Slashdot Mirror
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.
You FREAKS in liberalwood stop using up water like it's going outta style and learn a little MODERATION.
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.
Not worst idea I ever heard. However, why would we do that without changing the current water-hungry ways of CA? You will have the same problem within 20 years.
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.
Seattle's water is all going into the ocean. How about using the ocean to transport all that water to southern California instead of building a pipeline? All you have to do is remove a little bit of salt it picked up along the way! I'm guessing 30B bucks would build quite a few desalination plants.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Governor Inslee expands drought emergency to include more of Washington
This seems like a bad idea. It doesn't solve the issue of them wanting to grow crops in a dessert. And they have the audacity to suggest building a pipeline to an area that is currently suffering from a drought? Sure, Washington state won't be drought-stricken forever, but what will they do when both states are in a drought?
How about build a desalination plant with use of nuclear power in California?
Just comping up here isn't enough, now they want to take our water too?
I had the same thought. Last time I saw the outlet of the Columbia River into the ocean it was immense. I can't imagine Oregon or Washington complaining about running a pipe from there to California.
Lots of micro desalination plants powered by solar perhaps?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
“If I don’t make 30 billion, I’ll give the money to a politician who says, ‘I’ll build it.’"
turns out /pol/ was right all along. (they always are!)
Hey, I have an idea that could transport water and help with transportation/leisure: make it a big ass canal*
*read 'canal' in 'big ass' context if you like that better
Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
Wouldn't this pretty much just kick the can down the road a little, encouraging MORE people to move to what's essentially a water-starved area?
-Styopa
Where did that number come from and why is it crazy to do this, when half this country wants to build a tar sands pipeline no matter the environmental risks? And I doubt the Keystone XL pipeline would cost $30 billion.
While they are building pipelines and canals, removing some water from the Mississippi and engineering a structure to keep the gulf's salt water from going upstream would be a better route across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern CA. All of them need that water. And the terrain is more favorable to pipelines.
And working with Mexico to build a salt water pipeline between the Gulf of California and the Salton Sea to get the salt level of that lake under control would also be a good thing.
Well, someone will bring this up
Nestlé bottling water in California
But the first thing I thought when I saw the story (in a campaign email) was "I bet it's a small fraction of the total water usage".
I can't believe that it takes over a gallon of water to grow a single almond. Maybe they should look at ways of improving that.
And of legislating that people should be given a sound thwack around the head for buying bottled water. It's a wasteful, stupid, con.
I hope this raises awareness that the country should have an interstate water sharing system, so that reservoirs can be built in wet areas and pipelines can send excess to states that need it.
It's the key 21st century project that needs to get done to keep the US safe from droughts, aquifer depletion and powerful storms.
I hope the "water" from the "water" pipeline is not coming from Alberta, Canada.
There's no way you could use all of that water. It's unpossible.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Fixed it for you. Shatner has lost it, but wanting to use money to get someone to do something, that isn't socialism, you clueless fucking dittohead.
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 Chinatown
The water thats going out into the ocean would provide enough extra water to solve the problem, at the very least mandate all lawn irrigation use recycled water.
I'm from the Great Lakes area and sorry, California can't have our water. Our water table is too low as it is. None of the other states are going to agree to send their own water to that tax and spend, giant deficit-having, liberal disaster over there.
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.
Like many western states CA has a systems of water rights that gives rights to water to whomever got there first. It also means you get all of yours before the next person gets any, and so on down the line. That was fine until CA started to outgrow the available supply, and as a result some are left at the end of the pipe so to speak, with little or no water. Add in a desire by farmers to protect their access at the expense of others, and little demand to limit losses along the way to evaporation, etc, and you have a big problem. If farmers had to pay market rates for water they'd change their use habits, just as other users will as prices rise. As for desalination plants, they would be a good solution but no doubt would face NIMBY battles even as the same people want water; like power, they want it from a tap but don't want a plant next door producing it. The bottom line is souther CA can't continue to grow like it is and keep the same water use habits.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I'm quite tired of the rich, specifically celebrities, telling us how to fix the problems of the world. Meanwhile it's born on the backs of the middle class. I like the idea however to use Kickstarter to "fix" these problems. People voting with their wallets. Seems like a great idea to me.
Of course politics will dip its fingers into this mix and decide to tax this program to hell to pay for their goals and make this project outprice itself, particularly once you have to start involving permitting and zoning and politicians want their palms greased or nix the pipeline come through their backyards.
KickStarter cut will be way to big and will they be able to take a cut of the kickback and any overages?
... how about charging those rural parasites fair market value for the water they use, reflecting the scarce/non-renewable nature of fossil water??
Asking greedy/short-sighted primary producers to take some of that personal responsibility they vote for and foist onto the urban poor is only fair. If the shoe fits, wear it.
... 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.
Or here's an idea. Don't build in areas where there isn't much water. Wipe Las Vegas and Phoenix off the map because there is NO reason there should be large metropolitan areas in the middle of a desert. I've even heard ridiculous ideas like diverting water from the Mississippi basin or the Great Lakes to make sure the idiots in Las Vegas can fill their swimming pools. Those cities are prime examples of doing something because we can without considering whether we should.
To get back on topic, there is NO way a $30 billion pipeline makes more sense than some very large scale desalination plants. If they need the water that badly then there is literally a whole ocean of it on the coast of California. You can buy a LOT of desalination for that kind of cheddar.
It would be the biggest kickstarter ever! 30 Billion
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?
Brain hurt froms bad word writings!
Shatner isnt saying anything new, just regurgitating shit he hears on AM radio and KTLA. As an LA resident, there is a shortage of water and there honestly always has been. Car washes recycle water up to 25 times, fruit aisles with sprayers recycle their water, toilets are already damned efficient, and anyone in DTLA can attest we rarely wash sidewalks. The solutions are dead simple, but ardent vocal minorities oppose them.
Farms: the northern half of the US is going to need to stop insisting on a seasonless produce aisle. Its unsustainable. Strawberries in january contribute to carbon emissions and water depletion. Stop pumping the avocado market and realize its a fatty fruit that doesnt need to become the staple diet of a population with 60% obesity and leading the world in heart disease. We dont need to be grazing cattle and making rice, a crop that requires a flooded field. The thing we do best is dates, a plant that grows in arid climates anyhow. Rooibos, Honeybush, Drumstick, and other tough-as-nails plants can come play on the farm too.
The well-to-do.: Stop insisting every gated community and shopping consumatorium in OC needs flushing fountains and gurgling streams. trade in your opulent midwestern lawns for landscape that conforms to the climate. I know, its a step closer to the unwashed masses, but youre doing us a favour.
Beer: We probably dont need to be making this, or if we need to revisit it. It takes 5 litres of fresh purified water to create 1 litre of beer. Bottled water, while often associated, hasnt been popular in LA for a while. Its mostly filtered and decanted from the restaraunt.
Works Departments: FIX. THE. LEAKS. I cant tell you how many times ive seen legacy hillside irrigation blasting 20ft jets of clean water near roads on the 101. Hydrants, pipes, water fountains, and the automatic public toilets need regular service or they just waste water.
Good people go to bed earlier.
imaging being able to tax each gallon of water that is exported! Your state could basically get rid of sales and income taxes because of this!
How about taking the fresh river water as it is about to dump into the Pacific, and pipe it through the ocean in poly blend pipes that are easy to install and repair... a leak would do no damage
You mean except for the salt getting into your freshwater supply when you inevitably spring a leak? (Think osmotic gradient) You mean except for altering the ecosystem of the river delta? You would have to have some pretty huge pipes (or REALLY high pressure) to take a meaningful amount of water to where it is wanted. It is NOT trivial to pipe a significant percentage of the outflow of a river somewhere else.
I don't mean to be overly harsh because the idea does have some charm to it but there are some pretty serious issues in play with such a scheme. I have a hard time believing that it would make more sense than simply building some large scale desalination plants close to where the water is needed. You would still have to pipe the water across land at some point anyway.
One of the largest lakes in the US.
Sits smack-dab on the California border.
It's all downhill to the San Fernando valley- minimal pumping cost.
But, it will never happen because the Tahoe property owners are rich and powerful.
Much easier to steal water from poor people.
Hmm... How about a floating-yet-submerged pipeline?
Water flowing through plastic tubes anchored offshore ... (still submerged mind you - but not laying the seabed).
It could start small -- say two 12 inch pipes, then more, or larger, pipelines added once the concept was proved.
Why does this work? For one thing, eminent-domain, right-of-way issues pretty much go away. And the problem of structural support turns into keeping pipeline sections from _rising_, rather than falling (caused by the natural bouyancy of the pipeline and its contents)
Seattle here... Go fuck yourself.
First, most of California agriculture is not in desert. Those areas tend to be rather low on rainfall, but not low enough to qualify as a desert.
If they don't have enough water to the degree that they are thinking about insane schemes like piping it from Washington then it is a distinction without a difference.
Second, presence of water is not the only reason to grow something in a particular region. Southern California happens to be famous for a pleasant climate and a lot of sunny days.
You are correct that there are other factors besides water availability in play. Soil composition, climate, location, transportation, etc all matter. But the water IS a critical component. If you have to pipe in more than can be sustained then it is NOT a good idea to do so. This includes times when there is a drought.
If CA is short a percent or two in its water supply, Nestle might be a big deal. Otherwise, it's meaningless....
When you are in the middle of a drought (which California is) it very quickly becomes meaningful. One or two percent is not trivial even in times of plenty. During a drought it becomes even more ludicrously wasteful than bottled water normally is, which is really saying something.
I support this idea, for the simple reason that it will help keep Californians from trying to suck the Great Lakes dry instead.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
How about build a desalination plant with use of nuclear power in California?
Did you learn nothing from Fukushima? Don't build nuclear power plants in earthquake zones! Bad idea.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
a four-foot pipeline isn't going to fix bugger all.
At high water velocity (i.e. not long haul practical) the best a four foot pipeline can do is approximately 4 000 litres per second (about 1000 usgal/s) or about 300,000 cubic meters per day. At this flow rate, the headlosses would require multiple pumping stations to keep the water moving. The electrical costs would be enormous. Additionally, At 0.4 cu.m./cap/day that would support approximately 750,000 people at average North American usage rates. Somehow a generational project like this should serve more than just a portion of L.A.
How about California spends a whole lot less cash and start recycling a portion of the billions of gallons of water released by Californians into the sea?
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
I have always believed that a pipe line from the Great Lakes, Manitoba, Athabaska, or Great Bear Lake to the American West made sense. California doesn't have a water problem. Deserts are dry. They have an engineering problem. With a pipeline we can make the deserts bloom again.
...to just buy Nestle and stop pumping the water out of the area on mass?
Well that was easy.
I don't agree about conservation or banning high water content crops. Looking at history, if America did not come up with creative ideas on how to bring vast amounts of electricity, water, gasoline, etc.. to the places where people wanted to use them, then industry would be a tenth of what it is now, and we would have one tenth of the population, if that.
I think what we need is creative solutions to bring more water in, and possibly moving towards a more market base cost structure. If I understand correctly the cities use a minuscule amount of water compared to AG, I don't understand the logic of squeezing that part of the pie (city use) to try to 'fix' the problem.
After reading some ideas here, I think I would start costing out the concept of floating the pipeline in the Pacific or solar desalination and then get to work.
Aw! Now I remember.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Yes, it is. He'd be giving somewhat less than $30 billion to a politician's campaign. I mean, you can't write a check to the government with "FOR WATER PIPELINE PROJECT ONLY" in the memo.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
So then, we should avoid building cities in the Great Lakes region, where it gets really cold in winter and people have to use natural gas that was mined in Texas and the Dakotas?
Nice bit of absurd reductionism. There's nothing wrong with SOME diversion and trade of a natural resource. But there is something VERY wrong with doing it when you have a limited resource like fresh water that is being used badly. You might have an argument if it weren't for the absurdly stupid uses of water in places like Las Vegas and Phoenix and even in big parts of California.
There's this thing called comparitive advantage.
I don't think you understand what comparative advantage actually means. Comparative advantage is why two places can produce the same good and have it be economically beneficial to both even though one has an absolute price advantage. It has little to do with why building large cities in the middle of the desert is bat-shit crazy.
The southwest has tons of potential for producing solar energy, let's not shut down development there yet.
A bunch of solar plants do not require a city with the population of Phoenix to exist in the middle of a desert. Rather than diverting water so we can have fountains in front of the Bellagio hotel and lush golf courses in the desert, how about we actually make sane use of the water we have before you start draining the Great Lakes.
so apparently it's easier to start a kickstarter than propose a state rider to vote on...
You could decide not to build cities on deserts. Isn't most of Southern California a desert that's been terraformed.
Leftist market manipulation won't solve the problem. Lake Superior levels look healthy to me. Better to use the resource and put Mother Nature to work. If you drew down Great Bear Lake 10m, nobody would possibly no the difference. Lakes differ from puddles in that lakes are defined by contours where ground water level intersect topography, puddles are temporary accumulations of rain water.
What's your next best idea? (Your first idea was amazingly unrealistic, almost as though you're an unusually stupid person who has significantly below-average knowledge about politics. And yes, that's significantly below-average for Americans! It's like 99 out of 100 of the amazingly dimwitted ignorant people on the street, happen to be wiser than you.) (I'm not saying that you are that stupid, just that your words suggest you are that stupid. I suppose it's possible that you might have been acting or parodying.)
There is never too much water, and frankly this is what you get when you build in a desert.
It won’t be much longer before mountains have no snow, then there will be no rivers, no fish, nothing.
When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money
-Cree Indian
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
So, instead of fixing the horrible problem that California's (the West's - pretty much all of the US's) archaic system of legacy water rights has created, the solution is to do more of the same, except more expensively? Isn't one definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, expecting things to change?
As for it being a fix for California's immediate drought problem - as I recall, the project he compares this to - the Alaska Oil Pipeline - took 20 years to survey, design, & build. Even if the political and legal environment could work it's way around the idea that this is extremely urgent and absolutely necessary, I don't see a water pipeline taking less than 10 years to build - 5 years at massive cost.
Desalination is a plausible solution for water for consumer use--that is, urban and suburban locations.
It is not a very plausible solution for agricultural use-- too expensive. Do you realize that those people take the water and just dump it on the ground?
*(well, some of the suburban people just spray it on the ground, too. But they spray millions and millions of gallons on lawns. Sounds like a lot... but agriculture uses trillions of gallons.)
Water rights are complicated. Since the rule is, whoever grabbed it first owns the rights to the water, the people who own it aren't necessarily the ones who use it most responsibly. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Agriculture is 80% of California's water use (although only 1.5% of California's economy) The big problem is almonds. Who would have thought that such a niche foodstuff would drive agricultural water? https://www.bostonglobe.com/bu...
Trillions? Yep: http://science.nasa.gov/scienc...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This idea comes around every once in a while, proposals to divert the Columbia river to California go back as far as the 60's. California needs to stop stealing water from the rest of the world and make their own. It's called a desalination plant and that is how the rest of the world deals with arid deserts. Where is Seattle going to come up with the amount of water that California needs without turning into a desert itself? With $30 billion dollars California could build their own solution.
Spock: Dr. McCoy, it appears that the Captain has gone off his nut. Is there anything you can do?
McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a psychiatrist, you pointy-eared computer!
Spock: Is a psychiatrist not a type of physician, Dr. McCoy?
McCoy: Look, Spock - my name's "McCoy", not "Webster." I'm a doctor, not a dictionary!
Spock: Entomology notwithstanding, Doctor, is there nothing you can do to help the Captain with his fantasy of solving the drought problem via a multi-billion dollar pipeline from Seattle?
McCoy: I'm doctor, not an engineer, Spock!
Spock: (Pauses)
Spock: Captain, it appears that the Doctor has gone off his nut. Is there anything you can do?
Kirk: It looks like the Californian water crisis will have to wait. We didn't beam down with any "Red Shirts" so we'll have to solve the doctor's problem ourselves. Phasors on stun, Mr. Spock. Fire at will.
(Spock fires at Dr. McCoy. McCoy drops.)
Kirk: Spock, scan the Doctor with the Tricorder. Any sign of intelligence?
Spock: No, Captain. Intelligence readings are unchanged. However, the Doctor has been successfully stunned.
Kirk: Good work, Spock. Now, back to the drought problem.
Spock: But Captain, doesn't The Prime Directive prevent you from stepping in to solve Earth's environmental problems?
Kirk: Precisely, Mr. Spock. But we finally solved the "McCoy" problem - at least for now.
Spock: I see, Captain...your logic is impeccable...
Kirk: Scottie, two to beam up.
Water scarcity in California is a political problem with a political solution.
To better understand why a pipeline is a non-starter...
From the perspective of the cashew farmer: would you rather buy cheap water from the local utility or expensive water from the Great Lakes?
From the perspective of the pipeline investor: would you invest in a project to send water to CA when the people most likely to buy it will have ever more restrictions on water use?
And now for the solution to this and many problems...
Simply remove use restrictions and let the market properly set the price of this scarce product.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Okay let me paraphrase.
Hello I am trying to raise $30B to build a pipe line, would you like to contribute? Be advised however if you choose not to contribute and I don't reach my goal I am going to spend the money lobbing instead to get government to force you to contribute via taxation under threat of prison.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If they did that then you'll get the usual crowd of yammerheads complaining about gentrification as the prices increase and start driving the less well off out of the state. Since no one wants to tell them to pound sand you just end up continuing the same unsustainable policies again and again.
Perhaps he can install some astroturf to cover the unsightly bare spot where his lush, vibrant lawn used to live.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It appears you don't need a pipe, just buy out almond farmers and close the market
A couple of points:
1) Seattle has less rainfall than NYC. Seattle "rain" is drizzle. Drizzles a lot. Not much water in it, though.
2) We have droughts. It's because the watersheds are in the mountains, and rely on snowpack. Some year there's lots of rain in the Cascades, but not enough snow.
If you post it, they will read.
I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment on this. I'm a Professional Engineer in Water Resources in Las Vegas. But, I'm not a Hollywood actor, or famous or anything. Maybe we should just defer to our leaders, like Mr. Shatner, to determine what course of action we should take.
The editing of this story is a new low for Slashdot. I've highlighted the improper grammar, below.
California could siphon water out of Lake Michigan to Imperial Valley. No need to pump as there is sufficient drop in altitude between the two. Obviously one hell of an engineering and construction projects, but if the Romans could build aqueducts surely we could accomplish this. The real challenge isn't the engineering and construction, it's the politics and the fact that there is no such thing as national water policy.
Um, yeah, no.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Why don't you just teleport the water? You did it with the whales for cryin out loud!
I art more snarky, and terse than thou. I art Slashdot!
I want to Kickstart a campaign to helicopter in bottled water from the Midwest. We would buy hundreds of thousands of helicopters to fly in one bottle at a time to help out the thirsty Californians. Your dollar contribution can make a world of difference. Please give.
You'll get none of my water; I need it for my mawn.
The "agriculture uses 80% of California's water" argument has become a thing because there's a concerted effort to steal water rights. That's true, 80% of the water rights in California are used in agriculture. However, unlike the urban uses of water, that water goes back into the ecosystem. Flood stage water used to irrigate rice fields soaks into the ground and recharges aquifers. Water used for irrigation percolates through the soil and back into the Sac/San Joaquin basin. A large fraction of the evaporated water (numbers vary by study) gets dumped on the lower Sierras as rain. This water is recycled and re-used; in a year, the same cc of water can be used 2-3 times for irrigation and then end up in the delta keeping fish alive.
On the other hand, water pumped to SoCal and used in the Bay Area never re-enters the freshwater ecosystem. Most of it gets treated as sewage and dumped in canals to the ocean (or directly into the ocean) and the large amount that gets used for lawns and pools either percolates to the ocean or evaporates and gets carried out to sea. That water is completely lost to the ecosystem and water cycle until the next winter when it gets deposited as snow. That small 20% is a whole hell of a lot larger in context than the 80% that's used for agriculture.
But, building a progressive narrative and stealing water rights is a whole lot cheaper if you ignore the whole "poor people need to eat too" thing.
... and genetically modify Californians' kidneys so that they can consume seawater.
You are one of the few mentioning rainwater collection. Well done.
Average rainfall is California is around 10 inches per year. Google says California has 163,696 square miles of area.
1 furlong per fortnight = 0.000166309524 m/s. Carry the naught. [This is to appease Europeans, and hillbillies, alike]
3,800,000,000,000 cubic feet of water fall on California each year. 7.5 US gallons per cubic foot. 28 trillion gallons in total.
Total water usage, average to a per capita is around 2,000 gallons per person.
California population is around 37M.
28 T / (37M * 2K) = 425.
One year's California rainfall could service the entire state's water needs for 425 years.
Recovering one-quarter of one percent of the rain that falls on the state each year would provide enough water for everyone for the entire year.
I come here for the love
So maybe we need a boycott California almonds campaign. You know, for their own good.
You could divert a lot of water from the Columbia before it dumps into the ocean. The pipeline would have to be much bigger than 4 feet, but very large underground pipelines are feasible.
Once you have the pipeline in place it would make sense to continue growing food in the desert: warm, plenty of sunshine, and almost full control over the inputs.
My serious but dumb question is: what about glaciers?
Aside from the enormous expense of getting the ice transported one time, once you get it down here couldn't it be stored in huge reservoirs near the desalination plant? Seems like few would own the water rights on that land besides Uncle Sam, and the cost of compensating them would be far less than building a pipeline.
You just need to get a massive amount of water down to storage tanks ONCE, then make sure that recycling and diverting are done properly to eliminate wasting it.
Better yet, build a telecom that isn't a dick. If it works right, I won't care about my brown lawn, I'd probably never even see it. I'll put up damned cacti to get away from AT & Comcast Warner, who are already prickly.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes Almonds take a relatively large amount of water. Its only a small amount compared to the vast amount of water Used by the production of Livestock. 1800L per pound of beef isn't at all Sustainable. Want to help the water issues, eat one less burger every once and a while. It will help way more then any low flow showers or low flow toilets.
a KirkStarter?
I'll be here all week.
Because I've got nowhere to go.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
California has plenty of sunshine to power it, and more than enough coastline, best of all it would deprive none of the other nearby states of water they need too. Washington state's ecosystems drinks that stuff, let it be. Salmon got it rough enough already.
Average SF home is over 2,000 sq. ft. Assume a roof size, conservatively, of 1,000 sq. ft.
10 inches of rain on 1,000 sq. ft. is around 6,000 gallons available per household per year.
Coastal usage per person is around 145 gallons per day.
You could provide for 12% of residential water needs just by people not sending their roof water to the sewer system.
Imagine if we reused the water that lands on roadways...172,000 miles of highway, average width of ~10 feet...68 billion gallons of water wasted each year...almost what the entire state uses in a year.
I come here for the love
Sam Kinison's solution is more practical
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That's worked in other applications.
Some of the "gallon per almond" and "1000 gal/steak" things overlook a few aspects of this.
1) they're often talking "lifecycle costs". That is, they take total water consumption of all almond farmers and divide by number of almonds produced. In reality, some of that water is used for "keep the tree alive"
1a) the beef numbers are not the amount of water a cow drinks, it's also the water used in growing the feed/grass, etc. I'll happily concede that alfalfa is not a efficient crop in $/gallon of water spent or even in "tons of alfalfa/tons of water", but see below.
2) Dump a foot of water on the soil and it soaks in. The trees use some, but some replenishes the aquifer, some evaporates.
3) Water lost to evaporation isn't lost forever. California is unique: water evaporates in the central valley and then rains or snows on the Sierra Nevada (granted most of the moisture comes from our big solar de-sal plant called the Pacific Ocean). In any case, I would venture that water evaporating in California winds up as rain/snow falling somewhere in the US. Just another way in which California helps the nation. We appreciate your thanks.
4) Particularly in the case of animals, some of the water is excreted. and returns to the aquifer, etc.
5) Those of us in California who eat California produce (most of us) get part of daily water intake from that produce. We exhale, sweat, excrete some of it.
Assessing true water consumption is really difficult, with lots of externalities, sort of like determining carbon footprints.. where do you draw the boundary line on the system. It's not like you are packaging up little bladders with a gallon of water and shipping them to China.
And if you're a farmer, you want to make effective use of the water you have: growing a high dollar crop like almonds isn't a bad idea, compared to say, growing hay, or celery (note that California is one of world's leading producers of celery, too).
And that's as it should be. Farmers can make money growing almonds or avocados, and use the income from that to buy tomatoes grown in Mexico, and have some money left over to pay for public schools, roads, sending their kids to college, cleaning up the atrocious air quality in Fresno, etc.. OK, I grant that some of the big farms are really owned by hedge funds and other investors who are using them as a speculative instrument. But that's a financial systems problem, not a water problem.
Heck, with the taxes on those high dollar crops, maybe we could even build a fast train to get from LA to SF in a couple hours. Or, as our governor proposed in his first term, we could launch a California only comsat to provide universal internet service.
... and he's kind of a jerk. It doesn't surprise me that he's thinking about simplistic, over-costly "solutions" to the problem. Note that he's going to give the money as political campaign donations to whatever politician says that they'll build it (if he doesn't hit the mark, which he has no hope of hitting). Politicians all tell the truth, too, right?
All we see here is a pretty obvious play that Shatner is making to aggrandize himself and magnify his political influence... with other people's money. It's all about him making himself a bigger celebrity in political circles. Free dinners of chicken and peas, and easy, casual podium gigs he can write off.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Almonds are fascinating, using over a trillion gallons of water per year in California. I always thought eating nuts was lower impact on the environment than eating meat and so a better use of resources. Not sure why we can't grow almonds in water-wealthy states - almonds grow all over the Mediterranean. In fact, almonds are very genetically close to peaches, and I'm sure would make Georgia more money than peaches, with a little investment.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
They tried real hard and 'succeeded' at Aral sea. They also tried but not so hard with lake Sevan so it still exists. Let us see how US env. engineering can fuck things up.
BTW Could this be that huge number of mad cows steaks have been consumed by Shatner along his service in Enterprise?
Sorry Capt. But California needs to learn to MANAGE the water, and there are lots of ways to do that without building any new pipelines.
That's just crazy - That's almost as much as building a high speed rail running along the San Andreas fault.... Even if Diane Feinsteins husband would do the job for cheap.... but that would be corruption at first level, and as such should be dismissed as craaazytalk...
If not then its plights would be ignored by the rest of the world. Much like the 49 other states.
New York (Well its city will get attention too)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
How much more energy is there in a spoonful of salt plus a cup of fresh water vs a cup of salty water. Is the problem with desalination that there is an immense energy difference to overcome or that the technology we have is very inefficient ?
Nullius in verba
it would be a lot cheaper just to move shatter to Seattle.
Admittedly, Brad Paisley is the (credited) author of this song, but Shatner spoke the words. Maybe he should listen to the track again.
"I'd love to help the world and all its problems
But I'm an entertainer, and that's all
So the next time there's an asteroid or a natural disaster
I'm flattered that you thought of me
But I'm not the one to call"
I think drought qualifies as a natural disaster. Why the change of heart, Mr. Shatner?
All you need is a solar powered project to convert sea water into potable water. I'm pretty sure $30B will go a long way to set up several projects all along it's coast. Also, converting current pipes from metals to plastic so your sewage systems etc can handle a little bit of salt water, then you don't need to flush with clean water and it's a lot healthier (salt water is inhospitable to a lot of bacteria)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
according to the billboards in the central valley, this whole thing is Pelosi's fault
so we just need to take her out of the picture - problem solved
I'm not sure how he expects to raise 30B on something that only benefits one specific demographic. All successful kickstarter campaigns are for products that could potentially benefit anyone willing to plunk down their money.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Desalinization is expensive. It's energy intensive, they're ugly as sin, it results in bad-tasting water, it pollutes the oceans with saline, the resulting water still needs to be pumped hundreds of miles to be used, etc. etc.
It's a raw deal and it's stupid to mention it. Please don't.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
There are plenty of places that do have the climate and the rain and that would desperately like to export produce to the US, but the US agricultural lobby is keeping that from happening.
Yes, and those places would need to burn down their rain forest to convert the land to commercial agriculture. There are massive environmental consequences for doing so, a unoffset massive carbon release, an ongoing loss of carbon sequestration and oxygen generation, the loss of possible medicinal botanics that have not been evaluated yet (ex. a new family of antibiotics that would be effective against the current resistant strains circulating in our hospitals). Plus these regions tend to be high on corruption and low on regulatory compliance. See the recent Vice episode on Palm Oil production.
Sometime back in my Geomorphology class back in the early 1980's I either read of the professor said there was a theory the Snake River wound its way down the backside of the Sierra Mountains and down to Baja and joined up with the Colorado River. The change came after one of those massive Northwestern volcanic eruptions. So it doesn't seem so far fetched.
So by that reckoning, any pipe doesn't have to be built the whole way. Just over that portion where it got shunted to the Columbia River back to its old course.
At late middle age, my memory could be faulty also. Or the theory may have been disproven by now.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Some (most ?) of that rainwater landing on roofs drains into the soil not the urban drainage system, which for the record is separate from sewage. So leave the roofs alone. Collect water at the urban drainage system.
So, Captain Kirk wants to build a PIPELINE to move that water? Just have Scotty use the transporter to move the water to Lake Mead.
One would need a massive inland industrial solar facility to power a desalinator. Assuming such a facility could be built it might be better put to other uses. A far more practical plan would involve massive updating of water policy and watering techniques in California agriculture. That is where 80% of the water goes.
Kill half of Californians and suck the water out of their dead bodies to hydrate the other half.
Or, you know, they can move north.
WTF is with all these people living/growing in fucking deserts? Yeah, I'm talking to you Southern California, New Mexico, and Goddamn ARIZONA!
With the south north water diversion project. Cost $80bn so far and has 2000km of pipes.
Shatner is an idiot. I lived in Seattle until a couple of years ago. The city has a marvelous snow-fed water supply, but it is barely able to cope with the demand of a growing population. In years with low snowfall, there's rationing. This fool confuses the city's drizzle with lots of rain. Seattle only gets about 40-50 inches of rain a year. It has no major rivers to tap.
Tapping the Columbia River might be more viable, but I've heard that Oregon has told California that there's no way they're going to give up its water. California is going to have to tackle this one on their own.
How about instead of turning farmers into rural poor we find a way to stop the urban poor from breeding like livestock ?
The 2 "crops" that are taking the water:
Shut those 2 things down and water problem solved.
You are clueless.
Look, I hate Nestle and I think bottled water is stupid too, but the amount of water they bottle is trivial compared to the trillions of gallons of water shortage representing the drought. They could bottle a hundred times more water, or a thousand, and it still wouldn't make a lick of difference.
The problem is measured in trillions of gallons. It's not drinking water that's the problem here.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No, seriously, half of the Washington State counties are already in Drought Emergency, and we barely have enough water to provide bottled water to all the Hollywood folk drinking bottled water that is really our tap water from Seattle (Tolt River watershed).
Stop subsidizing agricultural water use for "high-profit" water using crops. That might actually work.
We use 1/4th the water in Seattle that you water wasters in California use. One-fourth. Per capita.
Change YOUR behavior.
Then we'll talk.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Desalination is a plausible solution for water for consumer use--that is, urban and suburban locations.
It is not a very plausible solution for agricultural use-- too expensive.
Actually, there are a number of issues with desalination as it presently exists. The cost of plant construction and operations puts the cost of water supply at roughly triple that of traditional methods.
Exactly. That's why it's not a plausible solution for agricultural use. If your application is to take water and spray it on the ground, yes, it needs to be cheap.
For urban and suburban use-- well, given the rents, and the cost of housing, in San Diego (not even to mention San Francisco!)-- the cost of water just isn't a factor. You could triple it and not notice.
They also depend on fossil fuels and thus contribute to greenhouse gasses. They produce brine and boron contaminants that can not easily be disposed of on either land or sea without potentially significant impact of the wildlife exposed to them.
Those are engineering problems.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
1) Stop exemptions and subsidies.
2) Change more for water.
3) ???
4) PROFIT!!!
This would fix the whole water shortage thing in short order. It would likely destroy a lot of unsustainable agriculture in the area as well. It would also promote a lot of conservation and probably innovation. So win-win-win.
Even doubling what the cost per volume of water would probably be pretty trivial to most domestic households.
I prefer the farmers move out. Those assholes use 60% of the water.
Actually, there are some easy fixes to use less water.
1. Stop subsidizing agricultural water use.
2. Plant mixed crops (alternate rows) and plant cover crops between tree rows. Bonus: more soil retention, more water retention, easier to control pests.
3. Plant barrier trees around fields. Birds on those eat pests, Trees reduce soil loss, and water loss.
We learned this all in the 1970s in British Columbia, just north of Seattle. Adapt.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oregonians will not be happy about letting a pipeline run through their state - and especially not if it's going to South CA.
If you're going to spend $30Bn on a pipe to Seattle, build a Hyperloop instead!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
"Where does he wants to get the water?"
Yes, precious. We wants the precious. For our precious bodily fluids, precious. It's incredibly obvious... Gollum! Gollum! Foreign substances in our precious bodily fluids, precious. Without the knowledge of the individual precious! No! No choices... precious. That's the way your hard core Commies workses, precious.
Oh, really?
Yes really. A small town is fine. A city of 1million+ in the middle of a desert is an absurdity.
Yes, Phoenix and Tucson have added to our natural water supplies by diverting some of the Colorado River,
"Some"? The Colorado River doesn't even reach the ocean anymore. ALL of it gets diverted. Not just by Phoenix to be fair but really there is no reason the diversion to Phoenix should even be necessary at all.
The communities have existed for a VERY long time.
Not with 1.5 million people they haven't. Phoenix existing as a small city is fine. At it's current size is not.
I dare say it's far easier to deal with water conservation in the desert here, then the floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, frosts, tornados, mudslides and other forms of natural disasters found in other parts of the country that we are quite immune to, thank you very much.
I think you have no idea what living in other parts of the country is actually like if you think those things are huge problems most of the time. Plus we aren't sucking down massive amounts of power for air conditioning for most of the year and diverting entire rivers to support a huge city in a place where there is no justification for a huge city to exist. I've been to Phoenix. Nice enough town. But it should be no more than 1/10th it's current size.
Someone needs to tell Shattner that he didn't ACTUALLY go to Starfleet Academy.
I need a good source here, but I recently heard that public use (citizens) was 4% use of the water pie, commercial was around 24% of the water pie, and over 70% was agriculture. The governor recently added water restrictions, etc. to that 4% to accomplish what exactly? Pie charts are amazing.
"whatever that has been collected... Where does he wants to get the water?"
Where indeed.
You fucking American idiots.
Just for future reference, if you find yourself in a position of authority and someone comes to you with a solution to your pressing problem, and he doesn't know exactly what the solution is or how to make it happen, but he knows exactly how much it costs? You throw that guy out on the street, because that guy is at best a con artist, at worst utterly clueless. (Yes, in that order.)
The original parent said "for the past century" and this is correct, California did have the climate. You can state that conditions have changed. They have, indeed, but not in such a way as to imply the falseness of the quoted sentence.
It is just a matter of playing fair in an argument.
Seattle doesn't have too much water, it has the correct amount to support the trees and other lifeforms that inhabit the region. I know. I was one of those life forms for 10 years. If we ever had an unseasonably dry winter, it quickly turned into a drought. So stealing Seattle's water is a dumb idea and Seattleites will have none of it.
I would be glad to sell them the water I use to water my lawn and spray off my sidewalks. Actually I'd just trade it for some Disneyland passes and a couple of Dodgers Tickets. (That costs 5x more than I spend on water a year anyway)
A lot of wars began when the water supply dried up. Fortunately northern and southern California are not separate countries otherwise we'd be in a shooting war. But as water crises continues, we will also see a lot political nonsense. I'm sure there are cooler and more intelligent heads working this situation, but a licensed engineer is no match against The Shatner on the talk shows.
mfwright@batnet.com
We will only charge you a small fee for our excess water.
$1bn/year sounds about right.
Nope pretty happy that it is drying up. It takes a lot of water to grow fruits & nuts in the desert, and frankly California has had too many decades in a row of bumper crops of both.
Time to let them die off.
With the number of Californians who have moved to Oregon and Washington over the last 30 years, California is already coming to the Northwest's water. There's no reason to send more of the Northwest's water to California.
All that water that Shatner won't use to dilute his Scotch . . .
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
No way.
People get impressed when they see millions, billions, trillions etc.
You want to build a pipeline from Seattle to California providing water? How much per day? Actually not relevant ...
Look at the cost of the Panama Channel, 400 million dollars. For just diging a trench ... a few locks and using mostly the lakes already there.
No way anyone is building a super pipeline for water for a mere 30 billion ... he is off by one magnitude, if not ny two!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
By the time the pipeline is built, Washington will be dry as well: http://kuow.org/post/drought-d...
Not as bad as CA, but this year's snowfall is just a fraction of normal. Expect lots of fires in the forests of OR and WA this year. I don't know where Shatner gets the idea that Seattle has more than it can use.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Good point. Desalination typically does produce a lot of "gunk".
Even ones using old fashioned multistage evaporation still has large quantities of residue left.
We could take that plastic-filled residue and dump it in the nearest Marianas Trench, thus providing food for the next invading aliens, or we could just give up and pretend we can't do something with it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
First, a 4 foot diameter pipeline is going to make any kind of significant difference? This wouldn't even have the capacity of a small creek. Second, he wants to build it aboveground. Maybe in California that's doable, but in piping the water from Seattle, there are some places that do freeze. How would such a pipeline handle that? As others have posted here, that $50,000,000,000 would be much more effective in working out better (more economical, environmentally friendly, etc.) methods of desalination. Also, the economics just don't make sense. It takes 5 gallons of water to grow a single walnut. How in the world would it be cost effective to power the pumps needed to transport that much water that far to raise so little? Unless people expect to pay hundreds of dollars per pound of walnuts, I can't fathom how this would work. I think if California is being hit by drought, it needs to take a hard look at where their water is going. If the crops they love to grow there just aren't sustainable for the water they use, they really have no choice but to transition to agriculture appropriate for their climate. A bandaid solution like this is in no way the right way to go.
So Shatner is looking for charitable donations to provide water to one of the richest regions on the face of the planet? Seriously? Is he going to back this campaign with a video of slow-mo shots of people suffering in the OC because their lawn is looking a little brown and the water level in their swimming pools is slightly lower than they'd like. "The people of Beverly Hills are slightly uncomfortable -- let's make their lives better."
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
This has nothing to do with bringing water to California.
"..if the KickStarter campaign doesn't raise enough money then he will donate whatever that has been collected to a politician who promises..."
The probability of kickstarter providing 30 billion seems....low so the secondary plan must actually be the real plan.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Oh my William has not been in the Pacific Northwest lately. Sir drive from LA to Seattle, and you will see how the drought is effecting more then California.
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/engineered-drought-catastrophe-target-california/
"Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over."
I used to live in California, but I'm a Michigan native. To me, socal is a desert, and always was one. I didn't need anymore proof than to just look around at the dry land, but when I mentioned that to anyone, they'd just say:
"We're in the middle of a drought!"
That was back in the 90s, but its funny how that drought must have been going on for about a hundred years now. The place isn't conducive to a large population or growing a large amount of crops. End of story.
No, you won't be able to pipe water in from any other state. Other states don't even like you, and they have their own environmental groups and government departments that would never let anyone pipe water somewhere else. Here, if you have a swampy area on your land, you can't just drain it and plant grass - it's considered a natural wetland and has to stay that way. And outsiders think you could somehow pipe the water to someplace else...
Nope, California is going to have to solve this one on their own. They created the problem on their own with massive over-development and crazy water rights laws.
If you come for our fresh water we'll kill you all. Now go die in your uninhabital desert you never should have moved to in the first place.
We're not giving California our water. They should do what every other nation has done, desalination.
Reverse-osmosis plants (which is they type most people build) DO NOT use "all kinds of chemicals" - THAT would add complexity and costs for no benefit. They use pressure to force sea water through filters. At the end stage of the filtration system, you get two things: [1] fresh water, and [2] all the other stuff that WAS in the sea water that was pulled into the system. It's all that latter stuff that goes back into the sea WHERE IT CAME FROM AN WHERE IT BELONGS!
A desalination plan does EXACTLY the same thing as the natural water cycle, just by a different mechanism. The natural cycle uses heat to takes fresh water from the salty ocean by evaporation, leaving behind the salt and lots of other stuff (like fish and their waste). Desalination systems take fresh water from the salty ocean using heat (in the boiler-type systems common on ships) or using pressure and filters with microscopic holes (for the osmosis type common on land) and toss back all the rest - there's no real difference unless you are a crazy fanatical greenie who is just looking for some way to spook an uneducated public into supporting your political drive to de-industrialize the western world
The governor of California is spending tens of billions of dollars building the world's slowest high-speed train. When it's done, he can put water tank cars on the rails and use it move water! There are not, after all, very many people who travel between the small towns in the central valley that the train will connect. Warren Buffet is probably investing in water tanks right now (He sure owns LOTS of oil tank train cars, and makes tons of cash moving oil in them while encouraging dopey young voters to elect politicians who oppose oil pipelines... gotta admire that man's ability to invest and plan)
California needs to quit wasting water. Period. There's no reason people need to be watering lawns or golf courses or washing their cars more than once a month. Learn to live within your means, California, and quit pretending that everyone else is out there to serve your wants and whims.
Uh Bill, you may want to watch a few videos on LFTR technology. Clean power during the day and run desalination plants at night, pump it into the reservoirs and when those are full enough pump the water back into aquifers.
How many LFTRs can you build for $30 billion? What would their output be? Will we just wait and buy them from China?
Urban: 11% Agriculture: 39% Environmental: 51% http://www.ppic.org/main/publi... Urban is already doing what it can to save, which is not really known because I see a bunch of ads for saving water at home recently where I live in Orange County, CA. The finger should be pointed at Agriculture. Don't force what you can't grow at the cost of the citizens funding the imbalance.
CA created their own problem, don't suck the rest of the country into their mess.
Most water consumption is for activities not related to hydration. Look at the volume of water in every flush of a toliet. Plus mismanagement of the infastructure because of morons like brown. Conservation just pushes the issue down the road. True issue is efficiency of water use.
Why spend more public money to prop up an oversize municipality built in a desert? Southern California doesn't have a water problem but an overpopulation and overbuilding problem.
If you read some Mark Twain; you can get an idea of what California was like before it was overpopulated and overbuilt. "A squirrel could go from Angel's Camp to San Francisco Bay without ever touching the ground." Now, all you have between Angel's Camp and San Fran Bay is cheat grass dotted with small towns and a few vineyards.
NRRPT/RCT
....you could tell companies like Nestle to stop bottling it for profit and make THEM move out. Why does a foreign company get more than local farmers? Or not have to ration at all?
As a stop-gap measure (on the way to poisoning the entire planet anyway, eventually).....desalination would buy some time. Religion and cigarettes are two obvious proofs as to why the human race has no future. Not a rational one, anyway. If we can't guard our sanity / mental health and our physical health directly from delusion and voluntarily consumed carcinogens........the air, earth and water doesn't stand a chance. Take the salt out of the ocean water. It's right there at the beach. It will buy some time.
Only boring people are ever bored.
it just has too many fucking people, and too many people fucking.
captcha (i shit u not): pregnant
gosgog:
Seems to me California could do a lot better with a deal from ISRAEL, the experts at converting salt, seawater to drinkable ordinary water for a hell of a lot less money! Obummer might be pissed but so what!!
California's problem is that too much water is exported. Farmers grow very thirsty plants and then export the crop and the water out of state. Less thirsty plans will make a huge difference...and yes, that also means less Californian wine. Another huge water waster are golf courses...there are 1140 golf courses in California...a few hundred less will make a big difference.