth of a Californian. If I had a moderate pool (say 5x3x2m i.e. 30,000L, 8000 US gallons or 24 milliacre feet), that means that I could drain it and re-fill it completely every 2 months and still come in under a Californian usage. Surely most pools don't need much maintenance water provided they are covered when not used?

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[tranquilidad]

According to this site (http://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/showers), you use less water per day than the average American uses while taking a shower.

The site claims that the average American shower uses 65.1 liters, lasts for 8.2 minutes with an average flow rate of 7.9 liters per minute. There is currently a standards mandate that shower heads manufactured in the U.S. have a maximum flow rate of 9.5 liters per minute, but there are some shower heads available with a flow rate as low as 2.8 liters per minute.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Solandri]

I always been a proponent of Libraries of Congress as a unit of volume. But the bibliophiles have thwarted me at every turn.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Roger W Moore]

The rest of the civilized world use litres (L)

Actually that vast majority of the world uses litres (l). Only the US (on the rare occasions it uses them), Canada and Australia typically use the capital 'L' for the abbreviated symbol. While both are now accepted abbreviations the original rule was that only SI units named after a person had a capital letter for an abbreviation although in the case of 'l' there is easy confusion with '1' in some fonts which is why some countries adopted the capital letter.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[cascadingstylesheet]

At first I thought that the 'Acre-Foot' sounded like a joke unit, but obviously it is the amount of water that one hundred and twelve horses need to drink if they are each to plough eight hundred furlongs of furrow in a fortnight!! Honestly, you Americans just crack me up with your wacky units. So much more fun than being stuck with boring old litres!

Oh sure, privilege the number ten just because humans have ten fingers.

I thought you were supposed to be more progressive than us backwater colonies? :) Tsk, tsk; so human-centric ...

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[spauldo]

It makes a lot of sense when you consider what it's meant to measure.

Lakes (and more importantly, reservoirs) are measured in acre-feet. We measure the land in acres. When a reservoir fills up, we can see how much land is covered for every foot the water rises. You create a table for that and you can tell the volume of water based on the depth.

Acre-inches is also commonly used, especially when figuring things like water release from a dam. It's generally not used for things like water in a river, unless an upstream dam is discussing water release with a downstream dam. For water in a river, we do cubic feet per minute.

Yeah, I know, it's not base 10, but we've been using these measurements for a long time and it's not like conversion is terribly hard when necessary - and it's generally not necessary. Ease of conversion is overrated. For example, I do woodworking as a hobby - I have very handy units of feet, inches, and thousandths of an inch (which I rarely use myself, but some woodworkers do). I can convert between inches and feet easily, but I have no need to convert any of my measurements to yards or miles. With metric, I could do these conversions easily, but I'm stuck with a measurement system that gives me no widely-used unit between something a bit less than half an inch and something a bit longer than a yard.

It's the same with most things. How often do you actually need to convert units in daily life? Unless you're an engineer or something similar, you probably don't*.

So you continue to laugh at our measurement system, and we'll continue to laugh at yours.

* obvious exception of cooking inserted here. The metric recipes tend to use measurements of mass rather than volume for many ingredients, mostly because you don't have a very good selection of volume units. Still, anyone that's been cooking for a while knows how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon, and how many tablespoons are in an ounce - and cup->pint->quart->gallon isn't very difficult, either.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[swb]

That's because you greasy limeys don't bathe. If you cleaned up more than once a fortnight or so your water usage would go way up,

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[AthanasiusKircher]

It's the same with most things. How often do you actually need to convert units in daily life? Unless you're an engineer or something similar, you probably don't*.

And that's precisely why there's no great advantage for MOST people in the U.S. to switch to metric. Many other countries made the switch back when aristocratic scientific elites could tell people "what was good for them" and force an admittedly simpler and more consistent system onto the masses, even if it really didn't make lives simpler except for scientists and engineers.

Nowadays, in the era of electronic calculation and asking Google to convert things for you, it's not even a significant advantage for scientists and engineers to use a 10-based system. The conversions you use often are easily remembered and punched into your calculator or if used very often, a convenient spreadsheet can be used. If you don't use conversions very often, you can just look them up when needed.

The only argument for any measurement system now is international consistency -- and while that's a strong argument for those who deal internationally, it doesn't tend to affect most ordinary Americans in their everyday need to measure and judge sizes of things, so it's a hard sell.

That said, you overstate your case:

With metric, I could do these conversions easily, but I'm stuck with a measurement system that gives me no widely-used unit between something a bit less than half an inch and something a bit longer than a yard.

Umm... Perhaps metric never evolved a common unit there (e.g. decimeters) because it's really unnecessary? Just like you don't need specific units between inches and thousandths of an inch (3 orders of magnitude), metric folks somehow manage to deal with 2 orders of magnitude quite easily without an intermediate unit. And, think about how Americans tend to use inches, feet, and yards, and you realize that they're not all really necessary. Either I care about a relatively exact measurement, in which case I say something like 92 inches, or I don't care about that sort of precision and say "about 8 feet" or "about 2.5 yards.". The latter expression is less common except in specific circumstances, since most people tend to ignore all intermediate units between feet and miles except if they need them and find them useful in everyday work (yards, furlongs, chains, etc.). Anyhow, it's similar in metric -- you have the unit of rough precision (cm), the unit of estimating medium-sized lengths (m), and the unit of significant distance (km). How often do you need a measurement that is vague enough that it can be expressed in feet but needs to be specified with enough precision that yards (along with a few simple fractions, like 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 of a yard) won't do?

So you continue to laugh at our measurement system, and we'll continue to laugh at yours.

What possible reason do you have to laugh at the metric system, other than the rather arbitrary feeling that you specifically want a measurement unit equal to about 1/3 of a meter? The metric system DOES have superior consistency in nomenclature and conversion, but you haven't offered any real reason to disparage it....

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[labnet]

In subtropical brisbane we 220 litres per person per day. And yes we shower every day. So that's almost a quarter of what Californian residents use.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[spauldo]

Umm... Perhaps metric never evolved a common unit there (e.g. decimeters) because it's really unnecessary? Just like you don't need specific units between inches and thousandths of an inch (3 orders of magnitude), metric folks somehow manage to deal with 2 orders of magnitude quite easily without an intermediate unit.

I don't need to convert thousandths of an inch to anything because I'm effectively not measuring the same things with them.

For instance, I would measure a table leg in inches, but never need to convert that to thousandths. I might measure the amount I need to trim off a tenon to fit into a mortise in thousandths (I generally don't - I hit it with a plane or chisel a few times and test the fit again - but that's down to style) - but again, I don't need to convert that anywhere.

That's kind of the point - metric units are a "one size fits all" solution. For a woodworker, it makes sense to have units around the size of feet and inches. For a farmer, yards, acres, etc. make a lot more sense. You use the units that most closely match the areas you need. I could certainly do all my woodworking using fractions of a yard, or a farmer could measure his field in square feet, but it'd be silly when there are much more appropriate units available.

I'm certainly not suggesting that it's impossible to do common tasks in the metric system. What I am suggesting is that they're not using units tailored for the purpose they are being applied to.

What possible reason do you have to laugh at the metric system, other than the rather arbitrary feeling that you specifically want a measurement unit equal to about 1/3 of a meter?

What's funny (only marginally, but still) is what I've stated above; they're using units that are inappropriate for their purpose. Measuring lake volume in acre-feet makes a lot of sense for the people that use that unit; using cubic meters seems downright silly. It's like seeing someone climb mountains in ballet slippers.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[amber_of_luxor]

>If Americans adopt metric

I hope you realize that the United States was one of the first, if not very first country to both endorse the metric system, and make it a legal unit of measurement.

What Congress forgot to do, was mandate that all government agencies use the metric system.

Probably the major reasons for the failure of metrification in the seventies and eighties are:
A} Speed limits. Instead of changing 5 mph to 10 kph, it was changed to 8 kph. Nobody's speedometer has checks at 8 km/h, 16 km/h and similar multiples of 8.
B} Instead of moving the sign that says "exit 1/2 mile ahead" to "exit 1 km ahead", they changed it to read "exit 804.3 meters" ahead.
C} Instead of using cm to measure the height of a person, they used meters.
D) Instead of measuring bust size in cm, they used meters.
(One meter sounds small. 100 cm sounds big. Furthermore, nobody wants to be called a 1. 100, yes. 1, no.)

amber

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh. The kilowatt-hour. Also known as 3.6 MJ. They take a unit that describes a rate: Joules per second, and they want to get a quantity instead, so they make a new unit? Electricity consumption should be measured in MegaJoules.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lakes (and more importantly, reservoirs) are measured in acre-feet. We measure the land in acres. When a reservoir fills up, we can see how much land is covered for every foot the water rises. You create a table for that and you can tell the volume of water based on the depth.

That doesn't explain anything at all. Lakes aren't flat-bottomed swimming pools with vertical sides. If you have a table for figuring out the volume based on how far the water reaches up a particular slope, or depth at a particular point, that's great, but it's based on the actual topography of the body of water and can produce a result in any unit.

Re:What a wonderful unit!

[Immerman]

I think the actual reason is the other way around - if the lake volume has increased by one acre-foot, then you have enough water to irrigate one acre one foot deep (or a dozen acres one inch deep, or...), which is important information for farming - historically the primary usage of water in most places in the US. And since this is the US we measure farmland in acres, and desired irrigation levels are typically measured in equivalent inches of rainfall, making the acre-foot a natural unit for the primary use-case.

"a lot more that can be done"

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is just a lot more that can be done on both the conservation side and the water-recycling side before you get to [desalination]," says Rick Wilson, coastal management coordinator with the environmental group Surfrider Foundation. "We feel, in a lot of cases, that we haven't really explored all of those options."

I bet.

But the people who live there are Californians, who are oblivious to reality and just want their prepackaged, sheltered world where they drive their SUVs on tree-lined streets where everyone has nice green lawns.

Nevermind the fact there are 50 million of them living in a place that's charitably described as somewhat between "semi-arid" and "dry-as-a-bone fucking desert".

Nope, can't deal with that. So 50 million heads bury themselves further up their own asses.

What about Poo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, desalination is hard. Much harder than just completely cleaning and treating all waste water. That is why Singapore switched their desalination plant to poo processing. Getting rid of salt is incredibly hard.

Re:What about Poo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rid as in extracting or getting rid as in disposal after the fact?
Assuming you are talking about disposal, as long as they aren't just dumping the salt back into the ocean which would be monumentally stupid.... which is why I can't rule it out. They could always sell/export it to other states that need sale on a regular basis (read: any state with regular annual snowfall). Alternatively they could start churning out food grade sea salt, which is relatively popular tho I suspect would require additional filtration before desalinization.

Re:What about Poo?

[gtall]

I believe the county that San Diego is in (is it San Diego county?) has a poo processing plant. At first the residents were a bit squeamish but now seem to accept it.

Re:What about Poo?

[zippthorne]

Why would dumping high-salinity "waste" water back into the ocean be monumentally stupid?

Re:What about Poo?

[currently_awake]

Fish are adapted for a specific level of salt in their water. It would be like fixing your car while drinking a couple of beers, but someone slips you 100 proof alcohol beer instead, you'd get totally wrecked.

Re:What about Poo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare breathing carbon monoxide that would naturally be in the air to the levels of carbon monoxide you'd be breathing if you sealed up your garage and left your car engine running. It gets more dangerous at higher levels.

2.58-8.5kWh/m3

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot of electricity. Does Cali have the generating capacity available?
Maybe simple conservation would help.

Clean Heat

[Anonymous Coward]

There are far more options for making clean heat (to desalinate) then finding clean water.
Desalination is the way to go.

Solar reflectors for the boiler combined with under the asphalt pre-heaters comes to mind.
Looking at the map https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4188699,-116.3002568,241695m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
If needed for clear skys, a desert plain is not that far from the ocean. One could put in a large diameter pipe to move sea water in and the saltier brine out which ought to be cheaper then piping clean water over the mountains.

$75 water bill?

[JonWan]

I want that, mine was $141 last month. We had an increase this year by $5 a month because the lake is dry and they had to drill a bunch of water wells. A local private water coop regularly charges $200 a month. Suck it up Calif. If we can afford it in west Texas, you can in calif.
   

Re:$75 water bill?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live in SoCal, the city provides the water. I have exactly one choice for water. Even if I wanted to pay more for water from another source I have no options. I'm willing to suck it up and pay more, there is still no water to be had. We already drilled a bunch of wells and those sources are drying up, the land is sinking. Its not about money, its about water.

Re:$75 water bill?

[ColdWetDog]

No, don't suck it up. That's the problem. Wiping out the aquifers just kicks the can down the road.

You need to start picking up the can and recycling it.

Re:$75 water bill?

[Anonymous Coward]

I pay almost 1 Euro / cubic-meter (most of that is taxes).
And that is in the Netherlands, where we have plenty rivers and pump large amounts of fresh water into the sea, just to keep our feet dry!

Re:$75 water bill?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in rainy Oregon and I average $150/month for my water bill. Apparently there is no correlation between water supply and cost.

How about solar desalination (also for energy)?

[tomxor]

For desalinating i guess the main energy consumption is in pumping and the desalination itself...

Could a modified steam turbine concept be used that is driven directly by concentrated solar... that way the desalination mostly takes care of itself and the energy generated can be used for pumping... making it pretty much self sufficient.

Re:How about solar desalination (also for energy)?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget it, you're trying to sustain the unsustainable. This new plant will provide drinking water for about half a million people, which is the population growth of the state in 1 year. By the time it is running it will in effect only be providing water for the new arrivals.

Lived off desalinated for 2 years

[OffTheLip]

Back in the 60's I lived on the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay Cuba and our water source was a desalination plant. Extra water was stored in a old ship anchored in the bay. The climate there is similar to SoCal, arid and mountainous. Sounds like a reasonable approach to take and should it rain stored desalinated water would provide a backup plan, which they need.

Maybe

[rossdee]

We could use the heat from the sun to evaporate seawater, then condense it.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't always count on the sun so the plant would need to be designed to be able to run entirely off of electricity. Since is suspect it will effectively need to be running 24/7/365. However designing it to use as little electricity as possible even so far as to be able to run completely on solar power when applicable would definitely be a wise move.

Re:Maybe

[rworne]

Yeah, but that would require an immense surface area to work. You'd have to cover approx 70% of the planet with water. No one would go for it and the environmentalists would have a fit.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea, them hmm, we could take the waste namely Salt and market that, as made in america salt ori ganic and such,

but yeah, if you dont like having water issues, move out of the desert, i hear other places have tons of it

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

well if they start with flooding the area of land that falls between Canada and South AMerica then magically the problem will have solved itself with needing a full 70% !

Luddite cattle call

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure all the Luddites will take this as yet another opportunity to spew their unceasing garbage.
And they will drag in those easily misled Greenies and Nimbys to pump up the volume.

For those that still have an open mind however, I'd like to point out that a desalination plant that consumes lots of electricity can be a wonderful thing.

If done right, with big enough reservoirs, it can be used to even out electrical demand on the grid.

Got an energy shortage? Shut down a few desalination cells and live off the stored content of your reservoir.
Got excess energy? Start up a few more desalination cells and collect it in the reservoir to offset periods of lower production.
Overfill your reservoir? Sell what you can and let the excess drain back to the sea.

Reservoir is dry? With a controllable electrical demand, wind and solar, and even nuclear can be brought on-line.

Coal, gas and oil-fired have an advantage because their output can be easily regulated, since they have "reservoirs" on the input side.
A big enough variable demand like an aluminum or a desalination plant can regulate their input, as they have their "reservoirs" on the output side.

Controllable electrical demand would reduce the reliance on coal, oil and gas plants for energy grid regulation,
while making wind, solar and nuclear more economically feasible.

It would invite more investment into the energy sector, invigorate the economy, and provide more local jobs.

It would even help to reduce our carbon footprint.

A major setback for the Luddites, a boost for everyone else.

Win-win-win.

Correction to story...

[bswarm]

This is not a desalination plant, it's a wastewater (sewage) plant further purified to drinking water quality. "The demonstration facility will use advanced water purification technologies to purify and test approximately 100,000 gallons of recycled water each day." http://www.padredam.org/204/Ad...

Re:Correction to story...

[PRMan]

http://carlsbaddesal.com/

Re: Correction to story...

[Anonymous Coward]

No
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near

Desalination using ocean waves as power source

[garidan]

It would be interesting and clever to follow the alternative energies path, this plant in Australia gives desalination and energy power from ocean waves http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Re:Desalination using ocean waves as power source

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bit of an old article but their first plant went online sometime last year and has been working well. I have stopped keeping up with all the details but I believe they're near the point of connecting the electricity to the grid. (They've had it against a test load for a while)

Carnegie Wave Energy does seem to have some interesting tech going for them.

Tahoe has plenty of water

[Anonymous Coward]

Use it.

It's California

[Anonymous Coward]

Calfornia is a Democrat stronghold. California has housing restrictions, in order to get higher population density in cities. California has been trying to extort the major car companies into manufacturing electric cars. California has laws requiring factory farmed chickens have a certain amount of space.

I think California will be just fine with more socialism.

Two solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Solar freaking roadways.
2. Rain dance.

Top Secret

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctor Flamond: You see, a year ago, I was close to perfecting the first magnetic desalinization process so revolutionary, it was capable of removing the salt from over 500 million gallons of seawater a day. Do you realize what that could mean to the starving nations of the earth?
Nick Rivers: Wow. They'd have enough salt to last forever.

Carbon emissions?

[PRMan]

San Diego has the cleanest power of anywhere in the whole US. They currently get over 25% of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar and 67% from natural gas. They burn ZERO coal or oil. They are the model for the whole US.

Re:Carbon emissions?

[ColdWetDog]

Natural gas isn't "clean". It's cleaner than coal and an excellent bridge technology as it uses turbines than essentially can run off of anything that you can get to explode. But it creates lots of CO2 and uses a non renewable source. So don't pat yourselves on the back too hard.

Re:Carbon emissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? According to my bill 100% of my power comes from renewable resources (hydro) and most of the state of Washington 90%+ will come from renewable resources (again mostly hydro). 67% from natural gas isn't exactly clean - it is better than coal or oil but you still have a long ways before you catch up with the entire state of Washington, so I'm not sure if San Diego should be used as the model.

In fact, every place is unique so there won't be a single place you can point to and say lets just copy that for the entire nation. While Washington is powered mostly by hydro, we also have nuclear, natural gas and yes even some coal, although they produce less than 'Other Renewables'.

Re:Carbon emissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice. What the fuck does your comment have to do with water, most of which you get from out of state (Colorado river) or 400 miles north (the delta)?

Re:Carbon emissions?

[Prune]

I don't know how "clean" these are, considering they generate more human deaths per terrawatt-hour generated than nuclear does: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/...

Re:Carbon emissions?

[greatpatton]

Natural Gas can be clean, if the gas was made from renewable resource (like your kitchen waste, or cow poop) it doesn't generate any CO2.

Re:Carbon emissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern, safe nuclear power plants, are they the way to go? And could we use the heat to desalinate?

Re:Carbon emissions?

[blindseer]

Methane from biological sources is not natural gas, even if it shares chemical composition. Natural gas is what we call the methane we drill out of the ground, bio-methane is what I believe biological sourced methane is called. If the energy came from biological processes then I would expect anyone that ran those systems would consider it insulting for it to be called natural gas.

Re:Carbon emissions?

[StikyPad]

Why don't they have collectors on-site, even if it doesn't meet total demand? With 6 acres of space, it seems like a perfect opportunity.

Re:Carbon emissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

San Diego has the cleanest power of anywhere in the whole US. They currently get over 25% of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar and 67% from natural gas. They burn ZERO coal or oil. They are the model for the whole US.

They maintain all this equipment and infrastructure with tools (including vehicles) and materials made from metal refined with the aid of huge quantities of coal or oil, much of which is shipped to the USA on ships burning coal or oil and/or brought to site by vehicles burning gas or oil.

Don't pat yourselves on the back too hard about how much of a difference you're actually making.

My mistake...

[bswarm]

I saw this on the local news in San Diego and thought it was the same story.

$2000 per year for 10 people?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Sign me up! My wife and I use VERY little water (no lawn, few flowers, irrigate about 6 minutes total per week; short showers, 2 loads of laundry a week) and we're paying $200 per month. We live in Ventura, CA. So if It's $400 per YEAR for both of us - I'm all for it! Desalinated water is cheaper than what we pay right now - why aren't we moving to it immediately?

Re:$2000 per year for 10 people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a Republican might make some money building the plant and get away with some profit. Its more important to liberals to punish people who might vote Republican and get profit than to do what is right by the people.

Eventually you and your neighbours will realize this and make your lives better, but until then you have to suffer with the consequences of your recent decisions.

Re:$2000 per year for 10 people?

[ColdWetDog]

Move to a sailboat and Bob's your uncle. You can have a nice RO system for about $20K USD that will fit your bill quite nicely with the added bonus that if you don't like your neighbors you can move a bit. No central utilities (well, shore power if you like). No lawn (just algae).

The downsides is that you will spend an occasional weekend chasing down leaks and pressure spikes. RO is a very, very cranky technology that doesn't really scale well. You see those pictures? Thousands of plastic pipes, pumps, wires, gizmos. And because it's really hard to parallel the process you can't just do what big computer data centers do these days - just ignore failing subsystems for a while and rely on redundancy. That's sort of the Holy Grail in this field - plug in modules - but water and brine and other Nasty Chemicals just don't run down wires or fiber optic cables.

Plumbing is bitch.

Re:$2000 per year for 10 people?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Orange County (two people in my household) and last week I paid my water bill. It was $52 and that covered two months. My last bill (two months ago) was less than $50.

I think you might have a leak someplace.

Re:$2000 per year for 10 people?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, this is cheap. It's less than 42p per person per day. Water wars? I don't think so.

Re:$2000 per year for 10 people?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe people that doesn't have a lawn, tree, oxygen producing plants should be charge for Oxygen usage. I say at least $200 per year for not having a plant producing oxygen. You're using someone else oxygen for free.

Sealife?!

[Anonymous Coward]

OH NO, the horror!

We'll remove less than a billionth of the sea! They'll drown!

Let them drink Pee

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them go thirsty. This is what happens when industry rules or citizens. I won't be happy until Californian's are showering only once every 2 weeks and having to drink their own recycled urine.

Wrap up industry in patriotism, and Americans will line up to be the first to drink their neighbors piss, clamoring to be the more patriotic idiot. They will even pay for it too!

God bless America.

Buy stock in any industry developing urine recycling technology.

Message to you California fucks:

[Anonymous Coward]

You better not try to come for our fresh water in the great lakes. Now fuck off and die in your uninhabitable desert.

Re:Message to you California fucks:

[spauldo]

Given how polluted some of those lakes are, they'd be better off drinking seawater.

Sea level rising...

[Anonymous Coward]

due to more water (molten ice and snow). With this, sea water is getting less salty.
Using water from the ocean (and putting the salt back in) counters this effect. It's not a "bad" thing, but a good thing, if you consider any change a bad thing.

Just that those few drops used from the ocean don't matter at all...

Explore all you want

[Rinikusu]

But until you do something, you're just pissing in the wind.

Gardening not Showering

[Roger W Moore]

I don't think that showers are the problem. Try the insistence on a bright green lawn surrounded by trees, bushes and flowers. Growing that in the middle of what is effectively a desert takes a lot more water than one shower a day.

If the average family in Canada tried to grow tropical plants in their gardens using heat lamps in the winter to stop them from dying we would soon be having a major electricity crisis (well at least until the global warming from burning all that coal kicked in). If the average family in California expects to have a lush, green garden then you should expect to have a water crisis.

Re:Gardening not Showering

[matfud]

California's urban water usage is 10% of the total water usage. Of that 10% half is used for landscaping.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publi...

It's About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Desalination's time has finally come. That and water purification.

The Elephant in the room, no one is talking about

[celtic_hackr]

Beside the fact Californian growers are wasteful water users, and thus can sell at "competitve" prices, after getting those governemnt subsidies via our tax dollars, there is another issue.

We should remember that Global Warming (or the natural tendency for the planet to heat up, if you don't believe in Global Warming) is causing a lot of freshwater to flow into the world's saltwater bodies and thus desalinating the oceans and seas which is endangering the entire planet's marine environment. We are now talking about desalinating even more of that water. Once these plants are built California growers will cmoe to rely on them even when there is no drought. Other places will follow suit, and eventually the ecosystem in the World's oceans and seas will collapse. NASA has already said that the collapse of the Western Antartic Ice Shelf cannot be stopped, and that's a lot of freshwater. It's a death spiral, and not sustainable. Better get focused on those Moon and Mars colonization projects, because we're going to kill this planet, sooner, rather than later. We're going to need options.

Here's a suggestion

[argStyopa]

Maybe the entire country could stop massive subsidies for farmers to grow crops in what amounts to coastal steppe/desert? Oh, and the massive subsidies allowing millions and millions of people to live in deserts (and yes, I'm not just looking at California).

It was a stupid policy in the early 20th century, but at least then there was the incentive to populate the (south) west coast for geopolitical/security reasons. Now, simply start charging people (farmers, corporations, individuals) the ACTUAL costs of the water they use and let the market cull the system. /solved.

Re:Here's a suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Neat idea, but the price of food would go up dramatically. Thanks obama.

Re:Here's a suggestion

[Locando]

but at least then there was the incentive to populate the (south) west coast for geopolitical/security reasons.

I'm on board with the rest of your comment, but I've just got to wonder what kind of security reasons could possibly have prompted populating the Central and Imperial Valleys in the late 19th century. The whole area is only part of the US because of the massive self-created security situation that was the Mexican-American War, and if it was Mexico that we needed to worry about then surely we wouldn't have been so cavalier about waiting until the 1920s to build a border control station (after the revolution south of the border, of course) and go full-on nationalistic with the Repatriation.

As for the coasts, San Francisco was bustling before the swamps of the Sacramento Valley were drained to any meaningful extent, LA paved over its farms with the suburban expansion that began early in the 20th century, and San Diego has had a naval base for nearly a century now. And there's still not much of anything between Marin County and the Oregon Coast — what's that, at least 400 miles?

Why don't we go with the much more obvious answer? That is, the grand old American tradition of democratically promoted profiteering, and to hell with considering externalities. The one that's biting us squarely in the ass today.

Reverse Osmosis is energy efficient

[calidoscope]

Getting a gallon of fresh water to San Diego County from the Carlsbad plant will use less energy than a gallon from the Sacramento River delta. The Edmonston pumping plant of the California water project is the largest single consumer of electric power in the state.

I'm looking forward to the Poseidon plant coming on line as my water should get noticeably softer.

Cut out the EPA

[p51d007]

Between the EPA, the animal nuts, the water has been cut off to southern California to "protect" blind fish, snails and other crap.

we're all hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amusing when the liberal environmentalists call for ultraconservative measures (reduced consumption, aka austerity) when the conservative right- corporate raiders call for progressive (technology, attacking the problem) tactics.

The natural environment sure breaks down the political environment...

OTEC

[Anonymous Coward]

An OTEC power plant producing 100 megawatts of power could produce about 200,000 cubic meters of desalinated water per day as a by product. An OTEC does not produce carbon dioxide or radioactive waste and its output is constant regardless of the weather.

Lockheed Martin is currently building a 10 megawatt pilot plant in China that they say will be expandable to 100 megawatts.

https://www.google.com/search?q=OTEC+water+production&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#safe=off&q=otec+power+plant

Re: Lifestyle - Canada

[Goglu]

The statistics are about "total water withdrawal", where "some portion may be returned for further use downstream". I guess that the water used to produce hydro-electriciy could be counted as water withdrawn.

In that case, since Canada is producing a lot of hydro-electric power, it could impact the statistics.

Tar sands, on the other hand, although an important source of water pollution, seems to come up to approximately 10 m3/capita/year. In this case, not the culprit...

Yeah because it is just that easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tell people "use less stuff" and I am sure you will see a significant impact.

what a horror

[Anonymous Coward]

"Carlsbad's product will sell for around $2,000 per acre-foot"

$2,000 per acre-foot means $1.62 per cubic meter

"Water bills already average about $75 a month and the new plant will drive them up by $5"

Look, my household pays $4.5 per cubic meter and we don't really see that as a problem. We (2 adults, 3 kids) use ~120 m3/year.
Perhaps if the Californians weren't using insane amounts of water, their bills wouldn't have to go up?

I see what you did there

[rsilvergun]

and I'm not so sure I want to eliminate those regulatory hurdles. Fukushima isn't exactly a distant memory. Talk to me when it's dirt cheap to run a nuke plant safely or when CEOs go to jail for 20+ years for running one unsafely. For now there's too much risk that some assclown will come in to cut safety & pocket the resulting profit and get off scott free.

Re:I see what you did there

[amber_of_luxor]

We are sorry, but the term " assclown " has been restricted to refer only to the individual who are/were part of Prenda Law, Inc.
Please do not use it for other purposes, or Prenda Law will be forced to file another frivolous lawsuit against you, for infringing upon their intellectual property rights.

natural gas IS carbon emission

[Uberbah]

Just because its cleaner than coal doesnt mean its not putting more co2 into the atmosphere.

Re:The Elephant in the room, no one is talking abo

[amber_of_luxor]

Even if the earth was in the middle of an ice age, the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf would be collapsing, and melting away.

Using that as proof of global warming, is akin to using Westboro Baptist Church as proof that God is enamoured of out-of-wedlock same-sex intimate sexual relationships, and that everybody must participate in one, at least once a week.

Amber

Perfect application for LFTR

[blindseer]

Flibe Energy likes to talk about how their liquid fluoride thorium reactors can provide electricity and process heat for desalination. California is short on electricity and water, a perfect place for LFTR. The earthquake problem might be an issue but LFTR doesn't work like the first and second generation reactors in Fukushima and Chernobyl. This is a fourth generation design that cannot explode. A meltdown is possible but unlikely, and if it occurs a China Syndrome situation is impossible as once containment is lost so is criticality.

Since LFTR involves continuous processing of fission products it would nearly eliminate the risks of iodine and strontium radioisotopes being released into the environment. Any loss of containment would be small as the continuous processing allows for harvesting these elements for use in medical and industrial applications. Solid fuels prevent this because all those radioactive fission products in a solid fuel rod at once makes the spent fuel uneconomical to process as it is much too radioactive, and allowing the radiation to decay means the valuable isotopes have decayed away as well.

California using LFTR to make energy and drinking water cheaply for its population won't happen any time soon of course. They'd rather drive profitable industry out of the state. It has been said that people get the government they deserve. California has voted themselves water shortages and high electricity prices.

Re:Perfect application for LFTR

[WorBlux]

" California is short on electricity and water, a perfect place for LFTR" If you ignore the political screaming of the greenies.

Could vegan diets alleviate the drought?

[walterbyrd]

That is what some vegans are saying. Supposedly it takes 60 gallons of water to raise a pound a beef.

I don't know if it's true of not.

Re:Could vegan diets alleviate the drought?

[vandamme]

True, but they don't raise that much beef there. It's the almonds and rice that are sucking up the water and paying little for it.

$75 a month?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Portland Oregon and pay an average of $150 a month for a 1500 sq ft house. Maybe we should start buying water from California since it is apparently cheap there.

The almost poetic irony...

[Creepy]

Speaking of nuclear, Nixon actually killed off the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment and fired Oak Ridge Laboratory lead Alvin Weinberg because he was advocating ditching the liquid metal fast breeder reactor in favor of the much safer molten salt reactors. Nixon did this to promote building Light Water Reactors in California and protect jobs there rather than delaying them for a new technology to be developed. The ABSOLUTE KICKER is that Weinberg also wanted molten salt reactors because their high heat can be used for desalination (and their ability to scale to small sizes would make them ideal for developing countries that needed desalination as well as some electricity).

The California eco-joke continues...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "greenies" spent YEARS dragging this plant through the courts in an attemp to kill it, and at the same time have been fighting the Republicans in congress who keep trying to get more fresh water to the state. Now they are putting new water restrictions in place and telling people to rip-up their plants and replace them with things like gravel...... of course their desire to control people by throttling their access to water will have a natural consequence: destroying all those plants will greatly-reduce the CO2 sequestration functions of all that soon-to-be-gone vegitation thereby offsetting lots of the emissions controls that the greenies insist we need to "save the planet"....

Don't worry though! Governor Jerry "moonbeam" Brown and his Democrat super-majorities in the state legislature are spending tens of billions of dollars building the world's slowest high-speed train between two central valley sities that nobody currently commutes between - so it's all good...

Sun and desert

[phorm]

One of the problems seems to be that if you want to grow somewhere that has an extended growing season (a.k.a lots of hot sun year-round), it's probably going to be in an area that is rather arid without a lot of irrigation.

It's doesn't work so well in practice

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you can't drink the fully de-ionized water that results - you have to spend as much as 2x-4x more to "re-mineralize" to make it non-lethal to drink.

Second, the technology has been tried in places (e.g. Saudi Arabia) where energy was free (just drill a gas well and power it from that). The overhead and added processing in several cities where it's been done ended up costing more than simply using well water. AND THAT"S WITH FREE ENERGY!!! Which California doesn't have.

Third, the only REAL choice is to reduce consumption. 70% of California water is consumed by agriculture but agriculture only generates 3% of California GDP. Every walnut and almond individually consumes 5-8 gallons of water which is enough for a person for a several days with conservation. The tiny 3% size of agriculture economically even means that killing the almond and walnut trees AND spending the decade to restart the crop later is still the right economic choice.

AGRICULTURE!!

[Anonymous Coward]

These consumer and business uses pale in comparison to the massive amounts of water being used by agriculture. Big Ag can not pay for desalinized water and be competitive. Even with extensive recycling, and conservation, unless rainfall increases appreciably then Big Ag is done in Southern California with the notable exception of high value crops like wine grapes and some tree fruits.

It's the wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

If SimCity 2000 has taught me anything, it is that, financially, it is never worth building a desalination plant.

Instead, place standard water pumps on artificial islands in your existing source of fresh water, or construct artificial lakes from which to pump fresh water. (Remember: the amount of water it is possible to abstract from a body of water is bound only by your installed pumping capacity and not by the size of the body of water or the rate at which it is replenished.) Or, in the worst case, just pump salt water directly into the system. Your residents won't suffer any serious ill health as a result.

Pick your pain

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the price moved with demand? Sure the price of almonds would go up, water bills for home owners, but there is going to be pain somewhere and maybe certain crops would not be raised in an area where resources cannot support them. A higher price would lead to new industry - desalination and other technologies, and maybe even creative ways to get rid of byproducts.

The problem isn't a lack of water

[eric_harris_76]

The problem is that California's water policy is badly flawed.

Charging below-market prices is a very bad idea. Charging below-cost prices is a very very bad idea.

After listening to this podcast, I've concluded it's worse than I had thought. http://www.econtalk.org/archiv...

Re:The Elephant in the room, no one is talking abo

[samwichse]

Um, you do realize that desalinization plants don't desalinate the ocean, right?

Re:The Elephant in the room, no one is talking abo

[david_thornley]

In desalinization, the brine is typically returned to the sea, so there's no permanent removal and no permanent desalinization of the ocean.