[HN Gopher] Majority of America's underground water stores are d...
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Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study
finds
Author : santaz01
Score : 67 points
Date : 2024-01-24 21:38 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehill.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehill.com)
| nwah1 wrote:
| With solar energy prices plummeting, it may make sense during
| peak production hours to use it to do desalination and/or extract
| water from the air, depending on where you are.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to
| desalinate.
|
| Really, what's required for the electric grid is ways to store
| the energy, and not use it.
|
| For places like Arizona, they may need a whole different type
| of infrastructure of grey water use. Just piping in water ain't
| gonna be sustainable.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Water is a lot easier to store than electricity. Desalinate
| while the sun is shining to fill a reservoir that you can
| pull from 24/7.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| True, but it isn't energy, and desal requires firm
| generation, so you're not using renewables that would've
| been curtailed but instead competing with load that needs
| consistent power. Still hopeful considering the cost
| decline curve of utility scale storage, but it isn't a
| silver bullet based on solar being free at noon.
| nosrepa wrote:
| But water in a reservoir is one of the oldest ways of
| storing energy.
| mjhay wrote:
| Why do you need to desalinate it to use it for energy
| storage? Seems like an unnecessary step that would not
| increase the gravitational potential energy at all.
| tedk-42 wrote:
| > they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to
| desalinate.
|
| We should be implementing technologies we have now today
| rather than banking on something that might or might not pan
| out.
|
| I don't hate the idea of piping water throughout areas or
| creating artificial enclosed canals of sorts.
|
| But then I'm on the side of thinking that we should advance
| and terraform the planet rather than try to be more one with
| nature and cut back.
| arcticbull wrote:
| So a nuclear power plant adjacent to the ocean and a desal
| plant?
| zer00eyz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
|
| We can have safe nuclear power, right after we invent
| safe people. Till you solve the human problem nukes are
| bad mmmkay.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Nobody died in Fukushima, except in a bungled evacuation
| of the surrounding area. Maybe one person in the fullness
| of time. Nuclear power is literally the safest power
| source in deaths per TWh - right between wind and solar.
| [1]
|
| We have safe nuclear power, so I'm pleased to inform you
| that your concern was mitigated, about 50 years ago.
|
| [edit] Also, I would point out the worst nuclear accident
| in history killed 4000 people according to USCEAR. The
| next-worst killed 1. The worst hydro accident in history
| (Bangqiao Dam) killed 240,000, damaged 5 million homes,
| displaced 10.5 million people and wiped several cities
| off the face of the earth - yet for some reason it
| doesn't share the same perception of intense danger.
| Interesting. [2]
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
| zer00eyz wrote:
| Great, we're looking at deaths till the point of
| generation.
|
| 4.5 billion years, is the half life of uranium. Come back
| to me with stats then....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
|
| We're going to be pouring money into that shit show for
| probably a 1000 years, and an exclusion zone for 20,000.
|
| So if you want to move next to Fukushima or Chernobyl you
| can preach safe nuclear from there, other wise stop the
| nonsene. The same companies that kill people with coal,
| and gas lines, and Power lines (lookin at you PGE) dont
| need to run nuclear plants. They are untrustworthy.
| arcticbull wrote:
| This really smacks of Brandolini's law, or the "bullshit
| asymmetry principle" where debunking claims takes much
| more effort than making them. [1]
|
| Just going to go ahead and end this here.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
| distortionfield wrote:
| We can have safe nuclear, full stop. Your FUD
| notwithstanding.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| > they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to
| desalinate.
|
| I'm intrigued. Link?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| It's like trying to use a hammer to screw some bolts. The
| priority should be sustainable development. We have enough
| water, just not great usage. The water infrastructure we have
| today is aged and needs to expand to allow for the population
| growth the country has seen. On top of that, we are expanding
| cities in parts of the country where water is scarce. We are
| growing water intensive crops in parts of the country that does
| not have water for it. We are also mismanaging the largest
| watershed in the country: the Missisippi. Just focus on these
| problems than creating other problems with desalination.
| justinzollars wrote:
| > solar energy prices plummeting
|
| Shopping for solar in California, prices aren't plummeting.
| With high interest rates, solar no longer makes economic sense.
| Its more expensive than ever. Many solar installers are facing
| bankruptcy because the market has collapsed.
| isk517 wrote:
| Cool, out of everything in Star Wars it turns out moisture
| farming was the thing that would make it to real life.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I think the future is going to find the past 100 years or so an
| insane time in history as we used all the fossil fuels and water
| up in the blink of an eye on the historical time scale.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Waiting for the day when the US invades a country for having
| nuclear weapons and steals all their water in tiny plastic
| bottles?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Why invade another country when you can do such insane things
| as:
|
| - pipeline the Columbia River to the SW Region: https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_interstate_water_pipe...
|
| - tow icebergs for the fresh water they contain:
| https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/can-icebergs-be-
| towed-t...
|
| - pipe water from Alaska to CA:
| https://www.wired.com/2015/02/california-pipe-water-alaska/
| npongratz wrote:
| - pipe water shared with Canada out of the Great Lakes, up
| and over the Rocky Mountains, and down into Phoenix and Las
| Vegas: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017
| /04/10/g...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| IF we didn't find fossil fuels, in all likely hood we would
| still be living in the 18th century.
| leptons wrote:
| Electricity came up around the same time and never stopped -
| the tech involved with electronics and electric everything
| has far surpassed that of oil and gas. There were electric
| cars at the same time ICEs were being invented. Oil and gas
| won for selfish reasons.
| busyant wrote:
| > an insane time in history as we used all the fossil fuels and
| water up in the blink of an eye on the historical time scale.
|
| I'm probably not telling you anything you didn't already know,
| but this is what exponential growth does. Even when the
| exponent is tiny.
|
| If I had a solution to the impending energy / water crunch,
| somebody would've thought of it already. :-(
| snagglemouth wrote:
| Meanwhile Nestle is pumping thousands of gallons per minute out
| of aquifers to put into plastic bottles.
| justrealist wrote:
| Literally 0 impact as compared to farming.
| alan-hn wrote:
| At least farming feeds people rather than taking water from
| communities purely for profit
| arcticbull wrote:
| In a way - it mostly provides for dairy, which is an
| incredibly lossy operation.
|
| The "alfalfa in the desert" stuff you hear about isn't for
| salads. It's feed for cattle.
|
| A gallon of milk requires [edit](4-5 gallons excluding
| consumption for growing feed, ~800 gallons, contested,
| fully realized)[1, 2] and a pound of beef requires
| somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 gallons. [3]
|
| Beef is where the water goes, not Nestle water bottles,
| which are silly too. You drink about 185 gallons of water
| per year, meaning 1 pound of beef consumes 10 years worth
| of your personal drinking budget. Assuming you drank every
| single drop out of a Nestle water bottle, it really does
| round to zero compared to agriculture.
|
| [1] https://www.watereducation.org/post/food-facts-how-
| much-wate...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1092652/volume-of-
| water-...
|
| [3] https://www.watercalculator.org/news/articles/beef-
| king-big-...
| Solvency wrote:
| Do you realize that the US native buffalo population used
| to be as high as 30 to 60 million before we decimated
| them?
|
| 30 to 60. million. grazers. Roaming the countryside,
| eating and pooping and fertilizing our soil. Remember
| when the US had some of the most fertile, nutrient-rich
| soil in the entire world? Remember how perfectly balanced
| our ecosystem was before we ruined it?
|
| The issue is not ruminants. It's everything else we've
| done to this planet throwing everything life carefully
| manicured into disarray.
| nullhole wrote:
| On the plus side there are a lot more people who get to
| be alive now.
| Faaak wrote:
| there are ~90M cattle in the US, so more than before ?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| We eat about 40 million cows and 125 million pigs every
| year, and more than 8 Billion chicken. These are just the
| ones that are killed each year, the actual livestock
| inventory is much higher for cows, around 90 million
| cows. We absolutely will have to cut back production if
| we want to "sustainably" farm cattle.
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| You are correct. We have 8,000,000,000 people to feed,
| mostly carnivors, with their cats and dogs. I was in
| Mexico two weeks ago getting lectured about how the
| imperial US imports GMO corn into Mexico. If it wasn't
| for the GMO corn millions of people will starve on their
| staple diet of cow, pig, chicken, and corn. I flew into
| Seoul for the first time last night and found a hole in
| the wall restaurant. The kimchi and tofu soup was
| recommended. I wish access to vegetarian food that tastes
| that good inexpensively was available everywhere.
| rickydroll wrote:
| > It's feed for cattle.
|
| Saudi Dairy. All that alfalfa grown with groundwater in
| the desert is shipped to a country that banned growing
| alfalfa with groundwater in the desert.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-
| stricken-ar...
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90963878/arizona-is-evicting-
| a-s...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| now do almonds..... Which alot of people want to use as a
| replacement for things like Milk, or Flour....
| arcticbull wrote:
| Yes, almonds require a lot of water to grow also. Rice,
| oat, soy and coconut require orders of magnitude less.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| "It takes a bonkers 1,611 US gallons (6,098 litres) to
| produce 1 litre of almond milk," says the Sustainable
| Restaurant Association's Pete Hemingway." [1]
|
| So that would be 6,000 gallons of water to make 1 Gallon
| of Almond Milk... that seems to be more than your 800
| Gallon figure for cow milk....
|
| Also you will take my Steak and Hamburger over my dead
| body... America will never, not in may life time, give up
| Beef, it is after all what is for dinner.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/sep/05/ditch-
| the-almon...
| arcticbull wrote:
| Where did you get the idea I supported almond production
| for milk substitutes. I specifically cited other much
| lower water usage milk substitutes.
|
| > Also you will take my Steak and Hamburger over my dead
| body... America will never, not in may life time, give up
| Beef, it is after all what is for dinner.
|
| Also not relevant, but ok. I'll make a note of it.
|
| Personally, I think meat should just be much more
| expensive, representing the actual consumption of
| resources in its production. That way we could just let
| the market sort it out.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > The "alfalfa in the desert" stuff you hear about isn't
| for salads. It's feed for cattle.
|
| Worse. It's feed for Chinese cattle in China. Alfalfa is
| shippable, and it gets shipped to the Chinese mainland.
| Economically speaking, alfalfa and water are pretty
| fungible, one's as good as the other, and they're buying
| it up subsidized by the US government to the detriment of
| American taxpayers. If we taxed alfalfa sold abroad to
| make the price reasonable, that nonsense would stop
| immediately.
| asimilator wrote:
| Farming is not done for profit?
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| People do drink the water, presumably.
| alan-hn wrote:
| They could have drank it for free or for minimal tax
| investment but now they have to give money to Nestle to
| do so while also polluting the planet with plastic
| bottles
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Thousands of gallons per minute is not much on the scale of the
| US.
|
| The Mississippi alone has a flow rate of almost ~6M gallons per
| minute.
|
| The US uses almost ~500M gallons of water per minute.
|
| Nestle is a pretty large user of water and if it's even 5k
| gallons per minute that's 1 in 100,000 gallons.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Article mentions California a lot.
|
| There is absolutely zero reason that California's cities cannot
| be fed with nuclear heated desalinated seawater or heck,
| traditionally desalinated sea water.
|
| The only thing holding back this engineering solution are NIMBYs,
| naive greenies, and mountains of legal paperwork.
|
| Water doesn't go away and we have the solutions to make
| freshwater. The problems are political, not technical.
|
| Tha solves the city consumption problem which can then allow
| water run off from the mountains back into the valley where it
| used to be. That will help restore the aquafiers.
|
| Read up on what the California valleys used to look like before
| the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities.
| parl_match wrote:
| > before the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities.
|
| Hell, a lot of that wasn't even for cities. Significant and
| massive lakes, including Lake Tulare, were siphoned away simply
| to create farmland.
| mjhay wrote:
| The great majority of water usage in California is for
| agriculture, not "coastal cities." Things like drip irrigation
| and not growing alfalfa in the desert are far more realistic
| (and cheaper) than what you are proposing. This is a solvable
| problem, even with climate change, but there aren't going to be
| any silver bullets.
| scythe wrote:
| You're both right. The Owens River Valley was desiccated to
| ship the water to the Los Angeles region, back when the
| latter was primarily agricultural in the 1920s.
| 303uru wrote:
| Pinning water usage on city elites, lol, now that's some mental
| gymnastics. Ya, I'm not sure "NIMBYs" are going to be super
| into a nuclear power plant driving a desalination plant with a
| water pipeline that stretches out into the desert to farms.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| "nuclear power plant"
|
| We dont build these because people fuck them up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)
|
| Is this the company you want having a nuclear plant in CA?
| okokwhatever wrote:
| New story for the next 6 years: water
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Technically, water has been a story for the last few decades
| already. Not new.
|
| It's bit overshadowed lately by other world events.
|
| There was even a James Bond movie made about it.
|
| Water used to be the biggest concern. Guess other problems
| caught up to it.
| Moru wrote:
| It's more a question about trying not to concentrate on
| something that will mean a lot of change for the worse.
| cardamomo wrote:
| I'll keep plugging Paolo Bacigalupi's 2015 novel The Water
| Knife. It's sci-fi, but set against a near-future Southwest
| US where many contemporary crises have only gotten worse.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Between climate change, nuclear war, AI, resource famines, and
| political instability, we're only missing alien invasion and
| the return of the AntiChrist to complete the set of possible
| apocalypses.
| 303uru wrote:
| There may be good news on this front.
|
| Most of this water is being used to farm, specifically to grow
| feed crops for cattle. Anyone that can hearken back to elementary
| school will remember that you lose a lot of energy in the food
| chain. It takes an absolute shitton of water to get to a steak,
| 1800 gallons for one 16oz cut
| (https://www.denverwater.org/tap/whats-beef-water). But a
| demographic crises is coming. I was just at the stock show here
| in Denver and yes, ranchers are very much framing this as a
| crises. 12% of the population is eating half the beef, males
| 50-65 (https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/17/3795). This group is
| dying off quickly, quicker even than their peers, as increased
| beef consumption is a big predictor of early mortality. Younger
| populations are curbing beef consumption for chicken and it's far
| more water efficient.
| nbow wrote:
| Gotta keep them desert gold courses looking fresh... Looking at
| you Utah.
| taftster wrote:
| Huh? Golf courses I assume?
|
| Not that I know, but it would be interesting to have a study of
| water usage for golf courses. I suspect it's mostly minimal
| impact, even if it's also superfluous use.
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