Posted on 07/30/2025 4:05:59 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
So they take in lake water and discharge back into the lake?
Huge data centers are used to mine cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The larger and more powerful they are, the faster they produce bitcoins. So as long as cryptocurrencies exist the more data centers will be built and the larger and larger they will become.
Yeah, that.
As pointless, seemingly, as Musk’s persistent fantasy about colonizing Mars.
Open space beyond the natural electromagnetic shielding of mother Earth is nothing but a cosmic ray shooting gallery. An endless microwave waiting to cook human flesh.
Correct. We got some really cool winter lakes.
Central TX has a huge aqui. They probably steal some.
Keeps it warm. More Bass, Crappie, Bluegill etc.
This is the way. Texas has unlimited water in the Gulf of America it only needs to be desalted.
Nukes are the second cheapest form of energy humans have come up with and in a close tie for first cheapest raw BTU heat source. Solar wins that battle in deserts anywhere with KWP of 4 and above all the way to 5.5 in the Sahara.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011916424000365
Also this way too.
https://iwaponline.com/wst/article/91/1/1/106408/Nuclear-power-plant-waste-heat-opens-a-window-of
Nuclear desal would already be cheaper than retail water in North Texas by half the price per 1000 freedom units. This means even with pumping costs you could hit the retail market price with a hefty profit margin. Austin is closer to the coast and is equally close as San Antonio both would have cheaper pipeline costs vs DFW area.
Austin sends highland lake water down stream to senior water rights in Wharton County rice farmers. Obviously the way is desal water on the coast which is 20 miles from Wharton County and pipeline the water to the rice farmers who then release on a acrefoot for acrefoot basis water from the highland lakes so Austin can use it and sell it at retail prices covering the cost of the desal and then some. Desal water is a most never going to be as cheap as run of river water so you must get retail customers to fund the project and let the agriculture have their existing water right amounts at the existing run of the river price. It’s a paper water transfer and saves tons in pipeline costs vs pipeline 135 miles to the Austin water treatment plant on the Colorado river.
Of course if you design from the start for intermittent desal you can use any electrons for the process , off peak and curtailment power comes cheap under $10 per megawatt hour. It takes 3kWh per cubic meter so a megawatt hour makes 333.3 cubic meters of 500ppm or less from 34,500ppm source water more from brackish ground water which the USA has thousands of cubic miles worth of under nearly all of the continent. Everywhere in orange can do saline groundwater desal above it.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs075-03/
There is 1233.48 cubic meters in one acrefoot of water so you need 3.7 megawatts hours worth of power to make a single acrefoot which is also 325,850 gallons or what a family of four using 100 gallons per person per day uses in 27 months. 12,000 gallons per month is high for a family of four. The wife and I when in my condo use under 1500 gal per month and she takes baths every day. Of course the large yard properties with irrigation uses tens of thousands of gallons per month to keep grass green in Texas heat but that’s well water from the Trinity aquifer not muni water.
Point is with Israeli level tech desal you can make the water needed for 12,000 gal a month and 27 months worth using less than 4 MWh which wholesale power costs from off peak wind or mid day solar is under $40 @ $10 per MWh this price is available nearly every day in Texas for 6-8 hours a day. Read that again for under @40 in power costs you can make enough water for a heavy use family of 4 and over two years worth that’s $1.48 per month now you see how much profit there is in water sales our water bills average $100 per month at 6000 gal per month usage in our N Texas golf course property. The rural has well water and muni so like 2000 gal muni the rest is irrigation off the well. Out Austin condo is over 100 and under 1500 gal per month it’s the fees and trash and recycling fees water is still $5 per thousand and $8 per thousand on waste water that’s twice what the Israeli pay for desal water at 53 cents per cubic meter delivered not wholesale.
I crossed the Guadalupe in Kerr County, today. Its maybe a foot higher than usual. the flood water has been in Canyon Lake for a week.
I am well acquainted with the area as well, and unfortunately bad decisions were made and it cost people their lives.
For sure Comanche peak has some great bass in its lake. I used to fish with my grandfather at a power lake just south of San Antonio as a kid during the winter we would go right up to the warm water outflow from the plant drop anchor and look down you could see nothing but large mouth bass practically touching each other packed into the warm water area. We would drop treble hooks with chicken livers as bait and pull them out in under a min per fish it was drop, bang bite, reel in, drop bang bite reel until we hit the limit for the day. They stayed in the warm water rather than feed so any thing that was dropped was hit instantly. Fun times and we always had huge fish frys after in the shore lunch style. It really wasn’t fishing it was harvesting but as a kid it was good fun, kinda like stand hunting over a remote controlled feeder.. The buzzzzz and welp here comes bambi ok shoot that one bang flop meat in the cooler time. Not sporting but effective.
That is quite an experience.
Now we know why aliens were always coming to Earth in the fifties to steal our water.
So many people did this they put up ropes and buoys to keep the boats out of that warm water channel. You could pick up the ropes and idle under them but you risked the plant security coming over and forcing you to leave...We would just go at night with no running lights once past the ropes my grandpa was like F them this is a public lake they own shore land not water and in Texas he is right the state owns the water surface.
Money doesn’t know where to go.
SMR rose and NNE rose. SMR is NuScale. NNE is more of a facilitator.
I visited NuScale 5 years ago on an unrelated UPS issue.
Charlotte.
They are very money conscious. Stock at the time 2.00
I like how you think.
Yes, a functioning Congress would be required. But one can dream.
I dreamed for decades of aggressive immigration law enforcement after all...
There was a guy on the radio in San Antonio in the 80s and early 90s, who claimed that in Australia, there was a limestone aquifer, similar to the Edwards Aquifer, in a similar climate -- hot, dry, infrequent rains. The locals worked out that by building a series of berms partially across drainage features, alternating sides, you would slow down the runoff from rainfall, as the water followed a longer, meandering course, around the berms. Given that it was following a longer, slower course, far more rain water soaked through the permeable limestone, and down into the aquifer, where it was protected from evaporation.
Flooding was reduced, as less water made its way down stream, more slowly. The berms could be build with the sort of graders and dozers used to build roads, and condemning the easements where they were built on private property was cheap, because they were, by definition, built in the flood plain. Once built, the only ongoing cost was renewing the berms once every 20-30 years, as they eroded.
The radio guy claimed officialdom rejected that course of action, but it didn't cost enough.
I've never heard an explanation for why he was not correct.
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