Megascale desalination !

[Mark V]

The world’s largest and cheapest reverse-osmosis desalination plant is up and running in Israel.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/5...-desalination/


Instead of govt run trains or delta tunnels, CA should get busy building desalination plants!

[winxp_man]

The gubermint here in CA is to good for that! They have way way better things to do than build stuff like the desalination plants! They have lakes and underground water for a water source ;)

[mogaru]

The water is big business in California and a lot of money is involved in it.........like selling the water we send to south cal back to north cal. Desalination plants have been used by countries all over the world for many years. We don't do it because the mighty powers get a lot of money from it.

[Darian]

DeSal plants already exist in this state. They're scaled from very large, as in Poseidon, to small built by small communities along the mid-CA coast and in the Central Valley to test viability of treatment of AG run-off. There are several locations being studied for the Bay area. So, DeSal is making slow progress, here, but is in use now. :cool:

[Bob Loblaw]

Desal only pencils out when water becomes very expensive indeed. Santa Barbara commissioned desal plant in the 1980s during the last drought, by the time it was operational in 1992 the drought was over and it was mothballed before a gallon of fresh water was produced. Australia spent billions on desal plants during their drought and they are now shutting them down. They require a lot of electricity to operate, they are big fish killers when water is pumped in, and they create millions of gallons of toxic brine that needs to be pumped out somewhere.

Desal is not a panacea even reverse osmosis which is more efficient than traditional desal is very expensive. Lawrence Livermore Labs is developing new desal technology around ionization that might be economically viable, but its years away from being ready for the market place.


The cheapest gallon of water is the water not used. The state per capita daily water use is about 220 gallons! if everyone used 40-50 gallons, which is easily doable, we wouldn't need billions of dollars of desal infrastructure. But we like our lawns and our nice clean cars and refuse to change our behavior.

[Mark V]

Bob,
I thought the price quoted in that article of 58 U.S. cents per cubic meter seemed reasonable (it may be unrealistic), but obviously cutting water usage is a much better solution--especially if your usage numbers are accurate.

The population of CA is around 39 million people now, right? You're saying we currently each use 220 gallons each per day, and we could easily stop using 3/4 of that with known conservation steps?

Does the 220 gal/day figure include farm use?

Do you know what portion of the ave 220/day is currently going to water lawns?

[JasonB]

The cheapest gallon of water is the water not used. The state per capita daily water use is about 220 gallons! if everyone used 40-50 gallons, which is easily doable, we wouldn't need billions of dollars of desal infrastructure. But we like our lawns and our nice clean cars and refuse to change our behavior.

Very well said. We have taken many measures to keep our water consumption to a much more modest level than the average Californian. Even with our large garden we're quite stingy with our watering, and to some degree we have a bit of a Darwinian outlook on what we grow... only the strong and the hardy survive. I pretty much quite using water to wash my car about 20 years ago, a total waste of precious water imo.

Unfortunately, I think that Brown is correct in saying that our water issues wont go away with a single angle. It will likely take much more than just a singular "solution" such as massive desal plants, dams, tunnels, etc. Even conservation alone would not be sufficient. Groundwater storage improvements would be an extremely helpful step in the right direction, and along with conservation should be the first steps towards addressing water supply needs (and far cheaper steps than other "solutions" being mentioned).

I think it's natural for us to want a singular simple solution to any problem, especially if it lets us continue our in our own lifestyle with no adjustment or discomfort. Unfortunately, water supply and demand in the state of California is a BIG issue that is likely to grow in the coming years, and wont go away with wishful thinking.
JB

[SeanO]

1 almond = 1.2 gram
1 gram = 0.00220462 pound
2,670 pounds of shelled almonds per acre = 1,009,244 almonds per acre
1,020,000 total almond acres x 1,009,244 almonds per acre = 1,029,429,107,964 CA almonds.

1 almond = 1.1 gallon of water
1.1 gallon of water x 1,029,429,107,964 almonds = 1,132,372,018,760 gallons of water for almonds

264 gallons = 1 cubic meter
1,132,372,018,760/264 = 4,289,287,949 cubic meters of water needed for almonds


I thought the price quoted in that article of 58 U.S. cents per cubic meter

4,289,287,949 cubic meters of water x $0.58 = $2,487,787,011 (about $2.5 billion)

CA almonds brought in $5.9 billion in 2014, so desal would reduce the profit by about half if all of my math is correct!

[Bob Loblaw]

Bob,
I thought the price quoted in that article of 58 U.S. cents per cubic meter seemed reasonable (it may be unrealistic), but obviously cutting water usage is a much better solution--especially if your usage numbers are accurate.

The population of CA is around 39 million people now, right? You're saying we currently each use 220 gallons each per day, and we could easily stop using 3/4 of that with known conservation steps?

Does the 220 gal/day figure include farm use?

Do you know what portion of the ave 220/day is currently going to water lawns?

The 220 GPD estimate is just for residential use. The stats on total water use are often "massaged" to further political agendas. Farmers will tell you that 50% of our water is used for "environmental purposes" and that farms only use 40%. That 50% is minimum flows required under FERC licensing for dams to keep fish and other river species alive. Farmers, with a straight face, actually count meager minimum flows as a "water use". If they had their way everything behind a dam would be used for people and for people only.

In reality, about 80% of diverted water goes to farms and the other 20% is split between residential and industrial uses. Making gasoline for example takes huge amounts of water.

Residential use is about 10% of total diverted water. Most of that is used on landscaping. If people just used water for toilet flushing, laundry, dishes and drinking, the average per capita use would be 30-40 GPD. That's all we really need, that what people who live in apartments use. Its the people in the suburbs with the big lawns who are the big users and who drive up the average water use.

I bought a new home two years ago and immediately turned off the lawn sprinklers. When I got my water reduction mandate from the water district my baseline was 900 gallons per day. That's what the previous owner was using. We now use 150 gallons and I still manage to keep the trees and rose bushes alive....there are 3 of us so we are at 50 GPD per capita.

But as I said earlier, farms use 80% of the diverted water, so unless they change their behavior, all we can do as residents is make a small dent. California's farmers have made their intentions very clear indeed. They have no plans to scale back or to use less water intensive crops, they are focusing all their advocacy efforts on reducing environmental flows so much that first the fish die, then the river dies, then they can shut them off altogether and divert all that environmental flow to their almond orchards.

[tascaso]

Average price last year was $5.13 a pound this year before the crop can even be evaluate price is already down to $3.12 a pound. Water issues, to many new orchards are driving the prices down. All commodities are volatile and almonds are no exception. They have had a good run that is for sure!

[Mark V]

Wow Bob,
I did not know all of THAT ! Thanks for sharing, and with such perfect bluntness. Same about your math project Salmonid.

Well, we should get as many eyeballs on this as possible. Prob shouldn'ta posted this on the Stripers forum.

Best, M


Quote.... Originally posted by Bob Loblaw:

"The 220 GPD estimate is just for residential use. The stats on total water use are often "massaged" to further political agendas. Farmers will tell you that 50% of our water is used for "environmental purposes" and that farms only use 40%. That 50% is minimum flows required under FERC licensing for dams to keep fish and other river species alive. Farmers, with a straight face, actually count meager minimum flows as a "water use". If they had their way everything behind a dam would be used for people and for people only.

In reality, about 80% of diverted water goes to farms and the other 20% is split between residential and industrial uses. Making gasoline for example takes huge amounts of water.

Residential use is about 10% of total diverted water. Most of that is used on landscaping. If people just used water for toilet flushing, laundry, dishes and drinking, the average per capita use would be 30-40 GPD. That's all we really need, that what people who live in apartments use. Its the people in the suburbs with the big lawns who are the big users and who drive up the average water use.

I bought a new home two years ago and immediately turned off the lawn sprinklers. When I got my water reduction mandate from the water district my baseline was 900 gallons per day. That's what the previous owner was using. We now use 150 gallons and I still manage to keep the trees and rose bushes alive....there are 3 of us so we are at 50 GPD per capita.

But as I said earlier, farms use 80% of the diverted water, so unless they change their behavior, all we can do as residents is make a small dent. California's farmers have made their intentions very clear indeed. They have no plans to scale back or to use less water intensive crops, they are focusing all their advocacy efforts on reducing environmental flows so much that first the fish die, then the river dies, then they can shut them off altogether and divert all that environmental flow to their almond orchards."

[Bob Loblaw]

And the almond farmers love to put big signs next to their orchards proclaiming "FOOD SECURITY FOR AMERICA!" what they don't tell you is that the bulk of their crop is exported to China. We are killing our rivers so that people in China can have Almond Chicken.

[Bob Loblaw]

Average price last year was $5.13 a pound this year before the crop can even be evaluate price is already down to $3.12 a pound. Water issues, to many new orchards are driving the prices down. All commodities are volatile and almonds are no exception. They have had a good run that is for sure!

And the almond farmers love to put big signs next to their orchards proclaiming "FOOD SECURITY FOR AMERICA!" what they don't tell you is that the bulk of their crop is exported to China. We are killing our rivers so that people in China can have Almond Chicken.