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Bill Gates Just Bought 25,000 Acres in the Arizona Desert (kgw.com)
What's the world's second-richest man up to now? A Phoenix news station reports:
One of Bill Gates' investment firms has spent $80 million to kickstart the development of a brand-new community in Arizona's far West Valley. The large plot of land is about 45 minutes west of downtown Phoenix off I-10 near Tonopah. The proposed community, made up of close to 25,000 acres of land, is called Belmont. According to Belmont Partners, a real estate investment group based in Arizona, the goal is to turn the land into its own "smart city."
"Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs," Belmont Partners said in a news release.
A former columnist for the Phoenix newspaper writes that "Unless Gates plans to turn the land into a preserve, he might want to know a few things that the locals didn't tell him..." First, Arizona doesn't have enough water to continue these kind of developments, no matter what the mouthpieces of the Real Estate Industrial Complex say... Second, climate change poses a clear and present danger to Arizona now. Summers are significantly hotter and lasting longer than a few decades ago. Massive wildfires are common, another new phenomenon. Whether Phoenix will even be inhabitable by mid-century is an open question. Already, it is a man-made environment totally dependent on electricity to power air conditioning and gasoline delivered by vulnerable pipelines. All of which make it questionable whether all the dreamed developments ever get built, much less last long.
"To be fair, wealthy people who were clever in one area -- especially tech -- often think they know a lot about everything," the columnist concludes. "If this is the case here, he might want to study up."
"Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs," Belmont Partners said in a news release.
A former columnist for the Phoenix newspaper writes that "Unless Gates plans to turn the land into a preserve, he might want to know a few things that the locals didn't tell him..." First, Arizona doesn't have enough water to continue these kind of developments, no matter what the mouthpieces of the Real Estate Industrial Complex say... Second, climate change poses a clear and present danger to Arizona now. Summers are significantly hotter and lasting longer than a few decades ago. Massive wildfires are common, another new phenomenon. Whether Phoenix will even be inhabitable by mid-century is an open question. Already, it is a man-made environment totally dependent on electricity to power air conditioning and gasoline delivered by vulnerable pipelines. All of which make it questionable whether all the dreamed developments ever get built, much less last long.
"To be fair, wealthy people who were clever in one area -- especially tech -- often think they know a lot about everything," the columnist concludes. "If this is the case here, he might want to study up."
I grew up in Arizona, and let me tell you, a couple decades ago it was HOT. Like, 122 F in Tucson and Phoenix was not unheard of. Now, it's fairly likely to hit that every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti
Since the 1950s, people have thought that the cheap land could be tamed and "new ideas" would just blossom out of the goodness in people's hearts. Arcosanti is a great example, but not the only one. Last I saw the place, it had a gift shop where the hippy owners took money selling semi-erotic paintings and charcoal drawings, and invited the young folks to spend some quality time mixing concrete with desert sand... or pose for the artist. There's never going to be an Arcosanti the way it was originally envisioned, or even with a population over 10.
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They bought the land to develop because a big freeway is supposed to go right through the middle. They'll extort the state for a ton of money, make a huge amount of profit and then exit before the community is fully done. So the long term viability of the site is irrelevant.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Bill must think of the desert as an empty sandbox for him to play in, but there is a vibrant community already there in the plants and animals that have evolved to survive in the climate and terrain . Use the google, there's a website about it: https://www.desertusa.com/. What knowledge will be lost about the Anasazi and Sinagua people? I've walked on pre-Columbian trails where people migrated from the hot Colorado desert to the cool Laguna and Palomar mountains as the seasons changed.
Or you use water smartly and not waste it. Sure you have to truck some in now and again, but if they're envisioning a next-generation "smart city", smart water use would also be a part of it.
Our daily lives we waste enough water to make any third world country cry. Watering lawns is practically a complete waste of water unless you are using it wisely as a filter medium for example.
Lots of sunlight also means cheap solar stills for water purification.
And I'm sure Gates has considered the water issue. In fact, he may have bought it because of that - with climate changing, the real issue IS going to be access to water. (We are relatively fortunate in North America as we have almost half of the world's reserve of freshwater).
It could be a very smart play - get the technology used to recycle and conserve water working now, so when its really needed, you've just cornered the market in patents, and the technology has matured to be usable, while everyone else is scrambling to find fixes.
I don't get why people assume that 'global warming' means 'desert'
Jungles are hot as well.
As the population of humans on the planet continues to grow, it will becomes increasingly necessary to move into and settle regions previously considered inhospitable.
Learning to live in new environs is what resourceful life does when it refuses to die and depopulate at the edge of the Petri dish.
If we cannot figure out how to live (and eventually thrive) in the earthly atmosphere of the Arizona desert with its excessive heat and limited water, off-planet settlements are the dreams that come from pipes.
Your first sentence gives the answer for the last sentence. The numbers of humans are what makes it difficult.
Humans living in arid places has been done for a long time. Some incredible adaptation has occurred in Africa. But that is humans adapting to the local conditions. People have lived in America's southwest deserts as well, perhaps not as acclimated as Bedouins, but they got by. Even in Death Valley.
The difference is in the numbers. We try to convert the desert to what we think is ideal. We like the grass in our lawns, we like nice water fountains, and we like a lot of people inhabiting these places. This is completely unsustainable.
Going to Mars, it will be a few people, and probably living in containers like domes or maybe even underground. That isn't comparable to trying to turn the Southwest desert into paradise. 10 or 20 people - possible. Millions? Nope.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
All the critics here who are chorussing "oh, Gates is so stupid, he doesn't know that Arizona is uninhabitable" are silly: we already know it's possible because 1.6 million people already live there.
Cool story bro, except it isn't that the desert is uninhabitable, it's that there are limits and you are pressing them. While your real estate brochure version of living in the desert is cool, it seems to assume that there will always be plenty of water, plenty of air conditioning, and will be just like living in 70 degrees all year round - perfect comfort.
And it's sort of funny - why move to an area when all you want to do is alter the environment to something the environment isn't.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
All the critics here who are chorussing "oh, Gates is so stupid, he doesn't know that Arizona is uninhabitable" are silly: we already know it's possible because 1.6 million people *already* live there.
You are committing a fallacy. You are assuming the past and the future will always resemble each other. It will not in this case as there are resource limits and the resources are shrinking see: https://uanews.arizona.edu/sto...
Jared Diamond wrote a nice book on what happens to societies when a critical resource(s) are depleted.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"The DOE was created in 1977 - we did pretty well without it up until that time."
Sigh. Another fucking Libertarian cretin...
DOE was a reorganization of ERDA, which was a reorganization of the AEC. It raised some three decades of Nuclear Research to the Cabinet level, which was an extremely good thing. It also took most of the Weapons Delivery out of the Research side, and transferred it to the Cabinet level DOD.
Along the other ongoing realignments, the Nuclear Industry now reported to the NRC, which was not at Cabinet level.
DOE had nothing to do with the US Industrial mess that was Three Mile Island. The DOE shares some responsibility for some Research Reactors with the NRC, that's all.
Research Reactors and other aspects of Physics Research were not the only areas of DOE concern. It's the Department Of Energy, all Energy, you myopic mosquito. That includes Nuclear, Solar, Petrochemical/Coal, Wind, Renewable, and a few dozen things that you've never thought of and would never comprehend if you did. Yes, they inherited the responsibility for the Nation's Nuclear Stockpile, because frankly nobody else could be trusted with it. Oh, and it's no coincidence that DOD tilts Right, NRC is Business Friendly, and much of DOE tilts Left. Very bright people tend to be cautious Liberals, which is why Perry and his lapdogs wanted the DOE abolished, and because they are relative blundering idiots, had no idea what to replace it with.
Next Generation Reactors, whether Fission or Fusion, are still primarily the responsibility in the US of the DOE, because Industry has utterly failed here. I wish Terrapower well... but they've been around for a decade now and produced nothing but ideas, and in fact are currently surviving on DOE funding.
Should they get more funding? Perhaps. But that means giving the DOE more funding, which is anathema to the turd currently serving as DOE Secretary. He wants more money for Oil and Coal only.