Thirsty?

Over 18 ONLY! For grown-ups. . .

Moderators: Sluggo, Amskeptic

Post Reply
72Hardtop
Old School!
Location: Seattle, WA./HB. Ca./Shizuoka, Japan
Status: Offline

Thirsty?

Post by 72Hardtop » Sat Apr 11, 2015 10:07 am

WASHINGTON -- Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday blamed environmentalists for what she called a "man-made" drought in California, which has led to the state's first water restrictions.

“With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Fiorina, a likely 2016 Republican presidential contender, said in an interview with radio host Glenn Beck. “Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled.”

Fiorina, California's 2010 GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, said it was a "classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology. It is a tragedy.”

The drought, now officially in its fourth year, prompted Gov. Jerry Brown (D) last week to order a 25 percent reduction in water consumption. The order does not apply to the agriculture industry, which consumes nearly 80 percent of the state's water.

Lawmakers in Congress and in the state legislature have proposed bills authorizing construction of new dams and reservoirs, citing the need to capture water that ends up in the ocean. They have been opposed by environmental groups, which argue the projects would endanger the state's habitat and endangered species. Last year, House Republicans proposed pumping additional water to Southern California, but the bill failed under a veto threat from President Barack Obama.

There is significant debate about whether the state has enough water left, at this point, to justify the cost of building new dams and reservoirs. According to The Sacramento Bee, some new reservoirs, wouldn't supply significant new water.

"There's nothing magical in and of themselves to build a (reservoir) facility," Lester Snow, the executive director of the California Water Foundation, told the Bee last year. "If we had two more surface storage facilities that we built 10 years ago -- pick any of the two that people are talking about -- they would both be very low right now. There's a tendency to pull down our surface storage when we get mildly short of water."

NextGen Climate, the climate-focused political group run by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, on Monday evening called Fiorina's comments "irrational."

"For a science denier to opine that Democrats caused the drought in California is about as irrational as believing someone who failed at running a business in California and then failed as a candidate for office in California has any cause to be running for the highest office in the land," Bobby Whithorne, the group's spokesman, said in a statement.

The Sierra Club, a national environmental group, disputed Fiorina's assertion that more dams and reservoirs would have lessened the impact of the drought.

"For more than 100 years, environmentalists have failed to stop the damming of nearly every significant river in California. And yet all of the hundreds of dams out there have done nothing to produce rain or snow pack over the last four years. That's because you can't store what's not there," said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club's California chapter. "We simply don't have rain or snow pack and are suffering the worst California drought since water agencies and weather trackers started keeping records."

"What we are seeing is exactly what climate scientists have predicted would happen in California with the onset of human-caused climate disruption: Weather and precipitation would become less predictable and droughts would become more frequent and more severe," Phillips added.
1972 Westy tintop
2056cc T-4 - 7.8:1 CR
Weber 40mm Duals - 47.5idles, 125mains, F11 tubes, 190 Air corr., 28mm Vents
96mm AA Biral P/C's w/Hastings rings
42x36mm Heads (AMC- Headflow Masters) w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
Web Cam 73 w/matched Web lifters
S&S 4-1 exhaust w/Walker 17862 quiet-pack
Pertronix SVDA w/Pertronix module & Flamethrower 40K coil (7* initial 28* total @3200+)
NGK BP6ET plugs
002 3 rib trans
Hankook 185R14's

User avatar
asiab3
IAC Addict!
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by asiab3 » Sat Apr 11, 2015 12:02 pm

72Hardtop wrote:WASHINGTON -- Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday blamed environmentalists for what she called a "man-made" drought in California, which has led to the state's first water restrictions.

“With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Fiorina, a likely 2016 Republican presidential contender, said in an interview with radio host Glenn Beck. “Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled.”

This is pure smoke-blowing. There is no proof. There are no references. There are no examples. Decades he says? Give us ONE example where this has happened please. Not generalizations of potential bills with uninformed public responses...

Delta water deliveries to Los Angeles (and San Francisco) have been cut off for a while, but California Rebubicans constantly spout that the detla environmental protection laws, (which your article is actually referencing in regards to the veto threat,) are what is keeping the central farms dry while Southern California receives water instead.

The article "examples" are not "prevention" or a "man-made drought." We could think of them instead as "realization that humans aren't the only damn creatures on the planet."

"We simply don't have rain or snow pack and are suffering the worst California drought since water agencies and weather trackers started keeping records."
This is pretty much the heart of the matter. Damns do not create water, they do not create snow pack, and they sure as heck can't store what isn't there to begin with.
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

72Hardtop
Old School!
Location: Seattle, WA./HB. Ca./Shizuoka, Japan
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by 72Hardtop » Sat Apr 11, 2015 5:18 pm

asiab3 wrote:
72Hardtop wrote:WASHINGTON -- Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday blamed environmentalists for what she called a "man-made" drought in California, which has led to the state's first water restrictions.

“With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Fiorina, a likely 2016 Republican presidential contender, said in an interview with radio host Glenn Beck. “Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled.”

This is pure smoke-blowing. There is no proof. There are no references. There are no examples. Decades he says? Give us ONE example where this has happened please. Not generalizations of potential bills with uninformed public responses...

Delta water deliveries to Los Angeles (and San Francisco) have been cut off for a while, but California Rebubicans constantly spout that the detla environmental protection laws, (which your article is actually referencing in regards to the veto threat,) are what is keeping the central farms dry while Southern California receives water instead.

The article "examples" are not "prevention" or a "man-made drought." We could think of them instead as "realization that humans aren't the only damn creatures on the planet."

"We simply don't have rain or snow pack and are suffering the worst California drought since water agencies and weather trackers started keeping records."
This is pretty much the heart of the matter. Damns do not create water, they do not create snow pack, and they sure as heck can't store what isn't there to begin with.
80% of water consumed in California is for the central valley agriculture use. Bottom-line California has for years had many of it's priorities mis-prioritized. The recent high speed train is a fine example of to little to late. Guess who stands to reap from it? None other than Diane Feinsteins husband who just happened to secure a near $1 billion dollar contract involving the none other...you guessed it...High speed train to no where.

In short...California has not kept up with the ever growing demand of water. Remember all the desalination plants that were closed? I do. No new ones on the horizon either.

Both parties are to blame for a lot of problems in California. As I said before change will come...but not with a Democrat or Republican. Time for serious change.
1972 Westy tintop
2056cc T-4 - 7.8:1 CR
Weber 40mm Duals - 47.5idles, 125mains, F11 tubes, 190 Air corr., 28mm Vents
96mm AA Biral P/C's w/Hastings rings
42x36mm Heads (AMC- Headflow Masters) w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
Web Cam 73 w/matched Web lifters
S&S 4-1 exhaust w/Walker 17862 quiet-pack
Pertronix SVDA w/Pertronix module & Flamethrower 40K coil (7* initial 28* total @3200+)
NGK BP6ET plugs
002 3 rib trans
Hankook 185R14's

72Hardtop
Old School!
Location: Seattle, WA./HB. Ca./Shizuoka, Japan
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by 72Hardtop » Sun Apr 12, 2015 5:22 am

California is parched. Wells are running dry. Vegetable fields have been left fallow and lawns are dying. There must be some villain behind all this, right?

Of course there is. In fact, have your pick. As a public service, The Salt is bringing you several of the leading candidates. They have been nominated by widely respected national publications and interest groups.

There's just one problem: Not all of these shady characters live up to their nefarious job description. Let us explain.

1. Almonds

Both Slate and Mother Jones have reported that almonds are sucking California dry. Each innocent-looking nut, we learn, robs the land of an entire gallon of water. All told, California's almonds consume three times more water than the entire city of Los Angeles. And their thirst is growing, year by year. California's farmers continue to convert new swaths of land to almond orchards.

Case closed? Maybe not, Grist retorts. Almonds get a lot of attention because production of them has been booming. And it's true that they do consume more water, per acre, than many other crops (though not all). Vineyards use much less water than almonds, and most vegetables also require less irrigation.

But that's only if you calculate water use in gallons per acre or gallons per pound of product. There's a different, and probably better, way to calculate water efficiency. How about water consumption per unit of value created? Gallons used per dollar of production, say. By that measure, almonds look just great, because they are so valuable.

So there's a very good argument that almonds are exactly what California's farmers should be growing with their precious water.

There is one problem with almonds, though. They're trees. They last for years, and they need water every single year, whether it's wet or dry. Farmers who've devoted their land to production of almonds (or walnuts and pistachios) can't easily adapt to water shortages. Letting the trees die would be a catastrophe, so they sometimes pay exorbitant prices or dig ever-deeper wells.

Water experts like Jay Lund, from the University of California, Davis, say that in the future, California should take care to maintain a healthy mix of trees and annual crops like vegetables. In drought years, farmers could then decide not to plant their tomato fields, freeing up water for their trees.

2. Cows

If you look at this presentation by Blaine Hanson, an irrigation expert also of UC-Davis, one thing jumps out. The agricultural product that truly dominates water use in California isn't almonds. It's alfalfa, plus "other forages," such as irrigated pasture and corn that's chopped into a cattle feed called silage. These forage crops consume more water per acre than almonds, and they also cover nearly twice as much land.

And where do those products go? Primarily, they feed California's enormous (though shrinking) herd of milk-producing cows.

Unlike almonds, forage crops don't bring particularly high prices. And they grow just fine in other places, too, such as the Midwest. So why should California sink its scarce water into such crops? It mainly results from the long tradition of dairy farming in the state.

But abandoning milk production would entail considerable economic dislocation. Also, these crops have remained viable because many farmers are guaranteed ample supplies of cheap water. Those in the Imperial Valley, a major alfalfa producer, get water from the Colorado River. Which leads us to ...

3. Laws and the politicians who make them.

Where to start? With the founding of the republic, maybe. When Europeans and other outsiders settled this continent, they operated under the basic rule of first-come, first-served. People who settled land got to claim it. And in much of the West, if they built a dam to irrigate their fields, they acquired a permanent legal right to that water. There were very few questions asked about how that water should be used, or what it should cost.

That basic idea remains in force, although the system for delivering water has been transformed by large, government-financed networks of aqueducts and canals. And hidden inside this legal framework are several characters that arouse strong suspicions.

4. Cheap water

For the most part, farmers don't have to outbid anyone for their water. They get it, or they don't, depending on the priority of their legal claim to it. Typically, they get that water for the cost of delivering it. This means that they don't have a pressing need to conserve that water, for instance, by switching into crops that make better, more economic, use of the water.

A limited market for water is now developing, which sets higher prices on water. It's driving farmers to treat their irrigation water more like the precious commodity that it really is.

5. Free water

This is the water that farmers pump from wells on their land. It's not exactly free, because it costs money to drill the well and pump the water, but farmers are legally free to use as much as they wish.

As a result, farmers have been racing to empty their aquifers, draining the water in them at an astounding rate. California has now adopted a plan which is supposed to eventually stop this, but it won't fully take effect for many years.

6. Fish

These are the villains of choice in parts of California's agricultural community. California's environmental authorities have stepped into the water allocation game, asserting that the state's endangered wildlife have rights to water that trump the claims even of the earliest settlers. As a result, in drought years, farms are getting less water — much less, in many cases, than state authorities originally promised to deliver. This is why some farmers complain, passionately, about a "man-made drought."

7. Exports

According to some reports, California's farmers are exporting vast amounts of water to places like China, adding to the state's water shortage. These are not literal water exports, but "virtual water" in products like alfalfa or almonds that took a lot of water to produce. Upon closer examination, though, this villain doesn't look quite so guilty. As Lund from UC Davis points out, alfalfa and almonds are the exceptions to the rule. If one counts all agricultural commodities, California imports far more virtual water than it exports. Its imports of corn, meat, lumber and cotton all required huge amounts of water.

Okay, time to pick one. Who's your drought-provoking villain of choice?
1972 Westy tintop
2056cc T-4 - 7.8:1 CR
Weber 40mm Duals - 47.5idles, 125mains, F11 tubes, 190 Air corr., 28mm Vents
96mm AA Biral P/C's w/Hastings rings
42x36mm Heads (AMC- Headflow Masters) w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
Web Cam 73 w/matched Web lifters
S&S 4-1 exhaust w/Walker 17862 quiet-pack
Pertronix SVDA w/Pertronix module & Flamethrower 40K coil (7* initial 28* total @3200+)
NGK BP6ET plugs
002 3 rib trans
Hankook 185R14's

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Apr 12, 2015 7:42 pm

72Hardtop wrote: 80% of water consumed in California is for the central valley agriculture use.
Bottom-line California has for years had many of it's priorities mis-prioritized.
Blame Jerry Brown for prioritizing California's economic output. Blame him for getting California out of a financial hole that no republican on Earth would ever give him credit for. So agriculture eats 80% of California's water AND pays back in economic value. That is a good priority, pal. So we ask people in Brentwood to water their damn croquet courts once a week instead of twice a week, and you get to see them on TV bitching about it. What do they add to California? Green grass behind stone walls? Let homeowners LEARN how to conserve while agriculture helps rebuild California's economy.
72Hardtop wrote: The recent high speed train is a fine example of too little too late. Guess who stands to reap from it? None other than Diane Feinsteins husband who just happened to secure a near $1 billion dollar contract involving the none other...you guessed it...High speed train to no where.
If the project had not been hobbled by republican braying (they have ALWAYS shot public transportation in the head), it too would have been a magnificent boon to California's economy AND engineering prestige.
But don't think republicans can think ahead. Don;t think that republicans understand a damn thing about real education, real music, real art, they don't! That is why they have savaged budgets for music and art and higher education and public transportation projects coast to coast! Chris Christie of New Jersey! He killed the new tunnel from New Jersey to New York. An eight billion dollar project that would have repaid New Jersey many times over and been a new engineering marvel of the world, giving the U.S. a badly needed new trophy of modern progress. No.
72Hardtop wrote: In short...California has not kept up with the ever growing demand of water. Remember all the desalination plants that were closed? I do. No new ones on the horizon either.
California NEEDS NOT to keep up with the ever-growing demand for water. Just like we democrats have been saying since forever, if you add three more lanes to the freeway, you just get wider traffic jams! We need to rethink the whole damn ball of wax, not listen to Carly Fiorina who is such an idiot that she has to be told that a BIGGER water infrastructure just makes for a whole lot more dry canals and empty reservoirs, the problem you all are having is waaaaay bigger than that. It is a hundred year drought!

It may be the warning shot for a whole new paradigm. Desalinization plants do you understand how they work? They are energy pigs, when the Hoover Dam stops generating electricity AND giving you all water, yoiu won't be able to run desalinization plants unless you crank up that crumbling radioactive republican boondoggle down near Camp Pendleton, the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant that privatized the profit and socialized the abysmal economic disaster coming your way when you have to decon and disassemble it, good luck by the way.
72Hardtop wrote: Both parties are to blame for a lot of problems in California. As I said before change will come...but not with a Democrat or Republican. Time for serious change.
You are not going to get serious change outside of the traditional power structures. Jerry Brown has done an amazing job in California, yet republicans would toss him to the curb and ignore his actual successes, (same deal for Obama) because their ideology has turned a corner where it is fighting against not only us middle class Americans and our poor, but Reality Itself.

When you all suffer a major infrastructure collapse, and it is coming, and you see the incredibly bad behavior come erupting out of formerly complacent suburbanites, you are going to understand that this latest problem in California/ America is not "from" our political parties, it is coming from within each of us.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

72Hardtop
Old School!
Location: Seattle, WA./HB. Ca./Shizuoka, Japan
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by 72Hardtop » Sun Apr 12, 2015 8:02 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
72Hardtop wrote: 80% of water consumed in California is for the central valley agriculture use.
Bottom-line California has for years had many of it's priorities mis-prioritized.
Blame Jerry Brown for prioritizing California's economic output. Blame him for getting California out of a financial hole that no republican on Earth would ever give him credit for. So agriculture eats 80% of California's water AND pays back in economic value. That is a good priority, pal. So we ask people in Brentwood to water their damn croquet courts once a week instead of twice a week, and you get to see them on TV bitching about it. What do they add to California? Green grass behind stone walls? Let homeowners LEARN how to conserve while agriculture helps rebuild California's economy.
72Hardtop wrote: The recent high speed train is a fine example of too little too late. Guess who stands to reap from it? None other than Diane Feinsteins husband who just happened to secure a near $1 billion dollar contract involving the none other...you guessed it...High speed train to no where.
If the project had not been hobbled by republican braying (they have ALWAYS shot public transportation in the head), it too would have been a magnificent boon to California's economy AND engineering prestige.
But don't think republicans can think ahead. Don;t think that republicans understand a damn thing about real education, real music, real art, they don't! That is why they have savaged budgets for music and art and higher education and public transportation projects coast to coast! Chris Christie of New Jersey! He killed the new tunnel from New Jersey to New York. An eight billion dollar project that would have repaid New Jersey many times over and been a new engineering marvel of the world, giving the U.S. a badly needed new trophy of modern progress. No.
72Hardtop wrote: In short...California has not kept up with the ever growing demand of water. Remember all the desalination plants that were closed? I do. No new ones on the horizon either.
California NEEDS NOT to keep up with the ever-growing demand for water. Just like we democrats have been saying since forever, if you add three more lanes to the freeway, you just get wider traffic jams! We need to rethink the whole damn ball of wax, not listen to Carly Fiorina who is such an idiot that she has to be told that a BIGGER water infrastructure just makes for a whole lot more dry canals and empty reservoirs, the problem you all are having is waaaaay bigger than that. It is a hundred year drought!

It may be the warning shot for a whole new paradigm. Desalinization plants do you understand how they work? They are energy pigs, when the Hoover Dam stops generating electricity AND giving you all water, yoiu won't be able to run desalinization plants unless you crank up that crumbling radioactive republican boondoggle down near Camp Pendleton, the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant that privatized the profit and socialized the abysmal economic disaster coming your way when you have to decon and disassemble it, good luck by the way.
72Hardtop wrote: Both parties are to blame for a lot of problems in California. As I said before change will come...but not with a Democrat or Republican. Time for serious change.
You are not going to get serious change outside of the traditional power structures. Jerry Brown has done an amazing job in California, yet republicans would toss him to the curb and ignore his actual successes, (same deal for Obama) because their ideology has turned a corner where it is fighting against not only us middle class Americans and our poor, but Reality Itself.

When you all suffer a major infrastructure collapse, and it is coming, and you see the incredibly bad behavior come erupting out of formerly complacent suburbanites, you are going to understand that this latest problem in California/ America is not "from" our political parties, it is coming from within each of us.
Colin

What the agricultural pays back is all meaningless when the water runs out. Jerry Brown had his chance years ago and proved he didn't have what it takes to run a state. Changes in California's priorities were started before Brown came back into the picture, problem is they were the wrong priorities as well. Remember there will be NO change until both parties change there ways and listen to what the PEOPLE want, not what special interests want.
1972 Westy tintop
2056cc T-4 - 7.8:1 CR
Weber 40mm Duals - 47.5idles, 125mains, F11 tubes, 190 Air corr., 28mm Vents
96mm AA Biral P/C's w/Hastings rings
42x36mm Heads (AMC- Headflow Masters) w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
Web Cam 73 w/matched Web lifters
S&S 4-1 exhaust w/Walker 17862 quiet-pack
Pertronix SVDA w/Pertronix module & Flamethrower 40K coil (7* initial 28* total @3200+)
NGK BP6ET plugs
002 3 rib trans
Hankook 185R14's

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Apr 13, 2015 11:13 am

I just can't keep up . . .
72Hardtop wrote:California is parched.
There must be some villain behind all this, right?
1. Almonds
Gallons used per dollar, almonds look just great, because they are so valuable.
one problem with almonds, they last for years, ato fields, freeing up water for their trees.

2. Cows alfalfa, plus other forage crops consume more water per acre than almonds, and they also cover nearly twice as much land.
why should California sink its scarce water into such crops?

3. Laws and the politicians who make them. hidden inside this legal framework are several characters that arouse strong suspicions.

A limited market for water is now developing, which sets higher prices on water. It's driving farmers to treat their irrigation water more like the precious commodity that it really is.

Who's your drought-provoking villain of choice?
Now, I was being devil's advocate for Jerry Brown's economic stewardship of California, because I must get the word out! Democratic presidents and governors **always leave a healthier economy** than their republican counterparts. I want this acknowledged!

Now then, I personally find that "the common good" as formalized in our Founding as a Nation, requires that we make decisions that do NOT merely follow "best business practices".

But you and I know that special interests will screw up common good politics every time. They will try to get tax breaks for themselves and screw the public.

I say, ship off the dairy cows, tax the almonds, limit the subdivisions by the simple expedient of demanding that developers buy water rights before they build, and raise the cost of water on agriculture and have a progressive rate for homeowners, everybody gets the first basic acrefoot per month, then rates go up exponentially when you are supplying the water fountain in the middle of the circular driveway made of imported Italian marble.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

72Hardtop
Old School!
Location: Seattle, WA./HB. Ca./Shizuoka, Japan
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by 72Hardtop » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:24 pm

"It may be the warning shot for a whole new paradigm. Desalinization plants do you understand how they work? They are energy pigs, when the Hoover Dam stops generating electricity AND giving you all water, yoiu won't be able to run desalinization plants unless you crank up that crumbling radioactive republican boondoggle down near Camp Pendleton, the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant that privatized the profit and socialized the abysmal economic disaster coming your way when you have to decon and disassemble it, good luck by the way."


Not so fast...


A huge amount of energy is required to create enough pressure to shove the water through the membranes. But clever engineering has cut energy use of the plants in half in 20 years, as well as improving their reliability.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/scien ... .html?_r=0

With time comes better technology.
1972 Westy tintop
2056cc T-4 - 7.8:1 CR
Weber 40mm Duals - 47.5idles, 125mains, F11 tubes, 190 Air corr., 28mm Vents
96mm AA Biral P/C's w/Hastings rings
42x36mm Heads (AMC- Headflow Masters) w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
Web Cam 73 w/matched Web lifters
S&S 4-1 exhaust w/Walker 17862 quiet-pack
Pertronix SVDA w/Pertronix module & Flamethrower 40K coil (7* initial 28* total @3200+)
NGK BP6ET plugs
002 3 rib trans
Hankook 185R14's

User avatar
asiab3
IAC Addict!
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by asiab3 » Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:33 pm

72Hardtop wrote: A huge amount of energy is required to create enough pressure to shove the water through the membranes. But clever engineering has cut energy use of the plants in half in 20 years, as well as improving their reliability.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/scien ... .html?_r=0
With time comes better technology.
As a resident, I'm quite excited about this. A wealthy, placidly conservative town has a chance to make technological progress? Count me in.

Hey look, there's the plant in the background of this photo!
Robbie

Image
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

TrollFromDownBelow
IAC Addict!
Location: Metro Detroit
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by TrollFromDownBelow » Thu Apr 16, 2015 10:07 pm

I hate the cold winters here in Michigan.... I really do....but I see how things are going in Cali, as well as Texas, as far as fresh water concerns, and I kid you not, one of things that makes me think twice about leaving Michigan is that we have 84% of NA's freshwater supplies, and 21% of the worlds. Go ahead. Laugh at me. I live less than 1/4 mile from lake saint clair.
1976 VW Bus aka tripod
FI ...not leaky, and not so noisy...and she runs awesome!
hambone wrote: There are those out there with no other aim but to bunch panties. It's like arguing with a pretzel.
::troll2::

User avatar
asiab3
IAC Addict!
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by asiab3 » Thu Apr 16, 2015 10:31 pm

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:I hate the cold winters here in Michigan.... I really do....but I see how things are going in Cali, as well as Texas, as far as fresh water concerns, and I kid you not, one of things that makes me think twice about leaving Michigan is that we have 84% of NA's freshwater supplies, and 21% of the worlds. Go ahead. Laugh at me. I live less than 1/4 mile from lake saint clair.
The "regional climate/weather" thing bothers me when people from more wet climates are like "you guys are wimps there's no drought!"

Why, last year we had one mediocre weekend of rain in November, and I overheard a gentleman utter, "Well at least that drought thing is over and done with."

Not because of the situation, but I've contemplated moving recently; getting away from the guilt of a four-minute shower would be nice.

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

72Hardtop
Old School!
Location: Seattle, WA./HB. Ca./Shizuoka, Japan
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by 72Hardtop » Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:48 pm

By now you've heard about the epic drought threatening every California water user, from almond growers to swimming-pool owners, resulting in mandatory cutbacks and ostracism from neighbors for being the last on the block with a green lawn. So would it surprise you to learn that the state actually has more than enough water to go around?


About a decade ago, the blue-collar community of Sun Valley in Los Angeles County was faced with flooding that impacted homes and businesses during winter rains. The county had planned a $47 million storm sewer system to drain the flood waters from streets and dump it in the Pacific Ocean via the Los Angeles River (itself now a mostly concrete flood management canal). Instead, clever community planners decided to invest those funds in underground cisterns that would capture the water for later use.




Source: Terry Tamminen

Sun Valley water cisterns.


A dilapidated city park was remodeled with cisterns below, as were medians along broad boulevards that were themselves underwater during heavy rains. The result was a system, using ancient Roman technology (see photo above), that captures 8,000 acre feet of water each year, about twice what the entire city consumes, solving the flooding problem and creating a source of fresh water for thousands of residents. The investment also gave the city a new park with ball fields and picnic grounds and higher adjacent property values.





But could something this simple be the solution for a thirsty state that is getting hotter, growing faster, and producing more food crops than ever before? According to the National Weather Service, the average annual rainfall in Los Angeles for the past 100 years is about 14", more than enough to serve the needs of the region and then some.


During the decade from 2003 to 2012, we had wet years of nearly 38" of rain and dry ones of less than 4", but the average was still just under 14", meaning there is no drought in the most populous region of the state.

So what's the problem? For the past 150 years, the goal was to address the same challenge that Sun Valley faced: not a lack of water, but too much water during the brief, intense rainy season. So Southern California built storm sewers and concreted the rivers to efficiently carry all that fresh water into the ocean.


The answer to the drought, therefore, is to stop wasting this valuable resource. If we captured and used the water that already falls here, we could turn off the tap from the north and leave that water for farmers. Just as we discovered in California that sunlight falling on every rooftop can be harnessed to generate energy, right at the place it is used, we can capture the water that falls on those same landscapes for use where it's needed. In fact, the Los Angeles nonprofit TreePeople has been demonstrating for years that every type of building or land use can do what Sun Valley has done, or what solar panels do for energy generation — decentralize.




One of their projects used simple rain barrels to collect water at a typical home and a graded lawn to capture and retain water, allowing it to seep into the ground instead of running off into the street. In another demonstration, asphalt at a school campus was replaced by vegetation and trees, cooling the buildings and lowering energy costs, while capturing water under the parking lot in cisterns. In both cases, the result was more water stored than could be used onsite, meaning the landowner had a valuable commodity to sell to the local water utility and a lower cost for their own water needs (after amortizing the value of the installations).


Moreover, the two major sewage-treatment plants that serve Los Angeles County treat over 700 million gallons of sewage water per day and dump most of it in the ocean. As the state looks for ways to water golf courses, ball fields, or flush toilets, it would be far cheaper to re-use the water we already pay for, by investing in reverse plumbing instead of expensive new dams and pipes to pump more costly water from the north or the Colorado River.


Sure, we could desalinate ocean water, but the state's landmark laws to tackle greenhouse gases and save energy mandate that less energy be generated in the state over time, not more. Desalination demands unthinkable amounts of energy so in essence we will solve one problem by exacerbating another.





Yes, to solve the "drought" in a few short years, there are two basic tasks that California needs to undertake. First, we should set a goal of zero net water use in southern California by the year 2030 and replace the water we currently ship across the state with captured water that falls in abundance in the region on an average annual basis. Second, we need to tackle the antiquated system of water rights that pits farmers against each other for access to various water supplies and that forces some landowners to use the water for low value, water-intensive crops because of "use it or lose it" water laws. Farmers need not compete with urban users or environmentalists and fishers (who want more water left in natural river ecosystems) if they stop fighting among themselves first and compromise on reasonable water rights reforms.


The old saying goes "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink". If we take this common-sense, cost-efficient approach we could solve the drought, keep feeding America, watering our lawns, diving into our swimming pools, spraying fake snow on movie sets, and showing the world how to invest and innovate to solve major challenges — all the things the world loves about California.


Commentary by Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. He is also the president of Seventh Generation Advisors and co-founder of the R20 Regions of Climate Action. Follow him on Twitter @terrytamminen.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102581700


And in the end...more water is lost each day to simple evaporation than what is used by man.
1972 Westy tintop
2056cc T-4 - 7.8:1 CR
Weber 40mm Duals - 47.5idles, 125mains, F11 tubes, 190 Air corr., 28mm Vents
96mm AA Biral P/C's w/Hastings rings
42x36mm Heads (AMC- Headflow Masters) w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
Web Cam 73 w/matched Web lifters
S&S 4-1 exhaust w/Walker 17862 quiet-pack
Pertronix SVDA w/Pertronix module & Flamethrower 40K coil (7* initial 28* total @3200+)
NGK BP6ET plugs
002 3 rib trans
Hankook 185R14's

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Thirsty?

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Apr 20, 2015 8:28 pm

72Hardtop wrote:Sun Valley planners decided to invest in underground cisterns that would capture the water for later use.

Is that not evidence that we can be resourceful and creative? I think Sun Valley should be allowed to do a Brentwood/Highland Park/Beverly Hills Razz Parade every year, paid for by a tax on chauffeur permits.
Good for them!
Colin
(I worked a summer in Sun Valley at 2002AD, a wrecking yard for BMWS, it was so definitely dusty blue collar with those damn cement plants nearby)
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

Post Reply