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California Looks To the Sea For a Drink of Water

Posted by samzenpus on from the taking-the-salt-out dept.

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."

72 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. But not to Nestle. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:But not to Nestle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Cost per bottle

    2. Re:But not to Nestle. by the_humeister · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:But not to Nestle. by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
    4. Re:But not to Nestle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not helping.

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

    5. Re:But not to Nestle. by gtall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:But not to Nestle. by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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".

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      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:But not to Nestle. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    8. Re:But not to Nestle. by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:But not to Nestle. by Crashmarik · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    10. Re:But not to Nestle. by penix1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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    11. Re:But not to Nestle. by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    12. Re:But not to Nestle. by mspohr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "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...

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      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    13. Re:But not to Nestle. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    14. Re:But not to Nestle. by cjsm · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      This ad space for rent.
    15. Re:But not to Nestle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    16. Re:But not to Nestle. by Rei · · Score: 2

      *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.

      --
      Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
    17. Re:But not to Nestle. by toadlife · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
    18. Re:But not to Nestle. by phantomfive · · Score: 2

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

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    19. Re:But not to Nestle. by toadlife · · Score: 2

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

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

      --
      I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
  2. Lifestyle by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
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    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    1. Re:Lifestyle by the_humeister · · Score: 2

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

    2. Re:Lifestyle by alen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      in america we are expected to shower daily

    3. Re: Lifestyle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re: Lifestyle by the_humeister · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    5. Re: Lifestyle by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Lifestyle by trout007 · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

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

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    7. Re: Lifestyle by TheGavster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
    8. Re: Lifestyle by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 2

      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.

    9. Re:Lifestyle by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    10. Re: Lifestyle by Thomas+Miconi · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  3. I think we just need to get burned. by Foxhoundz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I think we just need to get burned. by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:I think we just need to get burned. by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "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 )

      --
      -
    3. Re:I think we just need to get burned. by RubberDogBone · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Sig for hire.
    4. Re:I think we just need to get burned. by Creepy · · Score: 2

      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)...

    5. Re:I think we just need to get burned. by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

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

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  4. The obvious answer by DrXym · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:The obvious answer by DrXym · · Score: 2

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

    2. Re:The obvious answer by DrXym · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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).

    3. Re:The obvious answer by oobayly · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  5. What a wonderful unit! by HuskyDog · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

    1. Re:What a wonderful unit! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:What a wonderful unit! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:What a wonderful unit! by itzly · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  6. What about Poo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  7. $75 water bill? by JonWan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
       

    1. Re:$75 water bill? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  8. Re:Energy use by silas_moeckel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  9. Re:Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison by Rei · · Score: 2

    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)

    --
    Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
  10. Re:Energy use by itzly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  11. Maybe by rossdee · · Score: 2

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

    1. Re:Maybe by rworne · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
  12. Re:How about solar desalination (also for energy)? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  13. Re:Energy use by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  14. Re:Energy use by rworne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
  15. Desalination using ocean waves as power source by garidan · · Score: 2

    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...

  16. Carbon emissions? by PRMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  17. Re:Correction to story... by PRMan · · Score: 2

    http://carlsbaddesal.com/

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  18. Re:$2000 per year for 10 people? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  19. Gardening not Showering by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

    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.

  20. Here's a suggestion by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    -Styopa
  21. Reverse Osmosis is energy efficient by calidoscope · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
  22. Re:Energy use by spauldo · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
  23. Re:Energy use by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  24. Re:Energy use by ScentCone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  25. Re:Energy use by Prune · · Score: 2

    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/...

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    "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
  26. Perfect application for LFTR by blindseer · · Score: 2

    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.

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    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  27. $75 a month?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  28. The almost poetic irony... by Creepy · · Score: 2

    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).

  29. Re: Impact on Ocean tiny in comparison by Rei · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
  30. Re:Energy use by StikyPad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere