Now, they want our water.

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
In vessels, sea water is heated under pressure, thus needing less temperature to boil. The resulting steam is condensed and the water coming out of it, after a chemical treatment is considered apt for the boilers. Water at that stage is not used for human consumption (drinking / cooking).

Those that tasted it, said that it had "too much taste" :p with added chemicals contributing to it.
Our drinking water usually tasted like oil on ship (the lazy pukes used the same tank level stick for oil and water). We condensed steam from the ships engine boilers into water for drinking and for making DI cooling water for electrical equipment. The electronic equipment cooling water was much better than the drinking water so we had a tap off the transmitter/radar heat exchanger to get water for coffee (we did add a dash of salt for flavor).
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
More than 30 years ago I was a foreign exchange student and stayed in LaGrange, OH, for about a year.... I remember that the water coming out of the tap smelled awful, and I never drank from it, but I had to shower every day anyway ... so eventually I had to get used to it.
A few months after I came back home I received a letter from one of the friends that I had made up there... it contained a newspaper cutout with an article saying that a corpse dumped by the mafia two years before had been discovered in the town's water reservoir ... it had been found after one of their henchmen had confessed to the crime... :eek:
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
More than 30 years ago I was a foreign exchange student and stayed in LaGrange, OH, for about a year.... I remember that the water coming out of the tap smelled awful, and I never drank from it, but I had to shower every day anyway ... so eventually I had to get used to it.
A few months after I came back home I received a letter from one of the friends that I had made up there... it contained a newspaper cutout with an article saying that a corpse dumped by the mafia two years before had been discovered in the town's water reservoir ... it had been found after one of their henchmen had confessed to the crime... :eek:
I understand how terrible should be for you, but please, not enough reason for too many tequilas every day.

BTW, the ones below cannot compare but come close.

For the daring.jpg

And then this for those politically incorrect

Licor de.jpg
 

Brownout

Joined Jan 10, 2012
2,390
If California has been getting someone else's water, I don't know who it would be. Arizona and Nevada sure as hell doesn't have any to spare. As for farming, the overwhelming portion is done in the San Joaquin Valley, which is NOT a desert. There is a very good reason to farm the region; it is one of the most fertile regions on the continent. The valley is one of very the few class I topsoil regions. Hundreds of different food crops are grown there, which accounts for approximately 12% of the total for the US worth ~$40billion. It is a semi-arid area, but also contains two pretty significant rivers, which are exploited for irrigation; the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. Other sources of irrigation are the annual snowpack in the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains and the nation's largest collection of dams, channels, canals and locks located in the northern part of the state, which receives more rainfall. So, in fact, the state has planned and built for water storage and conservation.

The major problem now is a 3-year drought, which has had a devastating effect on the region's farming community. Decreasing rain and mountain snow pack, which the farmers depend on, caused a shortage, which cannot be made up by other means. Add to that the increased amount of pumping from the two rivers that serve the region which is beginning to effect the ecology of those rivers, the needs for irrigation must be balanced with the preservation of the river's ecosystems. This puts additional pressure on the whole system. The other option is to pump the ground water, but this also has limitations, and farmers are finding that more coordination and regulations are needed to preserve the aquifers. The drought is widespread and affects more of the west than just California.

When I lived in Cal, there was already an effort to use treated water for irrigation. Even though this helps, it's not a total solution to the water shortage, which is more extreme now than then. The problem is complex, and as is true for most complex issues, wont' be solved by a single means. The new climate might be long lasting, and will require a combination of conservation, new infrastructure, new irrigation methods, new regulations and perhaps tapping into different water sources.
 

Nykolas

Joined Aug 27, 2013
115
It is not likely Washington State will sell water to California. Here in BC, just north of WA, on Vancouver Island, is a place with the highest recorded rain fall in North America at 29' (not "!) annually. Last year, in Port Alberni, water rationing was imposed in August. This year it maybe as soon as June. Low snow packs and logging of the watersheds cause the problems.
Wisely Canada excluded the sale of water when the US/Canada FTA was done.
I can live without ice in my scotch! Desalination technology should ge that 30 billion! E
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
More than 30 years ago I was a foreign exchange student and stayed in LaGrange, OH, for about a year.... I remember that the water coming out of the tap smelled awful, and I never drank from it, but I had to shower every day anyway ... so eventually I had to get used to it.
A few months after I came back home I received a letter from one of the friends that I had made up there... it contained a newspaper cutout with an article saying that a corpse dumped by the mafia two years before had been discovered in the town's water reservoir ... it had been found after one of their henchmen had confessed to the crime... :eek:
There was a story in LA a few years ago similar to this.

The 'normal' water quality is so bad most people didn't even notice the difference.
 
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tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
I am always amazed at how if something becomes a concern in california apparently it's a worldwide problem now too but if it happens anywhere else its just a local phenomenon or issue. :rolleyes:

As far as I can see we live on a planet that is 3/5ths covered in water and have plenty of technology that can process it to whatever quality and grade we want and then pump it to anywhere we want so if we run out it's only because politicians and idiots mandated it to happen. :mad:
 

Brownout

Joined Jan 10, 2012
2,390
The world's largest desalination plant is due to open next year in So Cal. With a $1BILLION price tag, it will supply a meager 7% of the water needs for the community it servers (San Diego) with nothing left over for agriculture. The math doesn't work out for processing and distributing water to make up for the 63 trillion gallon loss (as of August, last year) as a result of the current drought.
 

LDC3

Joined Apr 27, 2013
924
The world's largest desalination plant is due to open next year in So Cal. With a $1BILLION price tag, it will supply a meager 7% of the water needs for the community it servers (San Diego) with nothing left over for agriculture. The math doesn't work out for processing and distributing water to make up for the 63 trillion gallon loss (as of August, last year) as a result of the current drought.
Actually, the plant is about 30 miles north of San Diego and will be supplying water to Carlsbad, Vista, and San Marcos. I don't think any water will make it to the city of San Diego since there are 3 more communities between the city and Carlsbad. There would probably need to be 50 more plants just to meat the needs of San Diego county.
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
Desalination will look like a more viable water source when we have fusion power to run it!
There is plenty of empty land for solar panels in Ca with mostly sunny days, no need to wait for fusion on earth, use the nice fusion reactor in the sky. For 30 billion we should be able to put a big dent in the Ca water problem right in their own backyard.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
It's interesting that:

"Supplying all domestic water by sea water desalination would increase the United States' energy consumption by around 10%, about the amount of energy used by domestic refrigerators.[15]" wikipedia​

That's not as bad as I would have guessed. California probably could pull off solar desalination. The Israelis do it, so could the left coast.
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
It would also be a good use of wind power being desalination can be ran as a off peak or variable load in most cases without problems.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I suppose a desal plant is too expensive to not run continuously, but it could be used for load balancing. Turn it on when power is available and shut it off when it's too costly, same thing I let the power company do with my air conditioner.
 

LDC3

Joined Apr 27, 2013
924
There is plenty of empty land for solar panels in Ca with mostly sunny days, no need to wait for fusion on earth, use the nice fusion reactor in the sky. For 30 billion we should be able to put a big dent in the Ca water problem right in their own backyard.
What? Cover all the land we use to grow your food? Or did you mean to put the solar panels on the hillsides?
 

Tesla23

Joined May 10, 2009
542
This is interesting (from the guys that sell the desal plants):
http://www.amtaorg.com/wp-content/uploads/7_MembraneDesalinationPowerUsagePutInPerspective.pdf

Some years ago in Sydney our dams were dropping dangerously low. An expert group decided that at 30% we needed to start building the desal plant to ensure we didn't run out. The then premier lost his nerve at 36% and signed the contract, the dams are now full, we have a multi-billion dollar desal plant that I don't think has ever produced a drop in anger and has now been mothballed (it is a big decision to let the membranes dry out). We have a history of extended droughts, and 30% storage was about 2 years consumption. What's interesting is that many of the water restrictions they bought in have been adopted as habits even though the restrictions have been lifted, so our consumption has stayed below the previous levels. We even had a campaign telling folks that it was OK to have a dirty car - something I've known for ever.

A couple of quotes from the public debate at the time:

Aluminium = solid electricity
Desal water = bottled electricity
 
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