[grundle]

Israel has been using large scale desalination for a long time, and has solved its water shortages. California has chosen to avoid doing this, and is now suffering the consequences.

[Gaffer]

How are they going to power these science miracle plants? With wine and cheese farts from San Francisco?

[boycott]

It’s the enviro whackos that are to blame.

[bubbacluck]

So, build nukes and de-saltifiers side by side up and down the California coast. Why is this a problem?

[txrefugee]

Duh...they are concerned about the cost to provide water to drink but are going ahead with spending billions on the Brown’s foolish train project. That is an egregious example of misplaced priorities.

[Pox]

The environmental groups that are doing everything they can to stop Desal plants are the reason California is “avoiding” this solution.

Fortunately, the nutbars have been shut down in my area as I live very close to the new Desal plant being constructed in Carlsbad. It's progressing nicely despite the naysayers.

[Nuc 1.1]

It is way past time for arid ocean front western states to start large scale desalinization to augment water resources. There simply isn’t enough water for the increasing populations in the west.

[mowowie]

But what effects will this have on the Tree Newt, the Desert Tortoise, the Sand Mouse and the Piping Plovers?

I dunno about this.......

[realcleanguy]

I’ve been saying this for 25 years. Environmentalists would rather place demands and restrictions and impose bans than work towards a solution

[factoryrat]

California has two nuclear powerplants on the coast, San Onofre (currently offline), and Diablo Canyon. Use those two plants to provide power and process heat for desalinizing operations.

[InterceptPoint]

Meeting California’s water needs might not help combat the effect of global warming, but an ample supply of water would at least help keep back the dry conditions from around residential communities, and it would help the state’s massive agricultural industry meet its own water needs.
++++
LOL. But what if we are actually in a long term cooling trend? This would help reverse that trend, eliminate the evil Climate Change and bring Nirvana to The People’s Republic of California.

[HangnJudge]

Long thread on similar subject

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3181628/posts

20 Signs The Drought In The Western United States Is Starting To Become Apocalyptic

[Bubba_Leroy]

The absolute last things that the enviro whackos in California want are cheap energy or available water. They want to drive the remaining middle class out of California so that the rich liberals and their illegal alien servants will have it to themselves.

I am being totally serious here.

[allendale]

Environmentalists have stopped almost all long term soltions to drought. The Red River and the Mississippi often floods uncontrollably.It would not be impossible to build large pipelines to run along interstates and pumps to be powered by gas that is now just burned off to bring that water into the Colorado and the arid southwest

[Ken522]

US Naval Station Guantanamo Bay gets all its fresh water from a desalination plant.

[M Kehoe]

If I lived in a desert, I would prefer water over a train, but that's just me.

5.56mm

[Mike Darancette]

Since so much of the population is on the coast desalinization is a natural for California. No reason not to drive the plants with solar or wind power (or both) since 24 hour a day operation is not necessary.

[denydenydeny]

Critics say the process is too costly.

Say the people trying to inflict gigantic new energy costs on taxpayers and consumers.

[pterional]

The bottom line is there is way too many people living in California and in the San Joaquin valley. They are actually moving the poor to Fresno from LA and the Bay area which is another story .
You look over the San Joaquin valley and you see a sprawling population with lush landscaping and you know all good things must come to an end. Living here in Fresno I can see the trees and private landscaping is stressed and dying in the 108 degree sun. Now we can only water twice a week which I expect most yards will die. The water source for Fresno is ground water which is technically a non renewable resource. The water table has gone from 60 feet in the 1930’s to 250 feet, dropping several feet a year and is even much deeper in other parts of the valley.

Yesterday they stopped the flow of canal water out to the farms which seems earlier than previous years. If we get another year like this, Agriculture will be gone in the valley and so will America's most important bread basket.

[kabar]

There are 38 million people in CA compared to 6 million in Israel. And Israel is a much smaller size in area, which makes it easier to move the water around to where it is needed.

Desalinization isn't cheap and it is energy intensive. And you need to build the infrastructure to distribute the water. The taxpayer/consumer will face a larger bite in an already overtaxed state. And I wonder how agriculture will deal with the increased costs of doing business.

[C210N]

California MUST have desalination plants. How else can they avoid being flooded by rising sea levels due to GlowBull warming, if they don’t drain seawater? This is the perfect solution... remove seawater on the Calif. coast, divert that freshwater inland, lowers the seas by the coast offsetting its rise.

Trick question for Lieberals: If the water on the California seacoast is lowered, could the differential in weight of all the seawater elsewhere make CA tip over?