What exactly is the "cost" to the environment?
This would make more sense than a boondoggle project like a high speed train with 30 stops (exaggerated) that the whole country has to pay for (mostly federal funding).
“Newsom supports building the desalination plant, arguing that having more water options is something that the state needs.”
When Newsom starts making sense...it must be because he was bribed!
It would make a lot of sense to build desalination plants and diversify the water supply of a drought stricken region that has enough natural water to support maybe 10,000 people and has a population of about 25 million or more.
but don’t expect the envirosocialist watermelons to allow it. This is California after all.
Thank God we have 3 wells that are tapped into a dependable aquifer. But we’re being threatened by a corporate water company that wants to buy us out. As long as I’m the president it ain’t gonna happen. Whiskey is for drinkin and water is for fighting over.
Nah. That would mess with the salinity of the oceans, so NO. :>}
And CA has more than enough surplus energy to do the process. /s
You want massive amounts of desalinated water from the ocean? Set up a heat exchange system powered by nuclear energy, essentially a huge distillation tower, to first boil the sea water, then collecting the condensate and piping it out as “fresh” water. Of course, this means a huge pile of the solids in the sea water, the sea salt, builds up around the distillation tower, which could be used as an enormous resource of all the minerals dissolved in sea water, in the resulting brine or dried residue. Most of the content would be sodium chloride, of course, but there is just about every other water-soluble substance as well, including potassium chloride, an excellent fertilizer, considerable amounts of phosphorus, and all the other lesser minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc, and all the trace minerals that have been incorporated into living tissue. There is even some amount of gold and other precious metals present in the form of ions, which would make the sea salt one of the more valuable ores to extract all these metallic elements.
Never going to happen, the Nazi’s on the Coastal Commission will NEVER let this plan go through
Long past needed. Also, Nevada should get in on the action as well by supplying Los Vegas with desalinated water. LV to the nearest cost is less than 300 miles.
***Critics argue that the costs to rate payers — and the environment — are too high. ***
About twenty years go there was a proposal to build a natural gas power plant in a local city in the LA, CA area. it was turned down for the same reason stated above.
The people cut their own economic throats not realizing how much revenue and taxes such a plant brings in and out for a city.
“The cost is too high” as opposed to the high speed rail. Yea, sure.
No way this will happen. This is because it hasn’t happened before, because of the Californian aversion to such improvements.
They will pay a fortune for desalinization plants in Mexico, which then pipes fresh water north. And they would also pay if Oregon or Washington state did it.
This year the Sierra Nevada mountain range got a near record amount of snow, and the Californians did nothing to preserve or use it, letting it flow into the ocean. If their reservoirs are full, they open them up until they are low.
They are insane people.
What is he going to do, power it with pinwheels and unicorn farts?
Finally, some news from California that actually makes sense. They should build them up and down our coastlines with pipelines inland to get water to known drought areas. Put solar collecting material on the pipeline and build pumping stations using that electricity to run the pipelines.
And if do this on a global scale, new economies can be created. Clean water will prevent disease, help with crop growth as well as forestation opportunities to scrub CO2, improve sanitation and hygiene. And the best of it all is it will cost less than just throwing money at dictators who pad their Swiss bank accounts. It will drive people to freedom to create new businesses and other opportunities.
But, it will never happen because the Global Agenda of the left will never allow it to happen. So I say, pick an area of the world, (Sinai for example) as a Proof of Concept. Green the entire place. Companies from around the world can participate using their technologies. Build housing, roads and infrastructure using only alternative energy. The place is sunny enough for solar to be captured and transformed to electricity.
As the project progresses, start efforts for immigration. Move the UN there. Israel, Egypt, Jordan and other middle eastern countries can come together to make this the new Palestinian homeland. No politics. Just progress. The new country would not have a military.
Once all of this is completed and Palestinians move out of Gaza to their new homeland, nuke the place from orbit, just to be sure.
Just remember that all the water ever on earth is still here.
(except the water astronauts take into space).
We “USE” water, and then return it to the earth.
An easy way to look at it is beer. Beer is up to 95% water. You consume it. THEN what happens to all that water? It ends up in the urinal at “Joe’s Bar and Grill”.
Then on to the septic tank/leach field or sewage treatment plant, processed, then right back into the environment available to make MORE BEER or whatever else you want to “use” it for.
“According to the International Desalination Association, in June 2015, 18,426 desalination plants operated worldwide, producing 86.8 million cubic meters per day, providing water for 300 million people. This number increased from 78.4 million cubic meters in 2013, a 10.71% increase in 2 years.”