ot. drought

[an]

It always baffles my mind that there’s a drought in CA, when we’re right next to the largest water source on this earth. The Carlsbad desalination plant cost about $1B and it can serve 300k homes. I don’t know why we can’t build 100 of them, which would serve about 30M homes. That’s about the cost of the bullet train they’re proposing, but this new water source will be used by everyone instead of just a few wrt the train. I would have no problem paying additional property tax to have these built so I can stop hearing about drought in CA.

[SD Realtor]

Good point AN. I am really surprised Moores law or some analogy does not apply to desal technology. Seems like if there was a heavy focus, it could be achieved on a friendlier economic scale.

To me there really will be no other alternative.

The problem in my mind is not drought or no drought, it is simply consumption of a finite resource due to population growth. It is not just California as well. The largest aquafir that basically sits under the entire midwest has been consumed to a level that is problematic as well.

Basically we need to lay off of the fresh water aquafirs/river system or at least drastically reduce our dependence on them and let them replenish and the only way to do that is with a substantial desalinization program… It will hurt alot now and hurt more later.

[joec]

Maybe they could have subsidies for desalination or something…Major downsides I see are lots of save the oceans/whales/dolphins/sea lions/environmentalists blocking any major expansion. I’d assume energy use is also high for desalination plants and those 2 reasons are probably why we don’t do it already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination
”
Due to relatively high energy consumption, the costs of desalinating sea water are generally higher than the alternatives (fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation), but alternatives are not always available.
“

[sdduuuude]

I just wish the government would tax the shit out of me and just solve this drought problem. I mean, really – what are they waiting for ?

[mike92104]

Iy’s not that we’re running out of water, we’re just running out of cheap water.

[SD Realtor]

or that we have to many people…

[sdduuuude]

Or that the only suggested solutions seem to be having the government tell us what to do.

[spdrun]

Good luck getting any infrastructure built in a densely-populated area like SD without gov’t involvement.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Good luck getting any infrastructure built in a densely-populated area like SD without gov’t involvement.[/quote]
Who said SD? I said CA.

[an]

[quote=joec]Maybe they could have subsidies for desalination or something…Major downsides I see are lots of save the oceans/whales/dolphins/sea lions/environmentalists blocking any major expansion. I’d assume energy use is also high for desalination plants and those 2 reasons are probably why we don’t do it already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination
”
Due to relatively high energy consumption, the costs of desalinating sea water are generally higher than the alternatives (fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation), but alternatives are not always available.
“[/quote]
Nuclear, solar, wind, natural gas, etc. We have energy. We just don’t have fresh water.

[spdrun]

Who said SD? I said CA.

Coastal CA is generally NIMBY-laden. Good luck without any gov’t support.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]

Who said SD? I said CA.

Coastal CA is generally NIMBY-laden. Good luck without any gov’t support.[/quote]Who said anything about without any gov’t support? If the government can get behind the high speed train, why can’t they get behind something that every Californian will use? If the NIMBY-ism gets too much, just flex the eminent domain muscle and I’m sure they’ll STFU.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=AN][quote=spdrun]

Who said SD? I said CA.

Coastal CA is generally NIMBY-laden. Good luck without any gov’t support.[/quote]Who said anything about without any gov’t support? If the government can get behind the high speed train, why can’t they get behind something that every Californian will use? If the NIMBY-ism gets too much, just flex the eminent domain muscle and I’m sure they’ll STFU.[/quote]

Yay. Eminent Domain. Awesome ! That’s almost as good as voting.

[an]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=AN][quote=spdrun]

Who said SD? I said CA.

Coastal CA is generally NIMBY-laden. Good luck without any gov’t support.[/quote]Who said anything about without any gov’t support? If the government can get behind the high speed train, why can’t they get behind something that every Californian will use? If the NIMBY-ism gets too much, just flex the eminent domain muscle and I’m sure they’ll STFU.[/quote]

Yay. Eminent Domain. Awesome ! That’s almost as good as voting.[/quote]Not saying that I like it. Just saying that CA have already done a lot of that everywhere. So this is no different. But there are a lot of places a long CA coast that no one lives in. CA is a HUGE state.

[LAAFTERHOURS]

The home we bought in June is a 10K sq ft lot and moving from Denver with a water bill of 30 a month, when I saw how much grass we had I was concerned. Then I found out that the previous owners were rocking a 300+ monthly water bill. After reviewing the sprinkler system, they were watering 9 zones at 15 minutes a pop twice a day (one in the middle of the day). A few of the heads were busted which was also unloading a ton of water. We reduced the watering by half but the plan is to remove all of the grass, put in a pool (will require a lot of water to fill) and plants requiring no more than a drip system.

I already swapped out a toilet because the rebates are too good to pass up. If anyone wants a 1 year old toilet, hit me up. Free for rehab projects.

[Author]

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