Peak Water: Until Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Syzygys, Jul 9, 2012.

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  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    If you ask fishermen, river boat captains, sea ports, nuclear plants etc I think they'd argue that that water is not "wasted."

    Yep. And often we use it all. We use the entire Colorado River now, for example. That's tens of thousands of miles of watershed.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    We already use the entire Colorado River. There's nothing left.

    Wouldn't the people building the desalinators be the ones that want to profit?

    That's true everywhere in the world. We all drink the same water we excrete, over and over again. It's mostly a closed cycle.
     
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  5. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Nope, that's just a red herring you have created. If you've noticed, NOwhere have I ever mentioned the Mississippi - comparing it to the water in the Great Lakes would be almost like comparing distilled water to the contents of a sewer.

    Pretty much everyone, I would have thought, knows that the pollution level at the mouth of the Mississippi is hundreds of times more polluted than the water in any of the Great Lakes. :shrug:
     
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  7. 1nf1del Registered Member

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    That was Lake Meade, The Colorado river has plenty of water, I see it quite often considering it's only 60 miles north of me.
     
  8. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    Because the Colorado river doesn't run into Lake Meade??? Maybe you should get educated about the water situation of the West, then you can even visit the river itself. Your distance from the river is completely irrelevant by the way and just shows your luck of arguments (and information)...

    Here you go:

    "Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands.For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system — irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet.
    If it does, that will set in motion a temporary distribution plan approved in 2007 by the seven states with claims to the river and by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, and water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada would be reduced.
    This could mean more dry lawns, shorter showers and fallow fields in those states"

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28mead.html
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2012
  9. 1nf1del Registered Member

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    How many times does the Colorado split before Lake Meade? Educated? We are in a level one drought, I know what I need to know, and I see the Colorado river twice a week, two weeks ago a 14 year old boy was swept away in it, people are swept away in the river on a regular basis, they white water raft on it,why? Because it is a torrent!
     
  10. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    Zero? Rivers are getting bigger as we go downstream not smaller....
     
  11. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    He was correct when he suggested you become educated. Regardless of where you're seeing the river, you've NEVER seen it where it enters Mexico after the U.S. is through with it. At that point, it's little more than a mudflat most of the time.
     
  12. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    This just in from CNN:

    "Midwest farmers continued to suffer Friday from the continuous drought that has earned 1,016 counties in 26 states recognition as a natural disaster areas. According to the National Climatic Data Center, some parts of the Midwest have experienced the worst June conditions since 1988 lately, with crops and pastures for livestock drying out. The past year has been the warmest the United States has seen since 1895—the year the National Climatic Data Center began regularly recording temperatures."
     
  13. twr Registered Senior Member

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    Honestly, the peak coal thing, sure, that could feasibly happen. It wouldn't affect anyone in the slightest (besides maybe coal magnates), but it could happen.

    Peak Water will never be an issue as long as the oceans remain on earth. For you to claim desalinization isn't viable is absolutely ridiculous. Countries in the Caribbean and a few in Arabia have been doing it for years. Something like 80% of the world's population lives near the coastline. That is a significant market.

    As for the aquifers, I'd be more worried about the desertification of America's farmland, although that's not even an issue with the new GMs, greenhouses, and research into synthetics.

    You put far too little faith in science and technology, just like every doomsayer who likes to join the elitist cult of people who know what they know what they know... next thing you know you'll be trying to stir up a thread about Peak Iron...
     
  14. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    It not just could, but already did, and literally, anything mined/used and non-replenishable will peak at one point. Nature of things...

    I should stop responding to you right here..

    It IS already an issue. We are using up reservoirs that will not refill or will refill very slowly...

    That's why we are irrigating with desalinizied water in Kansas, not. Those places you mentioned:

    Caribbean: Island with small surface, not many other choices.
    Arabs: shitload of oil money, they can afford it, now. Let's see 100 years from now, when the oil has ran out...

    ...and my OP was about the Great Plains mostly.

    Oh I am sure the next big war will take care of lots of my worries about overpopulation...
     
  15. twr Registered Senior Member

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    The material becomes non-minable, but it doesn't leave earth. The wealth on this planet can only grow, because the material on stays mostly on board while the energy from the sun can be harnessed to reprocess that material indefinitely. The whole concept of something being non-renewable is a dated argument. We do not live on a linear world where the goods are mined, refined, used, and then cease to exist; after they are discarded, the material is still available for reprocessing.


    Or you could offer a valid refutation, but that doesn't seem to be the way you fear monger types operate.


    That is true, but it's easy to remediate. It's not like leaked radioactive material that we don't have the technology to deal with; just use water catchment technologies and stop pumping out more water than gets put in. It's doesn't warrant nearly as much worry as you would lead others to believe; you're like a bad teacher I had in the second grade who told us we were running out of clean water. We weren't running out, we just weren't cleaning it because no one cared. We could easily just make more if we wanted to, it's as easy as the abundance of seawater and sunlight.


    I think it's funny how condescending you try to be without even understanding the point I was trying to make. Sure, it's running out in certain areas, but it's not like all that water is disappearing from the face of the earth, or being shipped off to China where it's locked away to methodically dehydrate the Western world. It can be replaced if need be. The question is when it becomes economically viable to do so. You greatly under estimate the robustness of the American economy... the world economy, in general, actually.


    Right. The Caribs don't have another option. If we get to a point where we run out of water in the aquifers, we'll be in the same situation (I should say you, because things in Canada are just peachy actually). If there's no water in the wells, it becomes economically viable to use desalinization. I'll stipulate to the Arab thing though, the growth there isn't as sustainable, even with all the diversification they're doing, most of them are one trick ponies (excluding the North African countries, which probably would be able to survive on agricultural production and more mining, plus a big old cheap pool of labour.


    My point still stands.


    Annnnd that pretty much confirms my suspicion; paranoia coupled with the mild stroke of narcissism that is so prevalent among doom sayers... I bet you're one of the guys filling my youtube inbox with the "Banksters are taking over America" videos.
     
  16. 1nf1del Registered Member

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    I'm apparently not the one that needs educated, we were talking about diverting water to Kansas, there is plenty of river water before Glen Canyon Dam to divert to Kansas, here is a map of the river, notice all the outflows after Glen Canyon Dam, much of the water before that is trapped in Lake Powell, and as you know Lake Powell's water level is more than a 100 feet below what it is supposed to be, there are canyons there that were once under water that you can now walk through, meaning much of the water that would normally be seen after Lake Powell is just not making it there.

    http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/colorado-river-map/
     
  17. 1nf1del Registered Member

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  18. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    WOW! You really are keen on playing the dummy here! You didn't even bother to examine the map you provided!! Take another REAL look at it and your foolish idea will be instantly torn to shreds.

    Look at where it enters Mexico - does the label there (intermittent river) give you a hint about how wrong you are? That term translates to mean "a river bed that SOMETIMES has a little water in it." And that means it has just about all been used up prior to that point.

    SO here's a little 1-question quiz for you: Since pretty much ALL the water has already been allocated and used up before it reaches our southern border, just where is ANY water for Kansas going to come from, eh? Absolutely not from this river!
     
  19. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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  20. 1nf1del Registered Member

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    You don't know what an outflow is? I can count six outflows after Glen Canyon, you better look at it again! All the green arrows are outflows!
     
  21. 1nf1del Registered Member

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    You are pretty dense aren't you, if all the water is used for drinking and farmland before it reaches Mexico, how much water do you expect to get there?
     
  22. 1nf1del Registered Member

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    With its headwaters at 10,184 feet (3,104 m), the Colorado River loses nearly two miles in elevation by the time it reaches the Gulf.[34] Above Lake Mead, most of the Colorado is a swift-moving whitewater river, with the exception of the region around Grand Junction, Colorado, where it exhibits braided characteristics, and the marshy Kawuneeche Valley near the headwaters. The lower river between Hoover Dam and the international border is generally a slow-moving, meandering stream.[35] Much of the upper Colorado ranges from 200 to 500 feet (61 to 150 m) wide, compared with 500 to 1,000 feet (150 to 300 m) for the lower river. The river is of moderate depth, with an average depth of 10 to 30 feet (3.0 to 9.1 m).[36][37][38] However, some parts of the river are as shallow as 2 to 8 feet (0.61 to 2.4 m) in the lower course in dewatered sections near Yuma,[39] and one notable section in the Grand Canyon reaches up to 110 feet (34 m) in depth.[40]

    Prior to channelization of the lower Colorado in the 20th century, the river was characterized by sweeping meanders, sandbars and islands that were subject to frequent course changes. Joseph C. Ives, who surveyed the lower river in 1861, wrote that "the shifting of the channel, the banks, the islands, the bars is so continual and rapid that a detailed description, derived from the experiences of one trip, would be found incorrect, not only during the subsequent year, but perhaps in the course of a week, or even a day."[39] The delta and estuary of the Colorado River were once also subjected to a major tidal bore that has almost disappeared with reductions in river flow and some dredging of the estuary channel.[41] The first historical record of the tidal bore was that made by the Croatian missionary in Spanish service Father Ferdinand Konščak on 18 July 1746. During spring tide conditions, the tidal bore formed in the estuary about Montague Island in Baja California and propagated upstream. It was locally called El Burro or burro.[42]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River

    So I will reiterate, there is plenty of water before Lake Meade!
     
  23. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    You can say the same about oil or coal. The bottom line is that it is lost for the original usage...

    The rest of your post is garbage, not requiring a response...And describing a fact is not being alarmist...
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2012
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