The Drought Goes From Bad To Catastrophic

Zero Hedge ^ | 8-2-2014 | Tyler Durden

[blam]

Tyler Durden
08/01/2014

As we previously commented, when scientists start using phrases such as "the worst drought" and "as bad as you can imagine" to describe what is going on in the western half of the country, you know that things are bad. However, in recent weeks the dreadful situation in California has gone from bad to catastrophic as the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that more than half of the state is now in experiencing 'exceptional' drought, the most severe category available. And most of the state – 81% – currently has one of the two most intense levels of drought.

As WaPo reports,

While California’s problems are particularly severe, that state is not alone in experiencing significant drought right now. There are wide swaths of moderate to severe drought stretching from Oregon to Texas, with problems impacting numerous states west of the Mississippi River.

(snip)

[Carry_Okie]

We still have green grass on our property, despite the fact we experienced this same drought with recent temperatures well over 100° and no rain since early April. Our grasses are native. You can see that difference here. Note: the pdf file is 25MB so it takes a while to load.

[vette6387]

“Desal is all about cheap energy.”

Well, here’s the energy picture from one of the most recent Desal Plants down near San Diego. Maybe you have a future working to make their plant better. BTW, not a lot of “clean coal” here in CA, and you’d have to cover a lot of ground with today’s solar technology to get 38MW. According to the article, Desal doubles the cost of a gallon of water today.

“In Carlsbad, two gallons of seawater will be needed to produce each gallon of drinking water. And to remove the salt, the plant will use an enormous amount of energy — about 38 megawatts, enough to power 28,500 homes — to force 100 million gallons of seawater a day through a series of filters. The process, known as reverse osmosis, removes salt and other impurities by blasting the water at six times the pressure of a fire hose through membranes with microscopic holes.”

[BushCountry]

They are doing it all over the world efficiently. One example below. But there are several different hybrid solutions. The cost of filtrating the water will fall drastically if technology is used properly. Most Desal plants have power plants of some sort next to them. But a simple waste to energy plant could provide enough power to run an efficient Desal plant.

Dubai: The UAE would establish world’s largest solar-powered desalination plant that will process more than 22 million gallons of potable water per day.

The new plant at Ras Al Khaimah emirate would also generate 20 MW of electricity. It will implement the most advanced reverse osmosis and filtration technologies and, when operational, will push unit production rates down drastically.

[monkeyshine]

LOL - not today! Probably one of the most humid summer days I’ve ever experienced in So Cal. We had a wee bit of rain last night, probably all the suburban lawns giving off steam.

To the point though - why are we spending $70B for train that there is no demand for instead of $3 billion on a half dozen osmosis desalination plants to secure our state’s agricultural health and of course to provide water to the citizens?

We suffer from the worst leadership - city, state, national - since Nero played the fiddle.

[Jeff Chandler]

$70 billion spent on desalinization plants would provide 3.5 billion gallons of water a day.

[Jeff Chandler]

3.5 billion gallons per day is about 10% of the state’s usage.