Possible Causes and Solutions to the California Drought

[Unkotare]

Yeah, didn't think so.

Do you 'think' Tokyo is empty yet, genius?

Do you think Tokyo is devoid of elevated radioactivity in the soils and groundwater that is harmful to children, genius?

That wasn't the question, was it genius? Your breathless Chicken Little dumbass thread was about the "evacuation of Tokyo," clown.


Tokyo Radiation Less Than Paris s Three Years After Meltdown - Bloomberg Business

 

[thereisnospoon]

A twistedly-funny thought just occurred to me: Los Angeles is destroying the United States! Why does that come as no shock to me? That's where Hollywood is also..

You won't think it's so funny when the price of food skyrockets this year.

Not likely. This has happened before.
In any event, we get most of our fruit and veggies from outside of the US...For example, Florida has all but stopped supplying oranges to the US.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Desalination plants are used all over the world and in some cases are virtually their only real water source...................It works and can easily pump water to the suburbs for their water.............and lower the needed usage from the mountain runoffs..............

Using Solar power to do so would not be cost effective for the energy needed to do so..............There are limits to it's power per square area, and it would increase the cost............as by putting in these plants you would add to the cost of water for the residents of southern California.

I have no idea why the resistance to desalinization/osmosis.
I do have a theory.....Solutions make it harder to bitch and moan about "problems" and "crises"...

 

[Silhouette]

A twistedly-funny thought just occurred to me: Los Angeles is destroying the United States! Why does that come as no shock to me? That's where Hollywood is also..

You won't think it's so funny when the price of food skyrockets this year.

Not likely. This has happened before.
In any event, we get most of our fruit and veggies from outside of the US...For example, Florida has all but stopped supplying oranges to the US.

If you value produce or nuts, some of the healthiest foods to consume around, or rice, you've relied on the Central or Salinas Valleys in CA. Also if you've had avocados from the US, you've had them from California.

Sure, we could buy food from other countries, but would that be wise to cut away the last ever-reliable source of world power the US has (food supply)? I think not. California keeps our national security humming along. Best to keep a close eye on its water tables..

 

[Silhouette]

Well, the crunch is beginning. I wonder if anyone there has taken a gander at the OP here?

 

[Silhouette]

Now that the place is burning up, prolly should bump this thread.

 

[westwall]

A twistedly-funny thought just occurred to me: Los Angeles is destroying the United States! Why does that come as no shock to me? That's where Hollywood is also..

You won't think it's so funny when the price of food skyrockets this year.

Not likely. This has happened before.
In any event, we get most of our fruit and veggies from outside of the US...For example, Florida has all but stopped supplying oranges to the US.

If you value produce or nuts, some of the healthiest foods to consume around, or rice, you've relied on the Central or Salinas Valleys in CA. Also if you've had avocados from the US, you've had them from California.

Sure, we could buy food from other countries, but would that be wise to cut away the last ever-reliable source of world power the US has (food supply)? I think not. California keeps our national security humming along. Best to keep a close eye on its water tables..

Yes, it makes so much sense to grow rice in a fucking desert. Brilliant! Ignore the fact that selenium is contaminating the land thanks to over farming.

 

[Gracie]

One gallon of water PER walnut. So next time you are munching on one, think about that.

Most of the walnuts you ARE munching on, are from Cali. Strawberries too. And apples. Pears. Many from Tehachapi. I know, cuz I had to load the damn semi tractor trucks with bins and bins and bins and bins of apples and pears during the season via a forklift. MANY trucks.

This is not counting the grapes, pomegranits, avacados.

 

[Silhouette]

Yes, God forbid California should produce the FOOD that Los Angelian city dwellers are bitching about growing because they've been told to not wash their cars this Summer or keep their poisonous ornamental yard plantings soaking their roots in water.

Yes, it makes so much sense to grow rice in a fucking desert. Brilliant! Ignore the fact that selenium is contaminating the land thanks to over farming.

Where they grow rice isn't a desert. It's in the Sacramento inland delta areas. The Sacramento does provide enough water up there for rice but they allow so much of it to flow out to sea when it could be diverted south. Sure, there would be more land available around the Bay Area if the margins started drying up around the Bay as the water was diverted south to the almond orchards, tomatoes, alfalfa, cotton etc. And that would be a big bummer for land developers. And it would really suck for fixing the levees if for a few years the water was diverted south...because you know, those levees will hold out forever being hastily thrown together dirt mounds essentially.

This water crisis is the best thing ever for douchebag California. It finally has to pull its head out of its ass, stop living in denial-fairy-land and confront reality on its own terms. Maybe California just FEELS like a water rich state and it wants to have a "climate change operation" to make itself feel more water rich. But today it's having to look between its legs and face what's really there...and I think that is hilarious and healthy for them all at the same time.

Now if they could pull their head out of their ass on reverse osmosis and use solar thermal boilers to merely evaporate seawater using free solar radiation concentrated, they'd have a cheap source of endless fresh water, produced at like 100 times the rate and 1/100th less expense of the way they'e doing it now...

..poor California...intelligence & rational thinking takes its first baby steps...

 

[Silhouette]

Well maybe I spoke too soon?

 

[Silhouette]

California's First Commercial Solar Desalination Plant to Bring Freshwater to the Central Valley July 15, 2015
.."Using a sustainable source of energy to recycle or desalinate water will become a mainstay in regions with water scarcity," added Mandell....The new plant will be built on 35 acres of land currently farmed with salt-tolerant crops, with the potential of growing to a 70-acre site. This land that will house the solar desalination facility is a small fraction of the total 6,000 acres currently used to manage and reuse irrigation drainage water for the Panoche Water California s First Commercial Solar Desalination Plant to Bring Freshwater to the Central Valley Reuters

Wow those simple sheet metal parabolic mirrors look HORRIBLY complicated to set up shining at that centrally-located tube just feet away from the concave concentrating line along the array! Such TRICKY AND EXPENSIVE technology to shine a magnifying reflector at a pipe and run 300 degree c water to heat exchangers to run a steam turbine too! (I wonder if they can figure out to use the same hot water that way?? Or oil that can be superheated?)

Good for you California! You figured out that sunshine is free and makes things really really hot if you use a magnifying glass. No mining, no fuel, no refining, no pollution, no waste...just free fresh water every single day the sun shines..

Now if we can just convince Greece that their sunshine behaves exactly like California's does..they might pull themselves out of an economic slump!

 

[Gracie]

Um....I think we need a boat here. Thunder and lightening is rare too, and we have been having both since midnight with no let up today at all. LOTS of rain. River running down the street in front of the house. Good thing I'm on a hill.

Hear that giant sucking sound? It's California...gulping as fast as it can.

 

[eagle1462010]

Um....I think we need a boat here. Thunder and lightening is rare too, and we have been having both since midnight with no let up today at all. LOTS of rain. River running down the street in front of the house. Good thing I'm on a hill.

Hear that giant sucking sound? It's California...gulping as fast as it can.

 

[Gracie]

I think we are gonna need a bigger boat.

 

[eagle1462010]

Get in quick.

 

[Dune]

Desalination plants are used all over the world and in some cases are virtually their only real water source...................It works and can easily pump water to the suburbs for their water.............and lower the needed usage from the mountain runoffs..............

Using Solar power to do so would not be cost effective for the energy needed to do so..............There are limits to it's power per square area, and it would increase the cost............as by putting in these plants you would add to the cost of water for the residents of southern California.

Wrong.
How can zero energy cost be too expensive? Solar power strikes the earth at an average of 1 kilowatt per square meter and is likely much more intense in the area in question...since it is a world wide estimate.

 

[Gracie]

Sun is out. Puffy white clouds. HOT and humid now. But the birds have fresh DRY seed in their feeders, the hummers are happy at their feeders too and all the trees got a good soaking. All is well in my world today.

 

[eagle1462010]

Desalination plants are used all over the world and in some cases are virtually their only real water source...................It works and can easily pump water to the suburbs for their water.............and lower the needed usage from the mountain runoffs..............

Using Solar power to do so would not be cost effective for the energy needed to do so..............There are limits to it's power per square area, and it would increase the cost............as by putting in these plants you would add to the cost of water for the residents of southern California.

Wrong.
How can zero energy cost be too expensive? Solar power strikes the earth at an average of 1 kilowatt per square meter and is likely much more intense in the area in question...since it is a world wide estimate.

Kwh's are all that matter and the initial cost by the number of years of service.........versus the electrical rates in that area......In my state it's not cost effective.......over the life span of the grid installed versus the cost of about 10 cents a kilowatt hour.

Sun Hours and efficiency are key to the output..............as is the high cost of storage to go completely off grid.............which means a very large system at a very high cost.

It's NOT ZERO ENERGY COST.............when you have to buy, install, and maintain the equipment.

 

[Silhouette]

Desalination plants are used all over the world and in some cases are virtually their only real water source...................It works and can easily pump water to the suburbs for their water.............and lower the needed usage from the mountain runoffs..............
Using Solar power to do so would not be cost effective for the energy needed to do so..............There are limits to it's power per square area, and it would increase the cost............as by putting in these plants you would add to the cost of water for the residents of southern California.

Wrong.
How can zero energy cost be too expensive? Solar power strikes the earth at an average of 1 kilowatt per square meter and is likely much more intense in the area in question...since it is a world wide estimate.

Yes, how CAN zero energy costs for fuel (solar radiation) be "too expensive"? (I always love watching BigOil schills spin this one..) Anyone can see how powerful concentrated solar radiation is by grabbing a headlight reflector off of a junker car, take out the bulb in the middle, insert a piece of wood or paper there, and point the reflector at the sun. Be careful and wear protective sunglasses and NEVER look anywhere near the middle of the concave reflector while you do this unless you want to go blind. Also have a glass of water to put out the fire that will start in a matter of seconds.

 

[Contumacious]

Below are my pet theories. I've included diagrams to help illustrate them. Note the area of highest drought hovers around exactly the area of suspect in the first diagram at "Region Affected" in the whitish overlay on red..the LA Aquaduct in that diagram is roughly located where the black line is indicating the area.

A solution would be to have the City of Los Angeles begin aggressive desalination using solar thermal means of heating/evaporating/distilling.

The draining of the natural water tables has had an effect on the microclimate of the High Sierra, a place where CA relies most heavily for its Central Valley irrigation during the long hot Summers there. Without that water, California is hosed, pardon the pun. The shrinking/disappearing highcountry glaciers that were lasting all through Summer slowly melting is the big problem. So it is a vicious cycle. LA's urban/residential use (not even for agriculture!) is sucking the more and more arid region East of the Sierras drier and drier via the Aquaduct. That area in turn is sucking more and more (or refusing to evaporate more and more water) from/to High Sierra's microclimate weather system & snowpack.

My theory is that the lack of evaporation and Summer storms from the old Owens Lake region is causing Pacific air flow and weather to more rapidly "skip" over the Sierra range, carrying a heavier payload to the Midwest while starving California's agriculture regions of rain and high snowmelt it used to get. No blockade of upward evaporation effect and the air rushes right on past to the East.

It's important to understand that this isn't just some temporary glitch in our nation's biggest money maker. This is a downward spiral. This glacial shrinking has been virtually uninterrupted since the 1950s...just about the time the LA Aquaduct's thirsty straw pushed that microclimate over a tipping point. "Save Mono Lake"... Everyone who has been to California has at one time or another seen that bumper sticker. Owen's Lake is long gone now. It's just an immense dry valley now where much water once stood. Vital water to snowpack 9-14,000 feet above.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that this issue affects the US's only hold left on world power: Food. A tremendous amount of our nation's food to trade is produced in California. Food for oil, food for favors, food for ...etc. etc. So this isn't just a California emergency and downward spiral. It's a national emergency and downward spiral.

**Please don't talk about how illegal aliens are causing the drought. They may be exacerbating it, but they are not causing it by themselves...ridiculous..!

THE ONLY SOLUTION IS FOR THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO ABANDON FASCISM, CEASE AND DESIST CONTROLLING THE WATER MARKETPLACE AND RESTORE CAPITALISM AND THE FREE MARKET.

ALL OTHER FASCISTIC/SOCIALISTIC SUGGESTIONS ARE DOOMED TO FAIL.

.