How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War

Re:How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War by dctoedt on Sunday September 30, 2018 @01:47PM (#18107278)

With cheap enough power, it might well be possible to desalinate water from the nearest ocean and pump it to wherever it's needed.

(Disclaimer: I haven't tried even back-of-the-envelope calculations about other costs of doing so, e.g., capital- and operating costs of pipelines, pumps, etc.)

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Re:How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War by maxander on Sunday September 30, 2018 @03:41PM (#18107961)

Because I’m bored- Googling “cost to desalinate water” gives $2k per family of five, and googling “population of California” gives roughly a population of 40 million. 40mil/5 * 2k == 16 billion (if I’m counting zeroes right.)

So it’s in the ballpark of a percent of California’s total GDP (which is roughly 2 trillion, IIRC) for non-industrial uses. (But industry, including agriculture, is responsible for that GDP- how easily a “dry” Californian economy could support desalination can’t be inferred from these numbers!)

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Re:How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War by pm90 on Sunday September 30, 2018 @03:44PM (#18107982)

That's why "cheap enough" power.

Conceivably, using offshore wind turbines to power a desal plant could perhaps be cost-effective.

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Re:How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War by maxander on Sunday September 30, 2018 @05:02PM (#18108406)

I mean, are you expecting power in the future to be a tenth as expensive as it is now? A hundredth? With “cheap enough” energy anything is possible, but I don’t see where we would get order of magnitude improvements there anytime soon.

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Re:How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War by sologoub on Sunday September 30, 2018 @09:33PM (#18109417)

I’m still hoping for nuclear fusion within my lifetime.

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