William Shatner starting 30 billion dollar kickstart to end California water shortage

[Lord Garnaat]

A lot of people have already said that a good place to start on reducing the water problem would be to reform the infrastructure of cities in Southern California. The fact that Los Angeles can have such a faulty and wasteful system in place is no small factor in how much excess water that Godforsaken city uses up on a daily basis - it won't solve the problem completely, but at least a serious overhaul would help. Otherwise, who knows where we'll end up in twenty years? Rationing? Probably an effective means of curtailing the issue, but darned depressing to think about.

Also, while we're at it, we should really just abolish the entire city of Las Vegas. I don't know if its contributing to this particular crisis, but the place is completely useless and consumes an ungodly amount of water. The world would be better served if that wretched hive was bulldozed sooner rather than later, I say.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Seems like a pipe dream to me.

Yeah, this idea is all washed up.

Maybe he's gotten rusty after so much work.

I guess folks are just going to go with the flow and keep making puns now?

Flood the thread with these terrible puns? Oh ye of little faith!

Would we sink to such depths?

I imagine that people will pump out a few more before they run out

I'm sure I could tap into my reserves, but I'd rather not faucet.

 

[VincentX3]

Seems like a pipe dream to me.

Yeah, this idea is all washed up.

Maybe he's gotten rusty after so much work.

I guess folks are just going to go with the flow and keep making puns now?

Flood the thread with these terrible puns? Oh ye of little faith!

Would we sink to such depths?

I imagine that people will pump out a few more before they run out

I'm sure I could tap into my reserves, but I'd rather not faucet.

Hey hey, let's try to keep the thread a float.

 

[Metailurus]

$30bn for a pipeline is probably doable. Obviously that target isn't going to get reached, but it would be entertaining to see how at a loss Shatner would be if it was met.

A 1000 mile pipeline costs about $4bn assuming it's construction is managed competently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku%E2%80%93Tbilisi%E2%80%93Ceyhan_pipeline, so with $30bn you could pretty much pipe from anywhere.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

$30bn for a pipeline is probably doable. Obviously that target isn't going to get reached, but it would be entertaining to see how at a loss Shatner would be if it was met.

A 1000 mile pipeline costs about $4bn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku%E2%80%93Tbilisi%E2%80%93Ceyhan_pipeline, so with that kind of money you could pretty much pipe from anywhere.

If that's the case with 30 billion they could easily tap run off in places where no one lives like the rainforests in southern Alaska.

 

[Ryotknife]

Yeah Seattle and the whole of the Pacific Northwest are both suffering from the drought too. The East/West flood/drought cycle is nothing new, this shifts every half decade to two decades, it's essentially a normal thing for North America. We have some problems with WHERE cities have been built. First off everything in the LA area is in the middle of the damn desert. This was already an ecology that couldn't really support a large population, same problem with Las Vegas. That's a huge problem all by it self. Let alone building cities ocean side when the ocean over the entire history of humanity, let alone the earth's history of the change in sea levels. But that's another subject entirely.

What the real issue is, there are far too many people in the LA area, plus they're farming land that's unsuitable without outside water. The area has been headed for these water problems for decades, now they're blaming global climate change, instead of their stupid short sighted misuse of the area's water resources. This has been a problem that they knew about for over half a century. They didn't limit the population growth, they didn't stop the wasting of water by the billions of gallons, now the problem has come home to roost.

California already steals so much of Nevada's water to try to keep LA and the surrounding area moist, now they wanna steal from Washington too. Another short sighted exploitative move with water they have absolutely NO right to. Seriously California needs to stop making it's problems, a problem for neighbouring states and fix the issues them selves. California has badly exploitative taxes that go to pad peoples pockets, rather than combat real problems.

Can't say I understand what the yankees who settled down there where thinking at the time. I mean having a coastal city I can understand (if I'm not mistaken somewhere around 80-90% of humanity lives within 100 miles from an ocean, sea or one of the great lakes) but I really don't understand how one doesn't settle where there's a reliable source of water. I guess I've just not got the perspective, where I live (Eastern Canada) we built our whole corner of civilization around the fresh water rivers and great lakes where our surplus of drinking water is so large that if we ever did have a serious issue of a shortage of drinking water it would be long after most of the rest of the world is already tapped out.

technically speaking, I dont think anyone decided to build a city there. Many US cities kinda just spontaneously emerge. LA had existed for about a century as a small town, then went from a town of 10,000 to 1.2 million in 50 years. In LA case, it was oil that caused tens of thousands of people to flock there in search of a quick fix to be rich. In San Fransico, it was gold. If tens of thousands of people are flocking to your location, you got a city whether you like it or not.

 

[mad825]

With 30 Billion you'd think that artificiality creating rain would be a much viable solution compared to a pipeline that would take a year of actual building.

You actually need cloud cover that you can seed to make it rain, something Southern California tends not to get a lot of. That's about as far as human weather control technology goes. Even so you also need a low pressure system to make seeding viable too. Again something that Southern Cali tends not to get a lot of.

The point is to break the current drought cycle. So long as those conditions are met...Lets say...2 years..Is that doable? And every time there's a chance until nature returns to the status quo?

It's cheaper,temporary,less damaging to the environment and provides a sustainable amount of water. There's no need to refill Cali to the point where they can just piss water all over their lawns.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

With 30 Billion you'd think that artificiality creating rain would be a much viable solution compared to a pipeline that would take a year of actual building.

You actually need cloud cover that you can seed to make it rain, something Southern California tends not to get a lot of. That's about as far as human weather control technology goes. Even so you also need a low pressure system to make seeding viable too. Again something that Southern Cali tends not to get a lot of.

The point is to break the current drought cycle. So long as those conditions are met...Lets say...2 years..Is that doable? And every time there's a chance until nature returns to the status quo?

It's cheaper,temporary,less damaging to the environment and provides a sustainable amount of water. There's no need to refill Cali to the point where they can just piss water all over their lawns.

You may actually be on to something...
"Scientists Create 52 Artificial Rain Storms in Abu Dhabi Desert"
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/03/scientists-create-52-artificial-rain-storms-in-abu-dhabi-desert/

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I don't see it happening so long as water is cheaper than oil and even then you could always recycle your own urine.

In the future California is like the population of Dune then?

State provided Stillsuits for everyone!

 

[PinkiePyro]

does not sound like a logical idea to me but at least he's trying to help if we were to move water to California it should be from somewhere with extra like here...I live in the northern outskirts of Chicago and our flood plains are pretty full plus having lake Michigan droughts are not a issue for us

but long term they should look into greener methods like desalinization