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Israel has made the choice to turn its water shortages into surpluses by building lots of desalination plants. Desalination costs less than 40 cents per cubic meter, which is less than 1/6 penny per gallon. It’s so cheap that in addition to using desalinized water for residential uses, Israel also uses it for agriculture.

Meanwhile, California has chosen to have water shortages instead of building enough desalination plants.

Why did California make this choice?

And why does an article about California's water shortage not say anything about desalination?

1 posted on 12/17/2014 2:23:42 PM PST by grundle
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To: grundle
Meanwhile, California has chosen to have water shortages instead of building enough desalination plants.

Why did California make this choice?

So they could build the high speed rail to nowhere?

2 posted on 12/17/2014 2:27:00 PM PST by Irish Eyes
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To: grundle

Thorium powered desalination would solve a couple of issues. Massive pipes to pump the water back up to the farm land mid state and into the Colorado river basin would also end a lot of this.

I’m not a big fan of public works projects but this one I could support as long as the cost was borne by the users of the water.


3 posted on 12/17/2014 2:27:57 PM PST by taxcontrol
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To: grundle

Why did CA make this choice? Because we want to spend BILLIONS on a slow speed rail from one odd part of L.A. County to some place in the middle of the state, that no one wants and no one will use. Eventually, over decades, it will enable someone to leave their home in West LA and arrive in San Francisco in under five hours, with only four stops and using car, bus, and rail, probably only changing trains twice.

Hopefully there will be enough water for the railroad workers to drink while they build this.


4 posted on 12/17/2014 2:29:27 PM PST by Yaelle
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To: grundle

Wow, I had not idea desalination was so cheap!


5 posted on 12/17/2014 2:30:09 PM PST by MNDude
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To: grundle

Pebble Bed reactors every 10 miles along the coast powering desalinization plants.


6 posted on 12/17/2014 2:31:12 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: grundle

Desalination is right. The enviro’s are probably the brainiacs who are keeping it from becoming a reality.


7 posted on 12/17/2014 2:35:37 PM PST by Slyfox (To put on the mind of George Washington read ALL of Deuteronomy 28, then read his Farewell Address)
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To: grundle

Build a pipeline from Canada & the Northern States to California - and when it snows - shovel all that white stuff into the pipe - instead of piling it in the streets.


8 posted on 12/17/2014 2:38:03 PM PST by sodpoodle (Life is prickly - carry tweezers.)
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To: grundle

I have lived in So Cal for 44 years. For at least 30 of those years, there have been discussions of building a peripheral canal around the Sacramento Delta so as to transport water from Northern CA to Southern CA. The politicians in Sacramento did nothing but fight over the proposal.

Here in So Cal, there are numerous places in the mountains where dams could have been built to capture the winter rains. Little has been done.

The history of CA is one of continual rainy and dry years. The average annual rainfall amount means nothing as very few years are close to normal.

There is only one long term solution unless God decides to reconfigure rain patterns. That solution is desalination. However, the Sacramento politicians have done virtually nothing to make desalination a reality, although there is one plant due to come on line in Orange County despite the pols doing nothing.

Yes, desalination is expensive but water is essential. Over time, just like any other process, it will be made more efficient, and water conversion will become less expensive. Instead, Brown and his cronies are spending billions of dollars to build a high speed rail line, the cost of which per passenger mile will be astronomical. Unfortunately, California is a lost case. The state has be overrun with immigrants, most from Mexico and south. They vote Democrat, and now control the vote. At the state level, California is a one party state, and that will never change unless the racial makeup of the state changes.

As for this article, it is BS. All CA needs is a couple of years of above normal rainfall, and all of those reservoirs will be filled up. But the bureaucrats and politicians don’t ever want people to realize that. No, they want to use fear and intimidation to maintain an atmosphere of fear, one in which they can limit our water usage, thereby controlling one more aspect of our lives.


9 posted on 12/17/2014 2:40:12 PM PST by CdMGuy
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To: grundle

Californians need to recognize the fact that they live in a fairly arid place.


11 posted on 12/17/2014 2:44:54 PM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: grundle

“Meanwhile, California has chosen to have water shortages instead of building enough desalination plants.

Why did California make this choice?”

Because we (they) are adverse to nuclear power (which would make desal really cheap) and burning fossil fuels (most likely natural gas) because it “pollutes.” Actually nuclear power is the only avenue that makes electric cars any sort of a real option as well. Otherwise they are just “golf carts.”


12 posted on 12/17/2014 2:54:04 PM PST by vette6387
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To: grundle

This would actually be a good use for a nuclear power plant. The plant could power the grid during the day, and the desalination plant at night - help smooth out the load and keep the plant running at the same speed all the time.

Drawbacks: Earthquake zone and close to ocean are a bad combination for a nuclear plant.


13 posted on 12/17/2014 2:56:38 PM PST by lacrew
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To: grundle
[11 trillion gallons] == [9.98 mi³]

[Lake Erie] == [116 mi³]
[Lake Ontario] == [393 mi³]
[Lake Huron] == [850 mi³]
[Lake Michigan] == [1180 mi³]
[Lake Superior] == [2900 mi³]

15 posted on 12/17/2014 3:05:16 PM PST by Steely Tom (Thank you for self-censoring.)
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To: grundle
California needs 11 trillion gallons of water to recover from its three-year drought

Oh, my! Better slap a meter on everybody's a$$! Make sure they don't brush their teeth too long in the morning.

Will the fascist fear-monger commie control freaks ever STFU?!? We're on the razor's edge of actually slipping over into a flooding situation out here and the SOBs won't stop. Yes, we need water. Lots of it. But we're getting it and the disappointment is showing on the faces of those who dream of regulating every aspect of our lives.

17 posted on 12/17/2014 3:05:35 PM PST by LibWhacker ("Every Muslim act of terror is followed by a political act of cover-up." -Daniel Greenfield)
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To: grundle
Desalinization plant in Tampa, FL, produces 25 million gallons of drinking water a day.


18 posted on 12/17/2014 3:07:03 PM PST by JPG (The GOPe will always find a way to surrender)
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To: grundle

IIRC there are two plants in Cal. Santa Barbara decommissioned theirs some years ago.

Carlsbad will open in 2016.

Instead of the Browndoggle bullet train we could have built a lot of desalt plants.


19 posted on 12/17/2014 3:07:03 PM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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To: grundle

The coastal Californian eco-nazis will never allow desalinization. They will keep their Malibu landscaping lush and green while condemning the rest of the state to “conserve” their way out of the drought. Don’t forget there will be the 4 striped squid eel that ONLY lives where they want to build the plant.


21 posted on 12/17/2014 3:08:16 PM PST by Organic Panic
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To: grundle

http://carlsbaddesal.com


22 posted on 12/17/2014 3:10:21 PM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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To: grundle

You shouldn’t screw with the original headline. Show some courtesy to your fellow Freepers.


23 posted on 12/17/2014 3:13:41 PM PST by Misterioso ("Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future" -- Ayn Rand)
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To: grundle

Drought, drought, drought! There is no drought in Calif. It is raining like hell. There is a bad water storage plan in Calif due to all of the people living here. Mexicans also are a problem since they use water to live. So why don’t they stop with the drought line and use the too many people line.


25 posted on 12/17/2014 3:16:06 PM PST by jetson (Can I catch you a delicious bass...)
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To: grundle

Be better to spend money doing that than on that stupid bullet train.


28 posted on 12/17/2014 3:19:23 PM PST by vpintheak (Keep calm and Rain Steel!)
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