[Newfie]

Recent news story

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/03/28/ ... -dropping/

[evilgenius]

I have a small position in Consolidated Water Company, which does desalinization. The water compact that the lower states and upper states came to, in an attempt to bring about political changes that will change actual water distribution, expires in 2026. Before it does, I reckon that taking water from the oceans will become a thing. So much of the demand that out strips supply comes from coastal cities, like LA. Phoenix may be solvable, if LA can take up some of its demand with desalinization. They already get some water from Northern California, and have huge state splitting issues over it. So, you would think desalinization would be a better investment than it used to be?

It looks like the power grid is going to be the first casualty. Boulder damn can't make power if it isn't getting flow from what they let by Lake Powell. It's bad enough, if the grid loses Glen Canyon. Wind may be a good alternative. It's pretty windy in lots of places in the American West. Solar should see gains as well. There is lots of land between the cities those damns serve and the damns themselves. There is a lot of room for solar.

Ultimately, if LA and San Diego can get their water from the oceans, then solar farms could be built, to pump water back uphill of the damns, making the damns into grid level batteries. All you really need is the political will to build in excess solar capacity now, so that daytime usage will remain clear of impacting the ability to pump water. Or they could use batteries, so that they could pump at night, to get around time of day pricing. That is, assuming Phoenix and Las Vegas can also restrain how much water they use. And populations would have to evolve a certain way. But, if successful, you might see water run all the way to Mexico again.

The Upper Basin states would have to buy into it too. I live in one of those. Like I said before, you can still buy a water wasting version of a clothes washer, simply because people don't want to fall out of love with their nostalgic understanding of what a clothes washer should look like. And, public laundries are full of them. There is no public will to make those places, laundromats, phase those out. That being the case, there is actual room for Upper Basin States to take less water from the Colorado.

There is, also, the issue of Denver taking water, from the other side of the Continental Divide. You know, the very idea of a non-drainage aspect being allowed to participate is kind of appalling. Because water use almost always comes with a return of some of the water, a percentage, back into the ground water levels. It is net of whatever amount of water is lost to evaporation.

There is probably a lot of room, and money, to be had in finding out what percentages work, and toward which ends?

But allowing water to go out of the system at the beginning of it could induce a cascade, if you don't get the drawing rights properly done, wouldn't you think? You can't allow a definition of individual rights, such as what an entity like Denver could call itself, to supersede the needs of the entire system. You know, should it come down to severe shortages within the system.

You can't just have a blind hole over the amount taken out, simply because of a need to understand rights in a more individually centered manner? Normally, you would be able to. You just need to be able to impose a difference, in the case that system wide needs exceed the local definitions.

The broader compact, which I don't know when expires, places a lot of power in the hands of the Lower Basin states. I think this sort of thing may be why, to avoid the haggling that might take place in the face of scarcity. They could foresee how ruthless the Upper Basin states could be. And, you need to understand that Colorado's political power flows through Denver, so whenever Colorado votes as a whole one way or the other they will always represent what Denver wants. The new political districts are even split over it, which make it worse for the system. Colorado, Denver, is gearing up for a fight, I think. It may just be that people think this way subconsciously, in the face of some dread they feel looming?

But we do see that there may be cause for some optimism, if the coast can take more water from the sea. I know, maybe?

[Newfie]

OF we could just learn to live with what Nature provides.

[Outcast_Searcher]

OF we could just learn to live with what Nature provides.

Not practical with current (much less growing) human population levels. Not even remotely close.

Of course, having an attitude of simpler lifestyles and doing with less would help.

I was just thinking today about modern cars. When I was a kid lots of cars had like 50ish HP engines. And they were a pain to accelerate onto the freeway with and pass on curvy two lane roads, but aside from that, they had plenty of power.

But now, the typical midsize ICE has something like 200 HP, and more HP is a big seller, especially for large trucks and SUV's.

I'd like to see a policy re pure ICE's, that limits their power a lot, for all new ones, while we move to EV's. And some limits for hybrids, but far less.

So for example, limit of 100ish HP for pure ICE's, or pay a huge gas guzzler tax. Want 200 HP? Get an HEV, or pay a huge gas guzzler tax. Need 250 HP to tow that big boat? Get a PHEV or pay a huge gas guzzler tax. Want lots and lots of power, including "supercar" acceleration -- get a BEV, and be prepared to pay a lot, but at least there are no gas guzzler taxes needed for cars that burn no hydrocarbons.

I'm talking about vehicles for personal use. But for businesses that insist on very high HP / gas burning vehicles, the business should pay some kind of significant fees for all that fuel burned beyond a ludicrously small gas tax we currently have.

Of course, I can just hear the endless screeching, especially from the right -- but it would be a way to help manage the transition window while we go to BEV's and burn less gasoline, since US politicians aren't willing to have high fuel taxes.

[Newfie]

We WILL learn to live with less, either by way of thoughtful planning but more likely because we will eventually have less.

Re: west coast power. Less is coming because the climate there is reverting to a dryer cycle. California can either build more nuclear plants (earthquakes), import power from other areas (build nukes elsewhere), or reduce consumption. Hard to do when you want to ban ICE’s. The current trend seems to be to reduce consumption by depopulation.

[evilgenius]

We WILL learn to live with less, either by way of thoughtful planning but more likely because we will eventually have less.

Re: west coast power. Less is coming because the climate there is reverting to a dryer cycle. California can either build more nuclear plants (earthquakes), import power from other areas (build nukes elsewhere), or reduce consumption. Hard to do when you want to ban ICE’s. The current trend seems to be to reduce consumption by depopulation.

A better trend for California would be to go to de-centralized power. That is to say, to conform to a hybrid model of power generation that still used big plants, but had plenty of locally produced solar to throw into the grid, plus some kind of storage.

I can't say that it was only the economics that prevented it.

There is something about the vast stretches of power transmission lines that are vulnerable to tree falls, among other things, that makes me think that a small town having enough local power generation such that it can at least form an expensive local market for power, is a good thing. Because that means they would be capable of doing without, if the system had to shut down preventatively.

Those types of shut downs, like for periods of high winds, don't require the local storage to completely run out. There could be a use for that market. You don't need to impose an emergency, so much as make sure that market functions according to whatever rules.

The people will still complain. It will, however, be a good thing that they do.

You do need something that can go longer than a couple of days. It has to be able to go a whole summer, if need be.

There could be line damage that has to be fixed. It could be a very windy year. You need storage. You need charging capacity.

You need to be able to separate certain elements, like traffic lights, from the grid. Let them be able to switch to local backup when the winds get so high that the power lines leading to the lights could arc. That separability will also help, by keeping statistics and allowing control, of power usage. It must apply to more than just traffic lights, you would think? A smarter grid, about itself?

It might mean asking people to cut down on daily use? After the pandemic, I don't know how much those who have to make these sorts of decisions can count on the public?

It isn't just the conspiracy theorists who became even more naked. Tucker Carlson is a goon. He has always been a goon. That's why he stands out now, as a goon.

What bow ties do for the right is that they make women think that a man is not threatening. A wise woman knows not to fall for that. Bees learn to go to where they find the most nectar, not necessarily to the brightest flower.

That just forces men to rethink their fashion choices, when it comes to making a statement about such things with their bow ties, right? We shouldn't just let him carpet bomb what it means to wear a bow tie, should we? I don't go for them, so I don't really know.

Seems like you'd wonder why some of those guys who have used the bow tie to their advantage, though, would have an opinion? Like, what's the equivalent of spilling something on your tie in the bow tie world? I can definitely hang with what it feels like to spill something on your tie at lunch and have to work the rest of the day with the stain around your neck.

Tucker should, at least, have to go through that.

Maybe it's when the clasp comes half undone, and you look like some character Jilly Stewart should have played, in black and white days. You know, all plucky and game. But no longer non-threatening. This is Jimmy when he is all riled up, and sets himself loose on the town to complain about his life. This Jimmy has a charismatic sort of power. All of his complaints are our complaints. Tucker needs to step out from behind Jimmy's shadow, and let the world judge him for themselves. Maybe he will wake up? Maybe he will find a new boss to goon for? Flash a smile? Disappear in smoke?

[theluckycountry]

OF we could just learn to live with what Nature provides.

Which primitive civilizations have done for millennia. And when population outgrew what Nature provided, the civilizations collapsed, the people move to other places.

Simply cutting back on water usage won't be enough. So much is used for farming and sanitary purposes that when the dams and aquifers fail the major cities will have to be abandoned. Unless of course you use the last of the resources to build a string of nuclear stations to desalinate the ocean.

[vtsnowedin]

OF we could just learn to live with what Nature provides.

Which primitive civilizations have done for millennia. And when population outgrew what Nature provided, the civilizations collapsed, the people move to other places.

Simply cutting back on water usage won't be enough. So much is used for farming and sanitary purposes that when the dams and aquifers fail the major cities will have to be abandoned. Unless of course you use the last of the resources to build a string of nuclear stations to desalinate the ocean.

You talk as if water is a finite resource ,once it is used it is gone. In reality water is used then discharged or evaporated back into the environment through rivers and oceans etc. It will soon fall again as rain somewhere and while we may have to find ways to transport it from where it falls to where we need it we will never run out of it. A nuclear plant to desalinate sea water might be cheaper for a coastal location then transporting water from far away but those locations in need tend to be arid locations so have plenty of sunlight to power desalination facilities. The pollution we add to water that ends up in lakes and oceans and it's detriment to aquatic life is the real and bigger problem.

[Doly]

A nuclear plant to desalinate sea water might be cheaper for a coastal location then transporting water from far away but those locations in need tend to be arid locations so have plenty of sunlight to power desalination facilities.

Desalination facilities aren't cheap. Normally they're only worthwhile for providing water for cities, not for agriculture. Agriculture with desalinated water usually isn't a workable business proposition, and it doesn't look good from an EROEI perspective, either, even though food calories are different from industrial-use calories.

[MonteQuest]

The 1922 Colorado River Compact divided the river among the upper basin states: Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico-and those in the lower basin: California, Nevada, and Arizona. On the basis of river flow of the 1920's, each basin was allocated 7.5 million acre feet annually. A 1944 treaty guaranteed an additional 1.5 million acre feet to the country of Mexico. However, the yearly flow of the Colorado was grossly overestimated. The allocations required a yearly average flow of 16.5 million acre feet. Depending upon whom you ask, the river has been flowing at a rate of somewhere between 13.2 MAF to 14.8 MAF since 1930. Inflow to Lake Powell, issued on April 5, 2022, by the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, projects that the most probable inflow volume this year will be just 6.3 MAF.

Lake Powell reached full pool in June of 1980, seventeen years after the dam was completed. The lake has now fallen 176 feet below full pool, with projections to go much lower. This loss is 76% of Lake Powell's 27 million acre foot capacity. Total inflows for water year 2022: 2,642,661 acre feet. This is 57.85% of the May 11th average of 4,568,470 acre feet. In drought years, the lower basin receives its allocation first, resulting in a shortfall for the upper basin. Even so, Lake Mead has been drawn down 178 feet below full pool. It’s not just climate change at work here, folks. We divided up a 4 slice pie 7 ways. No amount of conservation will fix this. There may not be enough water to fill even one of these two reservoirs.

[vtsnowedin]

Old poorly written agreements be dammed, they will soon have to reallocate what water actually flows in as fairly as possible.
I would think that waste water from the coastal cities could be transported inland for treatment and reuse as irrigation water rather then discharging it to the sea. The level of treatment would of course be dependent on the crop being grown as I would not want even highly treated sewage water watering my carrots or lettuce. Nut trees and feed for livestock could use it and reserve the cleanest water for truck garden crops.

[Tanada]

Old poorly written agreements be dammed, they will soon have to reallocate what water actually flows in as fairly as possible.
I would think that waste water from the coastal cities could be transported inland for treatment and reuse as irrigation water rather then discharging it to the sea. The level of treatment would of course be dependent on the crop being grown as I would not want even highly treated sewage water watering my carrots or lettuce. Nut trees and feed for livestock could use it and reserve the cleanest water for truck garden crops.

For a decade or so Singapore has been reclaiming their waste water to a growing percentage. It goes through all the regular sewage treatment steps, then they purify it to environmental discharge standards and store it in a huge artificial reservoir they created by putting a dam across the entrance to a large bay. Water pulled out of the bay filled with reclaimed water is sent through the regular potable water treatment plant and blended with all their other sources including rain catchment and water they buy from the mainland by treaty from a nearby river. The fact that cities like Los Angeles have arranged their storm water system to discharge fresh rainwater strait down a concrete lined river bed into the Pacific Ocean has always been one of my top ten examples of stupid people doing stupid things. Capturing all that rainwater that is infrequent but heavy when it falls and pumping it into reservoirs would be energy expensive but compared to desalinating seawater or pumping water all the way from Hoover Dam over mountains make it seem like a pretty small ask when it comes to energy use.
NEWater Singapore

[vtsnowedin]

Old poorly written agreements be dammed, they will soon have to reallocate what water actually flows in as fairly as possible.
I would think that waste water from the coastal cities could be transported inland for treatment and reuse as irrigation water rather then discharging it to the sea. The level of treatment would of course be dependent on the crop being grown as I would not want even highly treated sewage water watering my carrots or lettuce. Nut trees and feed for livestock could use it and reserve the cleanest water for truck garden crops.

For a decade or so Singapore has been reclaiming their waste water to a growing percentage. It goes through all the regular sewage treatment steps, then they purify it to environmental discharge standards and store it in a huge artificial reservoir they created by putting a dam across the entrance to a large bay. Water pulled out of the bay filled with reclaimed water is sent through the regular potable water treatment plant and blended with all their other sources including rain catchment and water they buy from the mainland by treaty from a nearby river. The fact that cities like Los Angeles have arranged their storm water system to discharge fresh rainwater strait down a concrete lined river bed into the Pacific Ocean has always been one of my top ten examples of stupid people doing stupid things. Capturing all that rainwater that is infrequent but heavy when it falls and pumping it into reservoirs would be energy expensive but compared to desalinating seawater or pumping water all the way from Hoover Dam over mountains make it seem like a pretty small ask when it comes to energy use.
NEWater Singapore

I am aware of Singapore's, efforts just did not retype them in that post. That river in LA is interesting. They could stop using it as a move set and build several small low dams or weirs across it , low enough to let major flows just over top them and continue on but each catching a pool of water extending back to the front toe of the next weir upstream. It would look like a water staircase when full. The captured water could then be pumped inland using solar power in daytime and put to good use.

[MonteQuest]

Old poorly written agreements be dammed, they will soon have to reallocate what water actually flows in as fairly as possible.
I would think that waste water from the coastal cities could be transported inland for treatment and reuse as irrigation water rather then discharging it to the sea. The level of treatment would of course be dependent on the crop being grown as I would not want even highly treated sewage water watering my carrots or lettuce. Nut trees and feed for livestock could use it and reserve the cleanest water for truck garden crops.

Wastewater is so small as to be inconsequential and cost-prohibitive. A huge water war awaits.

[vtsnowedin]

Old poorly written agreements be dammed, they will soon have to reallocate what water actually flows in as fairly as possible.
I would think that waste water from the coastal cities could be transported inland for treatment and reuse as irrigation water rather then discharging it to the sea. The level of treatment would of course be dependent on the crop being grown as I would not want even highly treated sewage water watering my carrots or lettuce. Nut trees and feed for livestock could use it and reserve the cleanest water for truck garden crops.

Wastewater is so small as to be inconsequential and cost-prohibitive. A huge water war awaits.

You are probably right about the water war but I would not call 100 gallons per day per person times the population of southern California inconsequential. Agricultural use is however measured by the acre foot so in comparison much larger. (1 acre foot = 326,700 gallons of water.). If your farmland has been cut off from all irrigation water a six inch pipeline of treated waste water would be a Godsend. Over a 90 day growing season a crop like corn uses about two acre feet of water per acre of ground planted. That is just five gallons a minute 24/7.

[evilgenius]

I don't think we need to consider going nuclear to do desalinization. We can do that with the sun. And, you know, as long as we can sell any excess we don't need to desalinate, it should incentivize enough excess capacity as to handle any emergencies.

Los Angeles, especially, could benefit from such a situation. You know, there is a huge desert on the other side of the mountain range that borders LA? It would only take transmissions lines enough from a solar floor there to power desalinization.

I mean, especially if what is really going on is that power is actually being put locally into the grid. Then, it can be taken out on the LA side, of that same grid. The infrastructure can run commensurate with the grid idea.

You don't have to run special lines, if that is impractical. I don't know how far you can finagle with the distance thing, but probably that far? Maybe it takes substations that pump the power back up? Those could also be solar. Maybe even more spread out than we might think, if it does work as a grid?

It could almost be invisible to most people's eyes. The desert would certainly be changed. Around LA, they might be busy looking for places to store fresh water? It wouldn't matter that solar only works when the sun shines because the excess demand brought about by desalinization can be met only when the sun shines.

There could be room for batteries, if the arbitrage between day and night rates was sufficient. Going that way might create the most efficient grid?

It all depends upon what goes on in the desert, or any place closer that has room for panels. It's just that it's better to replace desert than farm land, in most cases.

With Lake Mead down so low, they are curtailing some of what goes to Arizona. This is exchanging farm land for desert land. You can look upon sacrificing the California desert as a necessary exchange.

Longer term it is not actually going to harm the locale that much. You would think that solar panels, of all things, might be something you could eventually take away and the land would return to nature pretty fast?

I don't know how many people you would always need to keep them maintained? That number could be enough that permanent places for those people got built in the desert. It would be harder to just get rid of them. It could definitely be that robotics, automating much of the upkeep, could serve to alleviate that potential impact!

[Newfie]

We have a hunting cabin without running water. We relied upon cisterns for flush water and bottled drinking cooking water. Last year we out in an Incinolet incinerating toilet eliminating the black water use. This made a huge difference in how we appreciate the cabin. Our water consumption has dropped tremendously, we no longer have to worry about bears tipping or weather freezing the cisterns.

I have become a big fan of this type toilet.

I would love to see an energy cost comparison between using an incinerating toilet and using desalinated water to flush your poo and then treat the water. I truly don’t know how it would turn out. But would be interesting.

[vtsnowedin]

Those incinerating toilets work well enough for a single family or a remote location but would not work in say an apartment house or office building.
Way back when I was knee high to a grasshopper I saw a design for a solar desalination plant. It consisted of long trenches or concrete troughs built on the level about six feet wide with a plastic dome cap over them enough wider to set on a foundation wall that had a small trough along each side. Sunlight coming in evaporated the sea water in the center trench which condensed on the under side of the plastic dome tunnel and ran down and collected in the smaller side trenches. I don't know how many gallons per acre of dome you could get in a desert situation but other then pumping the sea water in and the fresh water out the other end it was energy free. Aren't there some pretty dry desert areas on the west side of the mountains around San Diego?

[Newfie]

Passive desalination is a good idea. Many years ago I read of putting plastic sheeting over reservoirs to reduce evaporation. Small personal solar desalination kits were used in lifeboats and by some cruisers.

Cali has lots of water conservation measures, it is common to see signs about watering with "recycled water only". Yet some of the driest states have some of the lowest water rates. Makes no sense.

MIT (I think) has made a lot of noise about a low pressure, low power desalination method. Lots of wild speculation over about a cup of produced product. May be grand maybe not.

Incinerator toilets installations are identical to a cloths dryer install. And the smell better also. Why do you think they would be a problem in more dense settings?

[Tanada]

Those incinerating toilets work well enough for a single family or a remote location but would not work in say an apartment house or office building.
Way back when I was knee high to a grasshopper I saw a design for a solar desalination plant. It consisted of long trenches or concrete troughs built on the level about six feet wide with a plastic dome cap over them enough wider to set on a foundation wall that had a small trough along each side. Sunlight coming in evaporated the sea water in the center trench which condensed on the under side of the plastic dome tunnel and ran down and collected in the smaller side trenches. I don't know how many gallons per acre of dome you could get in a desert situation but other then pumping the sea water in and the fresh water out the other end it was energy free. Aren't there some pretty dry desert areas on the west side of the mountains around San Diego?

You beat me to it! Back around 1905 that system using glass dome instead of plastic was recommended for Alexandria, Egypt. The city is smack on the coast surrounded by desert and a scientist way back then did the math proving with such a system they could provide water for the entire population with enough left over to grow some crops to help feed them as well. Instead after WW I concluded they built a big pipeline over the desert to a cleanish part of the Nile delta and the city has grown like a mushroom ever since.

The problem is not water or food, it is that people will fill whatever capacity of water and food is available. We tend to forget now but at the time the first wave of the Black Death swept through Europe the population was at maximum density for the arable land available. Many historians argue that what sparked the Renaissance was the Black Death eliminating 35% of the population which freed up the remaining 65% to do things other than struggle to feed their families on tight budgets. That allowed agriculture techniques which were by and large still using the Roman Latifundia system to be developed along new and different lines some of which worked better than the 2000 year old three year rotation methods up until that time. It was in the early Renaissance when England drained a large number of their fen lands, the peat bog swamps that covered much of the midlands. This former fen land proved to be very fertile farmland from meters deep beds of organic matter on top making for excellent crop grown. The boom in agriculture lasted a little over two centuries until Thomas Malthus declared they were right back where they had been before the Black Death relieved population pressure on agriculture. The difference is by the 19th century steam was really taking off based around fossil fuels and agricultural production kept growing. Growth stalled during the Dust Bowl and WW II but the 1950-1970's saw the "Green Revolution" where high yield crops were developed along with petroleum based pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that increased yield about 500% today compared to 1922. Never fear however humans are still busily reproducing to get us back to the edge of famine population levels. In 1922 we had just about 2 billion population. We quintupled our food production and so far we have quadrupled our population to about 8 billion so when we get up around 10 billion we will have put ourselves back up that old familiar creek without a paddle handy.