California drought: What would Israel do?

Jweekly ^ | May 14, 2015 | By Dan Pine

[Brad from Tennessee]

From a distance, the reservoir appears topped by a flotilla of rubber duckies.

On closer inspection, the water’s surface is packed with thousands of free-floating, 13-inch plastic balls, clustered to form an undulating cover.

Developed by the Israeli startup Neotop (formerly known as Top-It-Up), the mass of balls serves as a floating cooling tower, reducing surface temperatures, algae and evaporation up to 95 percent. It’s one of many potential water-saving solutions to come out of Israel’s high-tech dream factory.

This could make a difference in California. With the state’s reservoirs at historic lows — the two biggest, Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, both down 40 percent — every drop counts.

Living in a land of permanent water scarcity, Israelis grow up with a credo of water conservation. The country pioneered drip irrigation and wastewater recycling. As California bakes in its fourth year of exceptional drought — the worst stretch in 1,200 years — Israel has much to offer by way of remedies.

Sectors of California’s agriculture industry, such as grape growers, long ago took up Israeli-style drip irrigation. And this fall, the largest ocean desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, a project designed and being built by IDE Technologies of Israel, is set to open near San Diego. . .

[2harddrive]

Cali’s water “shortage” is contrived. Man-made. Their CHOICE! I pity them NOT.

[Daveinyork]

When I stay in a hotel in the USA, I get a thin trickle of water from the mandatory water-saver shower heads. When we were in Israel, I was blown away by the water pressure from the shower.

[C210N]

If Israel did what Callie is doing, it would double its population with palies, so that it would need twice as much water.

[Morpheus2009]

Well the water shortage is the reason why I will not choose to live in California. Although the problem is that they argue just about any proposed solution to death.

[BitWielder1]

The Israelis would solve the problem instead of writing more regulations.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Informative article. Israel also quit growing oranges for the most part. They recycle 75% of their water used. The US: 1%.

How do they figure this stuff out since they are so busy oppressing Muslims?

[petercooper]

Best technology in the world comes out of Israel.

[ansel12]

When I stay in a hotel in the USA, I get a thin trickle of water from the mandatory water-saver shower heads. When we were in Israel, I was blown away by the water pressure from the shower.

That is one of those anecdotes that doesn't work, that isn't how the world of shower heads is, if your hotel is using one that isn't very good, then tell them they need to get one that works.

Israel almost certainly uses water saving shower heads also but the quality of the shower heads vary from model to model, if you live in a modern home, then you probably have a water saving shower head.

It is about shower heads that work well, not low flow versus old models from the past, just like toilets.

[gingerbread]

California’s water problem has been festering for at least 30 years. You know the old saying; “EVERY BODY COMPLAINS ABOUT THE WEATHER, AND NOBODY WANTS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT”. In Israel, they knew that water was a problem from day one. So, they started building de-salinating plants a long time ago. Now, California has the whole Pacific Ocean to desalinate. Had they started building desalinating plants 30 years ago, they wouldn’t be in the hole they are in today. But, rather than spend the money on desalinating plants, they chose to build “SPEED TRAINS” to no where. So, all you very stupid people that voted for these people for the last 30 years, SUCK IT UP. Who was it that said “STUPID IS WHAT STUPID DOES”?

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

Raise the minimum wage to $18.00 an hour.

Raise corporate taxes and boost snap card payments so participants can afford Evian.

Raise personal income taxes to offset the effects of global warming.

Rationing, Malibu needs their water. Agriculture doesn't, though they still must pay their workers $18.00 per. Not the workers fault the growers can't grow without water.

If there are any crops grown in greenhouses, tear them down for scrap.

BOYCOTT ISRAELI TECHNOLOGY

What do a bunch of Jews know about growing things without water.

If you're not super rich or on the public dole, leave the state.

Alternately, have Governor Moonbeam organize a rain dance

If it works, party like it's Woodstock

Have fun, if the government can produce rain today, they'll produce it tomorrow.

[Organic Panic]

NO MATTER WHAT California will find a way to prevent water development. All those rubber balls would interfere with some migrating protected endangered bird so we can’t do that (even though it would be on an artificial reservoir). I remember back in the 90s there was a leaky pipe along the California water pipeline system and some frog was living in the water and they couldn’t fix the leaky pipe.

Environazis are already complaining about desal. The ocean might get salty. OH MY GOD! Salty ocean water. OH NO. A seal might get stuck in the intake water. Think of all those poor barnacles. We can’t have a water desal plant in view of the beach houses in Malibu. What about the coastal commission (my second most hated of California bureaucratic institutions second to the DMV). They wouldn’t like the color of the building. Good luck distilling sea water with your windmills California.

[lormand]

Agreed. The company I work for owes much of it’s existence to an Israeli startup it acquired. Almost everyday, I use Waze to navigate my way to work and back, created/developed in Israel.

[beethovenfan]

But hey, we don’t want to distract from Moonbeam’s train to nowhere. After all, the train is far more important than just water /s/.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Brad from Tennessee.

• New York Times: Eating Food Aggravates Drought
• California drought: Silicon Valley faces sweeping water cuts
• House Approves Bill Blocking Federal Water Grab
• San Jose Bans Filling Hot Tubs, Pools Amid California's Historic Drought
• EPA and CA Drought: 'What Civilized Society Destroys Its Own Food Source For A Three-Inch Fish?'
• San Francisco Saint Mary's Cathedral Drenches Homeless With Water To Keep Them Away

the insufferably incompetent demagogue, Jerry Brown:

• 'Dam...Train': Billboard Draws Governor's Response
• Jerry Brown to Environmentalist Water Tunnel Critics: 'Shut Up'
• Governor Brown tells critics of water tunnels project to 'shut up'
• Note To Jerry Brown:Deliver Your Water Warnings In Spanish So Culprits Get The Message!
• Cities Push Back on Governor's Water Cutbacks
• Florida Gov. in Calif. to Poach Jobs
• Hello from California, where we're enjoying Gov. Moonbeam's drought
• Desalination Gains Gov. Brown's Support for Long-Term Drought Relief
• How Jerry Brown made the California drought worse and what can be done about it
• California governor on drought: Climate change not a hoax 'We're dealing with it, and it's damn srs
• Brown: 'Some People Have a Right to More Water Than Others'
  • Here's what celebrities' lawns look like during California's drought
  • The grass IS greener in Hollywood: Aerial photos expose how [J Lo and Streisand] waste water...
• Gov Jerry Brown: Californians to Be Heavily Fined for Long Showers
• Trade workers set to benefit from Gov. Jerry Brown's project list (high-speed drought?)
• Gov Jerry Brown: Californians To Be Heavily Fined For Long Showers
• California governor orders mandatory water restrictions amid drought
• California governor order first ever water restrictions (25% reduction across the state)

[Stosh]

Give Nancy Pelosi’s husbanc or Diane Feinstein’s husband the concession for the little floating balls required to minimize evaporation, and that part of the problem is solved forthwith.

[vette6387]

“Had they started building desalinating plants 30 years ago, they wouldn’t be in the hole they are in today.”

Have you bothered to investigate the amount of energy desal plants need? They would have been a viable solution if we had stayed with nuclear power, but using fossil fuels for this isn’t a real solution. The truth of the matter is that California ( thanks almost exclusively to Jerry Brown and his cohorts) hasn’t build a new water storage facility since 1979. And in that timeframe the state’s population has doubled. We have a water infrastructure that counts on a snowpack. The reservoirs are not big enough in a normal year to store the early rainfall and the snowpack, so we have to release that water to make way for the snowpack when it melts and it is lost. But that’s only part of the story since the majority of the water (80%) goes for agriculture. And worse still, the Central Valley Project (CVP) was supposed to supply agriculture with water so that it would be able to stop pumping groundwater for irrigation. But when they got the new sources of water, they just opened up more land to farming and kept pumping groundwater.

[Thud]

Make those rubber duckies instead, and I’m in.

[Sherman Logan]

Actually, it’s about shower head design AND water pressure.

I work with spray jet patterns and such, so the subject is one I’m familiar with.

[ansel12]

True, but I was only addressing the shower heads, it is even less likely that the hotels in the nation of Israel uniformly have better water pressure than the hotels of the United States.