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California: Govenor orders historic 25 percent mandatory water use reduction

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tweakmonkey said:
What I wonder is this how could desalination be economically viable -FOR AG-? This is something I am reading all over the place.

Isn't the entire reason these farmers are able to sell the crops (especially exporting the majority of almonds, alfalfa etc. overseas) at a profit due in big part to cheap water? Desalination can't be nearly that cheap, and the crops simply wouldn't make sense without the water. Making your own has to cut all the profits out.

For example if an almond takes a gallon of water to produce, and it takes 8(? some number) watts just to to desalinate a gallon of water, what would the total cost of that water be once you factor in the following:
-costs of creating, operating (fuel alone!) and maintaining the power plants to produce this kind of power (almonds alone used 1.1 trillion gallons of water last year I believe)
-cost of creating and running the desalination plants
-costs of creating the piping and pumping (more energy) all the water to farms from the ocean. Most of the dry farms are 100+ miles from the ocean I think.
-pollution - ecological impacts to the ocean or surrounding areas of the desal plants where the waste is left, emissions from burning all the natural gas or coal

I can't imagine how it could ever still be profitable to use that kind of water to grow a water intensive crop in a desert. I imagine you'd have almonds costing $50/pound or something and nobody would buy them or for cheaper from another place.
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Desalinization is not feasable for farmers. That same 600 gallons they can pump out of the ground for 4 cents would cost $4. The future will be no ground water and no crops.
 
chickpeas wtf

750x422
 
Ns1 said:
$10.3 billion in subsidies 1995-2012.
91 percent of farms in California did not collect subsidy payments - according to USDA.
Ten percent collected 73 percent of all subsidies.

O_O
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I think you just figured out the problem. ..
 
JSt0rm said:
Wat?
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You're quoting someone who has, as a signature, a low price of gasoline under Bush as a positive thing. Ignoring that gas was $1.84 a gallon because the US and world economy just f-ing crashed and burned, not because Bush II was some economic superhero. He'll ignore the MASSIVE deficits run under Bush II, the thousands of deads Americans Bush II's wars resulted in, all the while complaining about energy conservation is super ultra terrible, as if just burning energy and the resources used to produce it is some sort of good thing. Most likely because freedom or some other similarly empty argument.

Notice of course what gas prices are now, almost 7 years into the KingObummer™ administration when the US should be cratering into economic doldrums similar to Greece(!).
 
Subyman said:
Wait what?

So if I go to the store, buy a can of cali beans, and then dump it out on the ground, that would have been a years worth of car washes for someone in cali? lol I need to do that.

More here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/food-water-footprint_n_5952862.html

Chocolate, 2000 gallons per lb!
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I almost feel bad for people in Cali.

Waste water from showers and toilets gets recycled back into the system pretty fast and efficiently but their governor wants them to let the yellow mellow while stinking it up. Meanwhile farmers are dumping millions of gallons of water on crops that no one will eat and that water won't go back in for a very long time.
 
Californians Snitch on Neighbors Who Waste Water
Terrance Davis, sustainability manager for Sacramento's Utilities Department — "the Drought Czar" — told NBC News he was "pleasantly surprised" by the number of people turning in their neighbors.

"But we're also very happy and appreciative," he said. "... the community is taking this very seriously and that education is about behavior change and it takes some time for folks to change their behavior and become better water managers."
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Government employee happy about neighbors snitching on their neighbors.

Pity he didn't have the opportunity to live in East Germany where the Stasi used a network of millions of informants to maintain records on about 25% of the population...

What can I say except,

Alles Gute!

Uno
 
Yeah I turned in my neighbors yesterday. Assholes run sprinklers for an hour even after it rains.
 
Ns1 said:
Yeah I turned in my neighbors yesterday. Assholes run sprinklers for an hour even after it rains.
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The government proposes completely reasonable limits on water consumption for non-essential functions, your neighbor violates that ruling and effectively steals water from you and everyone in the community and your response is to report them? I guess that makes sense... in NAZI land.
 
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