Californian can brag all they want about the prosperity of their land built by prison and migrant labor but the moment they partition the state, it will not be sustainable for long term water resources, and will fuel regional water wars, lead to their own collapse.
Sci-fi favorite trope, but deeply impractical IRL. It takes more energy to desalinate water, than reusing and purifying existing water, which is why not even renewable projects from China prioritize it as primary.
I worked for MWD on their demonstration of concept site in Carson for water recycling, -zybor- is absolutely right. Last I checked MWD was still pursuing it pretty strongly too, especially since all the good dam sites in CA have already been used. They had to construct 2.5 sides of their last dam construction at DVL in the 90s (fun fact because of this the reservoir has really poor flow, which is why it gets algal blooms during the summer making that water unusable right when it is needed most).
A few years before I left China, I learnt of "Middle Water" being used for stuff that doesn't have real human contact, like flushing toilets and watering grass: 'Middle Water" is Water treated for sewage but not for germs.
The energy here I meant is the pollution energy from fossil fuel energy required to do water desalination. It's like mining bitcoin to fight climate change, the outcome is miniscule when the energy and resources put into needed that overwhelm the results. Also artificial lakes and reservoirs can't just conjured out of land mass, the water must last longer than the amount you put in, which is why when China built that Xinjiang artificial sea, they transfered water from somewhere else into the sea because it's more energy and cost efficient than just making the water.
To be fair, there is a very decent amount of solar, hydro, and wind power in California. If it were to be fuelled solely by renewables, it would be a fantastic thing.
the water vaporizes in reservoir and reaches equilibrium, so yes but only by a limited amount per plant, and at that point simply reusing more water more times is a lot easier
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u/-zybor- Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communist 2d ago
Californian can brag all they want about the prosperity of their land built by prison and migrant labor but the moment they partition the state, it will not be sustainable for long term water resources, and will fuel regional water wars, lead to their own collapse.