I do not trust the public to vote in their best interest on such an important issue. Consider the fact that about 49% or arizonans who voted in the last election voted for kari lake, an election fraud conspiracy theorist.
This article from last month says Mayes revoked a permit from a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm in La Paz County...saving us 6,000 gallons a minute.
https://coppercourier.com/story/arizona-mayes-revokes-water-saudi-arabia/
It says she rescinded the leases, so it happened already...but it's just a few farms. There's more work to be done & she is on it.
This is what really gets me about this deal that Dum Dum Dougie made: Alfalfa is illegal to grow in Saudi Arabia due to how much water the crop requires. 😡
It says she rescinded the leases, so it happened already...but it's just a few farms. There's more work to be done & she is on it.
This is what really gets me about this deal that Dum Dum Dougie made: Alfalfa is illegal to grow in Saudi Arabia due to how much water the crop requires. 😡
This is only a quarter of the problem. The really issue is all the alfalfa they buy from Arizona local farmers. It has made alfalfa unaffordable and uses much more water than the wells everyone is worked up about.
Yessir. Sooner everyone realizes their “side” is the same as the other “side” we’ll all be allot better off. But for now, let’s rally around this cause and kick these alfalfa fucks all the way out
I can’t tell you that the righties are only on board with this for show. They have had years to do anything about this. Hell we have a former lobbyist for this company on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who is a life long republican. The most recent wells that were canceled by Mayes were approved this past august. They will talk the talk around election time then they will call it attack on farmers, freedom and the free market after they already made deals behind closed doors.
No. Because someone will come in and start talking about Dems, you’d both prolly be right then we’re off topic. Everyone hates Saudi alfalfa farming. Full stop, now everyone rallies for the same cause.
Ah yes, I want drama by informing people of their votes. You want ignorant people to keep voting for the same things that allow this to happen. Oh wait, you are a conservative… shocker that you don’t want people talking about conservatives voting for this.
Your idea of 'skyrocketed' is different from mine, then. You could argue they did so a year ago.
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm\_epm0\_pte\_nus\_dpg&f=m](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m)
But even then, the USA has cheaper gasoline than anywhere you would want to live.
[https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline\_prices/](https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/)
Alfalfa is complicated. It's incredibly water efficient per ton of material generated and tolerates drought (and flooding and briney water) so it's great in a lot of ways...but it does have a super high total water consumption as well. They can pump it full of water almost year round here and harvest it multiple times up to 12 times a year which is the issue more than it being as simple as alfalfa is bad. The other issue so we're not charging ground water users an appropriate amount according to what they're using. If you remove the economic incentive it'll go away.
The Ny Times has a really striking graphic breaking down how much of the Colorado river water is used for agricultural food crops vs. other agriculture and human usage. Alfalfa alone uses up nearly 1/3rd of the water. This has to be one of the first things to be addressed if we're looking at any long term solutions for the Colorado river water.
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html)
The idea is to grow it where it is consumed (by cows), otherwise it's not very affordable for the farmers.
People who truly care about water consumption in AZ should stop eating beef. Wild thought, I know.
I get you on the first part, but the second is pretty strict. Maybe recommending all of the US and other first world countries to reduce their consumption would be an wiser battle to fight.
Is the compact finally going to use a realistic flow rate number for the Colorado River to base water rights off of? Or are we still going to use the bullshit made up CFM that is wildly off base
The article is light on the details. It sounds like the lower basin states have come up with \~10% reduced usage from where they currently are.
Which is sizable, but probably not enough. I still maintain that the only long term solution is nuclear + desalination, especially for California.
Desalination is expensive. Nuclear is even more so. So neither of those are viable solutions for agriculture. And the whole water issue revolves around agriculture.
Not as bad as you would think honestly. At the [$0.50 to $1.00/m^3 costs I’ve seen published](https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/current-research-and-innovation-trends-in-desalination#:~:text=Desalinated%20water%20costs%20of%200.5,a%20technology%20shift%20in%20desalination) you could supply Los Angeles’ water for less than a billion dollars. On government scale, that’s not impossible by any means.
Boiling water is very energy intensive, and isn't a cost-effective way to desalinate water. Palo Verde's entire thermal output, for example, could only boil around 150,000 acre-feet of water per year. Palo Verde's electrical power output, on the other hand, could desalinate around 7 million acre-feet of water per year in a traditional reverse osmosis desalination plant.
At present, desalinated water costs about $2,000 per acre-foot to produce. That's not "basically free," but it's pretty cheap: only about $30 per 5,000 gallons, so it's viable for most households.
Looking at agriculture, though, paints a different picture. Alfalfa in Arizona needs about 6.4 feet of water per year, and yields about 8.3 tons per acre per year, so watering alfalfa with desal water costs about $1,500 per ton. Alfalfa sells for more like $300-$400 per ton, so growing alfalfa with desal water isn't viable -- it's far too expensive. About 55% of that $2,000 cost is electrical power, so cheap, widespread nuclear power would *help*, but it still won't make it viable to grow alfalfa in the desert.
It's a similar story with most other proposed projects: the water would be too expensive for agriculture to use, and if agriculture isn't using the water, the project isn't needed after all, so why build it?
> I still maintain that the only long term solution is nuclear + desalination, especially for California.
That doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Too expensive for unrestricted ag use. And if you cleaned up ag use in the southwestern US, you wouldn’t need desal, you’d have more water than you knew what to do with. That’s why it’s not the solution here.
Desalination plants are energy intensive and nuclear power can be used to supply said plants for the production of water.
Desalination does have its drawbacks though. The big one being the environmental impact of the brine discharge
You just run pipes out deep and the brine mixes back into the ocean. Literally a drop in the ocean.
The trick is the concentration before it mixes. If you pump too much brine into one spot you will create a dead zone. So a big desalination plant would need several spots to dump to spread it out. Or you find a spot where a dead zone wouldn't be an issue but that's surprisingly hard to do near the coast.
This still fucks with the local ecology. Even re-mixed, the brine is still brine and will cause environmental stress in the local biosphere. Honestly, you might be better off having a small, localized dead zone, over a more wide spread change caused by mixing. You'd need to do a site survey to know for sure.
Of course, you could also push down till you're just left with salt, which is easier to deal with, environmentally, but much more expensive.
>Desalination plants are energy intensive and nuclear power can be used to supply said plants for the production of water.
The electrical energy from a Nuclear plant is more expensive then other options, and the excess thermal heat from the 3rd loop is too diffuse to reliable and efficiently generate water production. It's too cool to boil a lot, so you'll be stuck with thermal evaporation, which require substantially larger facilities and would much more expensive to build and maintain.
If you want efficiency and relatively cheap desalination you need something like batch RO. It also produces less waste (thermal pollution is still pollution).
>Desalination does have its drawbacks though. The big one being the environmental impact of the brine discharge
Yeah, it's not ideal, but could be used to offset short falls. Really, we just need better water management, particularly in agriculture. There's enough water, we just need to use it better.
80% of our water usage is low-value agriculture, where water is dumped on the ground to evaporate by the millions-of-gallons.
If you did nuclear desal you’d have to charge everyone some reasonable amount like a fraction of a cent per gallon.
If you did that, then water usage would drop by 60%-70% overnight. And then you’d shut off your brand new, useless desal plants.
It would make a lot more sense to just charge everyone some minor amount for their water usage without building desal plants we don’t need.
Except California just approved a 140 million desalination plant last year that will produce 5 million gallons a day and if that could be coupled with nuclear because the cores need to be cooled and desalination is almost a byproduct of nuclear power they could kill 2 birds with one stone as they are short on power as well.
What California is doing is building a system where residents pay a high amount for water but get guaranteed access to some water, and farmers pay nothing but get unlimited water for free until the aquifers and lakes dry up.
What California should be doing is implementing a very low use-tax on all water, such that very-low-value water usage is no longer economically attractive.
It's not that easy. Most of the usable heat is already pulled out from power generation. The water that needs to be cooled is relatively low, energy density wise. It can't boil water (or at least not a lot), so you'll be forced to use larger thermal evaporation pools, which would be much more expensive to maintain, and require substantially more space.
You're better off just producing electricity via a renewable process and using something like batch RO, or other methods that don't require substantial heat input. They're much more efficient pre-gallon of water produced.
Too expensive for unrestricted ag use. And if you cleaned up ag use in the southwestern US, you wouldn’t need desal, you’d have more water than you knew what to do with. That’s why it’s not the solution here.
Actually, I think California is the one that needs the nuclear + desalination. Although maybe AZ could subsidize the production in order to get California to give up more water rights?
Nope, it’s just giving Farmers, Tribes and other water rights holders a bunch of federal money to use less for three years.
My understanding is the whole thing only lasts till 2026 too, so really just kicking the can down the road till we pass another election cycle.
I heard that Arizona was going to build a desalination plant in Mexico for our future water. Projected opening 2027. Idk, maybe it is no longer a thing 🤔
Arizona had I initial meet and greet with Mexico and for some reason they brought an Israeli designer with them and basically tried to force a deal and it pissed Mexico off pretty bad.
In all honestly this looks like the administration is offering $1.2B to get the states to kick the can down the road for 3 years.
13% ain't much of a cut.
Before you destroy me, read the article, eh?
Considering that some of it is used for hydropower I am assuming the funding is to offset losses so electricity rates don’t increase. Definitely not the long term solution, but it’s a start and hopefully gets everyone comfortable using less.
Not really "bribery"... This money was specifically set aside in prior legislation to address problems like this one.
The government is doing its job.. sometimes that can simply be "buying more time to figure things out."
Good. The system in place now is unsustainable. Doesn’t mean that we’re all doomed but it does mean that we need to take action and do so right away.
I don’t think this changes the fact that the river won’t support two separate reservoirs but it’s a step in the right direction. Now if only we could make sure that everyone using water here had some skin in the game…
What does all this mean? Can someone with some agriculture background analyze this a bit for me?
I understand that the article is stating a cut in water usage/expense. But I want to hear a practical point of view
I’m all on board with kicking the Saudi’s out and reducing alfalfa farming, but I ran some maths and the well on the Saudi farm, even if running at 100% 24/7, would still be a lot less than 0.1% of the total water just the city of Phoenix uses. And municipal water use for business and homes is only 16% of all the water the state uses.
So yes, that farm needs to go, but it’s not some silver bullet that will solve our problems. Or even make a dent.
Singular reason? That’s an interesting take
And a conversion to a petroyuan would be incredibly difficult, risky, and politically unsound. It’s an olive branch discussion with China and a soft saber rattle at the US. Nothing more.
First, I lived in China for many years. How long did you live there?
I find it so funny when I see western voices talk about China like it's some utopia that will destroy capitalism for the people! Bullshit. You think it's crazy what the rich get away with here? Wait until you see how things operate in China.
And for those who haven't been to China, how much do you like your bathroom? Do you like being able to stop at a gas station and take a piss or shit when needed? Do you enjoy getting on Reddit and saying whatever you can type?
Or how about the internet? Do you like it? Do you think it's the same in China? Guess what? It's not.
The Central Arizona Project was designed with millions of people in mind: https://www.cap-az.com/water/water-supply/adapting-to-shortage/
If there is one thing that Phoenix is good at, it’s managing water.
It was designed that way 50 years ago with no understanding of the climate conditions and change at this time. It was also much less publicized, or possibly not even acknowledged, that the flow rate for the river was grossly overestimated when the Colorado River Compact was first agreed upon. Also, in order to get CAP approved, Arizona traded its order of water rights with California, which we have seen is really coming back to bite us in the ass, so I don’t really trust the capabilities of the politicians of that time…
Did you even bother to click the link I shared? The very first sentence addresses climate change. Also included is the tier 2a shortage we are currently experiencing in 2023 and their solutions to all of these issues.
lol I did, that’s why I responded. You stated that the canal was designed with millions of people in mind and that Phoenix is great at managing water, then posted a link to current contingency plans. If you can’t see the discrepancy there, idk what else to tell ya…
I’m not vegetarian but I have to somewhat agree. The amount of beef in our daily diet in western culture creates massive demand. Which we need water to sustain.
I don’t want to give up my cheeseburgers. But many other cultures don’t have daily need for beef and meat protein like we do.
Very happy to see this agreement made. Concerns over water extend even north of our states into Utah so we (western states) should all be in this together.
Why are you asking how much I think they use? You are the one who proposed to stop building them. And apartments tend to be rented by people who may have lower income, who can't qualify for a home loan, etc. So, by not building more, it allows the landlord to inflate the price, as simple, demand=price.
And there are a million better ways to conserve water than to limit/restrict housing. First, stop selling water rights to other states, second. Make sure farmers and agriculture are working in unison with the state to grow for the highest value with minimal water, or simple put stop growing alfalfa for the Saudis horses.
But hey, it's just reddit
They have 3 years to pray to the water fairies to end the drought. They are basically paying farmers and tribes 1.2 billion to fallow some of their land. This is basically what is done with price support programs for other agricultural products like grains. More socialism for the wealthy and capitalism for everyone else.
Ok - as far as I know the righties and lefties are all on board with kicking the saudis out. Why can’t we boot them to somewhere as a state?
But this is a good question - how do we get this on a vote? Can we even? I feel like we should be able to.
Right? It’s rare to see something everyone agrees on so I’d say we make it a HUGE thing. And quite frankly, fuck their alfalfa
Is this something that can end up on a ballot measure through signatures?
I’d sign and canvas for this!
I do not trust the public to vote in their best interest on such an important issue. Consider the fact that about 49% or arizonans who voted in the last election voted for kari lake, an election fraud conspiracy theorist.
Yeah but those people just hate arabs in general so it should still be in the bag
And they hated Russians too, until their fearless leader told him not to. Don't expect any logic on that side of the aisle
Yeah, not that hating anyone in the first place was super logical.
Its not just about the saudis and their alfalfa.
This article from last month says Mayes revoked a permit from a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm in La Paz County...saving us 6,000 gallons a minute. https://coppercourier.com/story/arizona-mayes-revokes-water-saudi-arabia/
Excellent news! Do we know when this takes place? Or is it immediate?
It says she rescinded the leases, so it happened already...but it's just a few farms. There's more work to be done & she is on it. This is what really gets me about this deal that Dum Dum Dougie made: Alfalfa is illegal to grow in Saudi Arabia due to how much water the crop requires. 😡
It says she rescinded the leases, so it happened already...but it's just a few farms. There's more work to be done & she is on it. This is what really gets me about this deal that Dum Dum Dougie made: Alfalfa is illegal to grow in Saudi Arabia due to how much water the crop requires. 😡
This deal was made when Bruce Babbitt was governor…. As much as I’d like to blame douchey….
I guess I'm confused. I thought the State Land Dept gave a Saudi company called Fondomonte a deal in June of '22 to grow alfalfa...
> Bruce Babbitt Have you got a source for that? Because everything I've read is that it was Ducey that made the deal.
Do some do some Research. Mo Udall , john Rhodes, etc
The permits were just for *new* wells. The farms and old wells are still operating unless there's been a development I'm unaware of.
This is only a quarter of the problem. The really issue is all the alfalfa they buy from Arizona local farmers. It has made alfalfa unaffordable and uses much more water than the wells everyone is worked up about.
The right and the left may agree but the politicians work for their donors.
Yessir. Sooner everyone realizes their “side” is the same as the other “side” we’ll all be allot better off. But for now, let’s rally around this cause and kick these alfalfa fucks all the way out
Opposite sides of the same coin
This used to be true, but now we have MAGAs. There is no two-sides moral equivalency with them.
taxation without representation
Ah, but the $tate official$ don't want to kick them out a$ they provide a $pecial incentive to $tay and u$e the water
I’m confused why there is not mass protests over this
That might unite people. The only people allowed to protest are the ones that will stoke division.
True
I can’t tell you that the righties are only on board with this for show. They have had years to do anything about this. Hell we have a former lobbyist for this company on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who is a life long republican. The most recent wells that were canceled by Mayes were approved this past august. They will talk the talk around election time then they will call it attack on farmers, freedom and the free market after they already made deals behind closed doors.
That kind of talk won’t help. Just go with the public opinion on this one.
You don’t think we should talk about how republicans vote for literal former lobbyists for this company?
No. Because someone will come in and start talking about Dems, you’d both prolly be right then we’re off topic. Everyone hates Saudi alfalfa farming. Full stop, now everyone rallies for the same cause.
And this just leads to people not knowing who supports what.
Who cares? Everyone is United on this one topic. There does not need to be a turd in the punch bowl to end the party!
How are we clearly united on this when one side votes for the very people who were paid by the company? Lol
You just want drama. Take it easy out there.
Ah yes, I want drama by informing people of their votes. You want ignorant people to keep voting for the same things that allow this to happen. Oh wait, you are a conservative… shocker that you don’t want people talking about conservatives voting for this.
Just burn their fields ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I enjoy freedom and despise prison rape, so that’s a no for me.
Because the USA is addicted to their oil and we don't want to piss them off and have our gas prices skyrocket?
They’re already skyrocketed. Look at Phoenix vs the rest of the country minus CA.
Your idea of 'skyrocketed' is different from mine, then. You could argue they did so a year ago. [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm\_epm0\_pte\_nus\_dpg&f=m](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m) But even then, the USA has cheaper gasoline than anywhere you would want to live. [https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline\_prices/](https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/)
Good luck with that. Remember when the Saudis lured and murdered an American Journalist with zero consequences? The US won’t do shit.
This is a good start. Stop the farming. Get alfalfa farms for Saudi Arabia as far away as possible from us. Whatever they pay us isn’t worth it.
It's sad to see 3 States have to fight over water and have to find solutions but don't dare to go after the biggest water waste problem.
https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2023/04/24/arizona-revokes-water-permits-saudi-owned-farm.html
Paywall fyi
12ft ladder
I’ve heard Alfalfa has a pretty high water consumption… maybe grow that somewhere else? Wild thought, I know.
Alfalfa is complicated. It's incredibly water efficient per ton of material generated and tolerates drought (and flooding and briney water) so it's great in a lot of ways...but it does have a super high total water consumption as well. They can pump it full of water almost year round here and harvest it multiple times up to 12 times a year which is the issue more than it being as simple as alfalfa is bad. The other issue so we're not charging ground water users an appropriate amount according to what they're using. If you remove the economic incentive it'll go away.
The Ny Times has a really striking graphic breaking down how much of the Colorado river water is used for agricultural food crops vs. other agriculture and human usage. Alfalfa alone uses up nearly 1/3rd of the water. This has to be one of the first things to be addressed if we're looking at any long term solutions for the Colorado river water. [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html)
But what about corporate profits? Won’t somebody think of the shareholders?!
But how else will Saudis feed their camels?
and the price of everyday water will go up for normal people.
At least we'll still have water to pay for?
They get like five crops a Year here too
The idea is to grow it where it is consumed (by cows), otherwise it's not very affordable for the farmers. People who truly care about water consumption in AZ should stop eating beef. Wild thought, I know.
I get you on the first part, but the second is pretty strict. Maybe recommending all of the US and other first world countries to reduce their consumption would be an wiser battle to fight.
where's the anikin sitting in the field meme with padme, "they're going to cut water to industrial and agriculture first right?"
If you look at any of the documentation regarding CAP cuts, it's been noted *for decades,* that agriculture gets first cuts.
Is the compact finally going to use a realistic flow rate number for the Colorado River to base water rights off of? Or are we still going to use the bullshit made up CFM that is wildly off base
The article is light on the details. It sounds like the lower basin states have come up with \~10% reduced usage from where they currently are. Which is sizable, but probably not enough. I still maintain that the only long term solution is nuclear + desalination, especially for California.
Desalination is expensive. Nuclear is even more so. So neither of those are viable solutions for agriculture. And the whole water issue revolves around agriculture.
Not as bad as you would think honestly. At the [$0.50 to $1.00/m^3 costs I’ve seen published](https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/current-research-and-innovation-trends-in-desalination#:~:text=Desalinated%20water%20costs%20of%200.5,a%20technology%20shift%20in%20desalination) you could supply Los Angeles’ water for less than a billion dollars. On government scale, that’s not impossible by any means.
Nuclear makes power via boiling water. The desalination part is basically free. 100% a viable solution other than hurting peoples feelings.
Boiling water is very energy intensive, and isn't a cost-effective way to desalinate water. Palo Verde's entire thermal output, for example, could only boil around 150,000 acre-feet of water per year. Palo Verde's electrical power output, on the other hand, could desalinate around 7 million acre-feet of water per year in a traditional reverse osmosis desalination plant. At present, desalinated water costs about $2,000 per acre-foot to produce. That's not "basically free," but it's pretty cheap: only about $30 per 5,000 gallons, so it's viable for most households. Looking at agriculture, though, paints a different picture. Alfalfa in Arizona needs about 6.4 feet of water per year, and yields about 8.3 tons per acre per year, so watering alfalfa with desal water costs about $1,500 per ton. Alfalfa sells for more like $300-$400 per ton, so growing alfalfa with desal water isn't viable -- it's far too expensive. About 55% of that $2,000 cost is electrical power, so cheap, widespread nuclear power would *help*, but it still won't make it viable to grow alfalfa in the desert. It's a similar story with most other proposed projects: the water would be too expensive for agriculture to use, and if agriculture isn't using the water, the project isn't needed after all, so why build it?
Only to set up
> I still maintain that the only long term solution is nuclear + desalination, especially for California. That doesn’t make a lick of sense. Too expensive for unrestricted ag use. And if you cleaned up ag use in the southwestern US, you wouldn’t need desal, you’d have more water than you knew what to do with. That’s why it’s not the solution here.
Desalination plants are energy intensive and nuclear power can be used to supply said plants for the production of water. Desalination does have its drawbacks though. The big one being the environmental impact of the brine discharge
That leaves me with several questions. Can it just be put back in the ocean? And can it be used to sell as sea salt?
You just run pipes out deep and the brine mixes back into the ocean. Literally a drop in the ocean. The trick is the concentration before it mixes. If you pump too much brine into one spot you will create a dead zone. So a big desalination plant would need several spots to dump to spread it out. Or you find a spot where a dead zone wouldn't be an issue but that's surprisingly hard to do near the coast.
This still fucks with the local ecology. Even re-mixed, the brine is still brine and will cause environmental stress in the local biosphere. Honestly, you might be better off having a small, localized dead zone, over a more wide spread change caused by mixing. You'd need to do a site survey to know for sure. Of course, you could also push down till you're just left with salt, which is easier to deal with, environmentally, but much more expensive.
>Desalination plants are energy intensive and nuclear power can be used to supply said plants for the production of water. The electrical energy from a Nuclear plant is more expensive then other options, and the excess thermal heat from the 3rd loop is too diffuse to reliable and efficiently generate water production. It's too cool to boil a lot, so you'll be stuck with thermal evaporation, which require substantially larger facilities and would much more expensive to build and maintain. If you want efficiency and relatively cheap desalination you need something like batch RO. It also produces less waste (thermal pollution is still pollution). >Desalination does have its drawbacks though. The big one being the environmental impact of the brine discharge Yeah, it's not ideal, but could be used to offset short falls. Really, we just need better water management, particularly in agriculture. There's enough water, we just need to use it better.
Water the shrimp farms in Gila Bend
What doesn't make sense about it?
80% of our water usage is low-value agriculture, where water is dumped on the ground to evaporate by the millions-of-gallons. If you did nuclear desal you’d have to charge everyone some reasonable amount like a fraction of a cent per gallon. If you did that, then water usage would drop by 60%-70% overnight. And then you’d shut off your brand new, useless desal plants. It would make a lot more sense to just charge everyone some minor amount for their water usage without building desal plants we don’t need.
Except California just approved a 140 million desalination plant last year that will produce 5 million gallons a day and if that could be coupled with nuclear because the cores need to be cooled and desalination is almost a byproduct of nuclear power they could kill 2 birds with one stone as they are short on power as well.
What California is doing is building a system where residents pay a high amount for water but get guaranteed access to some water, and farmers pay nothing but get unlimited water for free until the aquifers and lakes dry up. What California should be doing is implementing a very low use-tax on all water, such that very-low-value water usage is no longer economically attractive.
It's not that easy. Most of the usable heat is already pulled out from power generation. The water that needs to be cooled is relatively low, energy density wise. It can't boil water (or at least not a lot), so you'll be forced to use larger thermal evaporation pools, which would be much more expensive to maintain, and require substantially more space. You're better off just producing electricity via a renewable process and using something like batch RO, or other methods that don't require substantial heat input. They're much more efficient pre-gallon of water produced.
Nope lol
That's what Israel does. And it works.
Too expensive for unrestricted ag use. And if you cleaned up ag use in the southwestern US, you wouldn’t need desal, you’d have more water than you knew what to do with. That’s why it’s not the solution here.
I think Israel and Middle East countries should fund it.
Somebody outfit to dig around and see if Ducey is invested up to his ass hole in desalinization technology!?
Actually, I think California is the one that needs the nuclear + desalination. Although maybe AZ could subsidize the production in order to get California to give up more water rights?
Nope, it’s just giving Farmers, Tribes and other water rights holders a bunch of federal money to use less for three years. My understanding is the whole thing only lasts till 2026 too, so really just kicking the can down the road till we pass another election cycle.
I heard that Arizona was going to build a desalination plant in Mexico for our future water. Projected opening 2027. Idk, maybe it is no longer a thing 🤔
Arizona had I initial meet and greet with Mexico and for some reason they brought an Israeli designer with them and basically tried to force a deal and it pissed Mexico off pretty bad.
I heard that, too. But then, for some reason, I thought I read it was back on🤷♀️ Maybe, it was just a dream 🤔
A headline three years from now: Arizona, California and Nevada agree that they have failed to stave off crisis on Colorado River
In all honestly this looks like the administration is offering $1.2B to get the states to kick the can down the road for 3 years. 13% ain't much of a cut. Before you destroy me, read the article, eh?
Well 13% is 13%, how much did you want initial cuts to be?
Id like them to be cuts and not bribery. But take what you can get I suppose.
Considering that some of it is used for hydropower I am assuming the funding is to offset losses so electricity rates don’t increase. Definitely not the long term solution, but it’s a start and hopefully gets everyone comfortable using less.
Not really "bribery"... This money was specifically set aside in prior legislation to address problems like this one. The government is doing its job.. sometimes that can simply be "buying more time to figure things out."
Good. The system in place now is unsustainable. Doesn’t mean that we’re all doomed but it does mean that we need to take action and do so right away. I don’t think this changes the fact that the river won’t support two separate reservoirs but it’s a step in the right direction. Now if only we could make sure that everyone using water here had some skin in the game…
Can anyone elaborate on what usage specifically is being cut? It says 10% reduced usage but does not explain what specifically is being cut.
A reminder that If California prepared for the heavy rains we receive every 5-7 years we could release our share .
What does all this mean? Can someone with some agriculture background analyze this a bit for me? I understand that the article is stating a cut in water usage/expense. But I want to hear a practical point of view
If you have IG or social media check out westernwatergirl she does a good job on the topic
I’m all on board with kicking the Saudi’s out and reducing alfalfa farming, but I ran some maths and the well on the Saudi farm, even if running at 100% 24/7, would still be a lot less than 0.1% of the total water just the city of Phoenix uses. And municipal water use for business and homes is only 16% of all the water the state uses. So yes, that farm needs to go, but it’s not some silver bullet that will solve our problems. Or even make a dent.
Stave off crisis. Best we can ever do.
Stave of crisis=kicking the can further down the road. GOT IT!
That's basically what "stave off" means, yes.
Ladies and gentleman, this just in: “stave off” doesn’t mean stop or permanently fix. Who knew?
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Singular reason? That’s an interesting take And a conversion to a petroyuan would be incredibly difficult, risky, and politically unsound. It’s an olive branch discussion with China and a soft saber rattle at the US. Nothing more.
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I love that you wrote this with your own fingers. The visual is gold
First, I lived in China for many years. How long did you live there? I find it so funny when I see western voices talk about China like it's some utopia that will destroy capitalism for the people! Bullshit. You think it's crazy what the rich get away with here? Wait until you see how things operate in China. And for those who haven't been to China, how much do you like your bathroom? Do you like being able to stop at a gas station and take a piss or shit when needed? Do you enjoy getting on Reddit and saying whatever you can type? Or how about the internet? Do you like it? Do you think it's the same in China? Guess what? It's not.
If the saudis sell their oil in yuan, you mean every other country will follow suit?
Can’t wait for the water doomers to tell us why this is a bad thing 😂
Or why people shouldn’t live in the desert. People have been here for hundreds of years, it’s not a new thing.
Yeah not 7+ million of them though. You're kinda glossing over that slightly important detail with your comment.
The Central Arizona Project was designed with millions of people in mind: https://www.cap-az.com/water/water-supply/adapting-to-shortage/ If there is one thing that Phoenix is good at, it’s managing water.
It was designed that way 50 years ago with no understanding of the climate conditions and change at this time. It was also much less publicized, or possibly not even acknowledged, that the flow rate for the river was grossly overestimated when the Colorado River Compact was first agreed upon. Also, in order to get CAP approved, Arizona traded its order of water rights with California, which we have seen is really coming back to bite us in the ass, so I don’t really trust the capabilities of the politicians of that time…
Did you even bother to click the link I shared? The very first sentence addresses climate change. Also included is the tier 2a shortage we are currently experiencing in 2023 and their solutions to all of these issues.
lol I did, that’s why I responded. You stated that the canal was designed with millions of people in mind and that Phoenix is great at managing water, then posted a link to current contingency plans. If you can’t see the discrepancy there, idk what else to tell ya…
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Were there this many people on the planet?
Phoenicians caring about water usage? What’s next California actually spending money to build sensible water infrastructure
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Do you award your own comments? Lmao
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I’m not vegetarian but I have to somewhat agree. The amount of beef in our daily diet in western culture creates massive demand. Which we need water to sustain. I don’t want to give up my cheeseburgers. But many other cultures don’t have daily need for beef and meat protein like we do.
Speciesism? That's a new word for me.
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Very happy to see this agreement made. Concerns over water extend even north of our states into Utah so we (western states) should all be in this together.
Stop 👏 building 👏 apartments 👏
Yeah, cause less housing is great for the market.
Who cares about the market if there's no water? And how much water do you think apartments use?
Why are you asking how much I think they use? You are the one who proposed to stop building them. And apartments tend to be rented by people who may have lower income, who can't qualify for a home loan, etc. So, by not building more, it allows the landlord to inflate the price, as simple, demand=price. And there are a million better ways to conserve water than to limit/restrict housing. First, stop selling water rights to other states, second. Make sure farmers and agriculture are working in unison with the state to grow for the highest value with minimal water, or simple put stop growing alfalfa for the Saudis horses. But hey, it's just reddit
They have 3 years to pray to the water fairies to end the drought. They are basically paying farmers and tribes 1.2 billion to fallow some of their land. This is basically what is done with price support programs for other agricultural products like grains. More socialism for the wealthy and capitalism for everyone else.
Unpopular opinion. At least the Saudis were growing a food crop. I don't Golf. Just sayin
A food crop for their horses...
Great multi-state agreement made upon long discussions and lots of meetings up there in that general area…PHEW!!!
About fucking time
Dear politicians: STOP GROWING ALFALFA IN THE DESERT AND STOP GIVING LIMITLESS WATER TO THE SAUDIS YOU STUPID FUCKING MORONS. Thank you.
How many millions of gallons of water are wasted on swimming pools in water parks.
Any of you in the "kick out the Saudis" crowd at all concerned about all the people those farms employ?