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William Shatner Proposes $30 Billion Water Pipeline To California
Taco Cowboy writes The 84-year-old Star Trek star wants to build a water pipeline to California. All it'll cost, according to Mr. Shatner, is $30 billion, and he wants to KickStarter the funding campaign. According to Mr. Shatner, if the KickStarter campaign doesn't raise enough money then he will donate whatever that has been collected to a politician who promise to build that water pipe. Where does he wants to get the water? Seattle, "A place where there's a lot of water. There's too much water," says Mr. Shatner.
Southern California has a long history of stealing water from other places...
Time to just jack up the water rates so people move out.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
He's right, there is plenty of water. It's in the Pacific Ocean. If there's 30 billion to spend (and there isn't), use it to improve desalination methods. Don't rob other cities of their water.
How about California stops growing almonds. Water crisis averted.
And $30B will get you 30 desal plants like Carlsbad's, which cost $1B, and which will provide 7% of what San Diego area residents need.
But the $30B won't get you the power it takes to run them (new power plants?) Or the energy required to power the power plants.
Also, CA's agriculture depends upon cheap water, not expensive desalinated water.
That said, would a $30B pipeline bring in the same amount of water as desal plants? Or more? Operating expenses are sure to be lower, but there'd need to be a detailed economic and engineering case made for one solution over the other.
--PM
It's the key 21st century project that needs to get done to keep the US safe from droughts, aquifer depletion and powerful storms.
Silly boy. Under what scenario do you figure that the western states won't simply use all the water we have back east, then demand more? The west coast of California is seeing the dream of living where it hardly ever rains, yet taking other people's water, come to an end.
Get your water where the Colorado river reaches the sea.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
According to Mr. Shatner, if the KickStarter campaign doesn't raise enough money then he will donate whatever that has been collected...
...to a politician who promise to build that water pipe.
Haha! He almost had me going there, right up until that last bit. Well played, Shatner, well played.
What?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Or, we east coasters could stop eat so much lettuce.
Or we could start growing our own again.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If the people in Liberalwood want to do something constructive, they wold stop opposing desalination and let that $30 billion be spent getting California its own water supply.
This is exactly the wrong approach. The last thing California needs is more idiotic "top down" solutions that ignore basic economics. Desalination is a way to exchange expensive and scarce electricity for cheap and plentiful water. It only makes sense because of the artificially inflated cost of water in urban areas. Meanwhile, farmers are using massive amounts of cheap subsidized water to grow rice and cotton in the desert. End the subsidies. Set a market price for water. Problem solved.
... fewer people.
That is the big issue here. Even while they talk about water conservation they're still zoning more land for development. Still building more apartments. Still building more office parks. Still building stuff they can't provide water or power or transport for...
So why are we doing that?
Here is how we fix this issue. Link development to existing infrastructure. Lock California's development to the resources it can actually provide to residents. Then if people want to build something new, they FIRST have to get the infrastructure expanded.
The issue will solve itself quite quickly.
And LA didn't steal the water. It bought it. Yes, I know the people of Owens valley were very sad that the water all went away. It was bought and paid for. Get over it.
The old city fathers of Los Angeles wouldn't have let this happen to them. They took care of business. The existing leadership have their heads so far up their own asses they don't know what is going on anymore. It is sad watching them. They try to do good. They really do. But they can't. Too much corruption. Too many special interests. Too many people milking the system. They can't do anything. All the money and political will goes to graft. Nothing left for visionary urban planning. Nothing left to keep the city vibrant.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
hahaha, your brain can't grasp rudimentary concepts of scale and magnitude.
Nestle used 50 million gallons from Sacramento sources last year. California households alone use 360 million gallons PER DAY.
Does that mean anything to you? Does that make one neuron of common sense fire between your ears?
So maybe we should develop solar plants there and not almond farms. Just sayin'