Break through in desalinization!

[Ted Striker]

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Oerdin
DING, DING, DING! We have a winner.

"I came to Casablanca for the water."

"Water?? What water? We're in the desert?"

"Well, sweetheart, that may be true. But the Israeli's have made a breakthough in desalinization. so I'd thought I'd get here first and beat the rush."

[/Threadjacking]

[Lancer]

Casablanca? You gotta be jiven me!

igs through dusty video collection:

[Az]

"Well, sweetheart, that may be true. But the Israeli's have made a breakthough in desalinization. so I'd thought I'd get here first and beat the rush."

shhh, you're not supposed to tell about the amphibious landing, and occupation of Morrocco by ZOG until after it occured.

[Ramo]

Yay

[Pekka]

It's like poopalizer. First you poo into your own bed, and then wonder why you get sick from sleeping with your mouth open. Then, someone designs the poopalizer, that allows you to sleep in it with your mouth open and not get sick.

Giancarlo, yeah, I hope rest of the world doesn't have the clean water like we do. I just take it for granted, and that's the only way to do it. It's not my fault majority of people born in places with no clean water. So I shouldn't fix it either. I should also make my very best effort to throw obstacles into peoples way who try to fix the problem. Why? because it is the right thing to do.

ACtually, this is communist. 'Clean water for evrryone!'. No, you have to EARN IT! You have to beat the guy next to you to get the clean water. We could even make it a TV show.

However, of course I think this is a great invention.

[Odin]

This is awesome. expect the Middle-East and Australia to be blooming soon.

[Lancer]

So what population can the world support with this? 15 billion?

There's the US desert southwest, Australia, arab areas, the Sahara...all should bloom, flow with milk and honey, etc...

[Az]

Lancer: the problem is energy, now. You need to power those babies, you know...

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Pekka
It's not my fault majority of people born in places with no clean water. So I shouldn't fix it either.

Well young man, if the water isn't good enough for you, why don't you put it in a bottle and mail it to africa!?

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Pekka
Who needs this technology, when you have plenty of clean water anyway. Desert people should be dealt with what Darwin suggested anyway. Desert = no future. It's not meant to be living quarters of humans. It's evil. Except for Israelis. But for the people in Nevada and stuff.. you have no excuses.

To be fair, northern and southern Nevada have adaquet water supplies from both nearby rivers (Truckee River and Colorado River) and from groundwater supplies. The problem is growth. I can't speak for Las Vegas (that's Diss' department; I'll PM him), but in Reno our city officials are a bunch of whores for whom the word "no" is not in their vocabulary. They constantly pander to the casino lobby as well as the developers who keep adding subdivisions to the Truckee Meadows. As it is, the valley floor is close to completely developed with open spaces few and far between. Reno has been making land grabs into the North Valleys and west along I-80, eventually to the California border. People have been warning Reno city officials for 30 years that this kind of growth would strain our water supplies eventually, yet each time it shows up in the media it's quickly forgotten. The city of Sparks also resides in the valley and they've been much more conservative in their growth. However, Reno's voracious appetite and uncapped growth are sucking from the same water supplies.

Going east along I-80, the Truckee River continues flowing downstream, eventually emptying into Pyramid Lake. Millenia ago, Lake Lahontan (sp?) was a massive body of water covering most of Northern Nevada and into parts of southern Oregon, Idaho, and western Utah. As the climate shifted, that lake dried up and a number of much smaller remanents remained. Lake Pyramid and modern Lake Lahontan are just two of them. The ancient lake bed has left us with moderately fertile soil around Fallon and Fernley and both of those places are thusly surrounded by farmlands. They depend on the Truckee River's continued flow, but seeing as they are downstream from the Truckee Meadows...

My point is that even though northern Nevada is desert, we can still support large populations, but we may be reaching a point where further growth will become untenable without importing water from elsewhere. Again, I can't speak for Las Vegas, but I do know they're trying to take groundwater from sparcely populated counties north of them. The residents in the small towns there really don't like that.

Only half kidding here, but perhaps California can start getting its water from desalinized Pacific Ocean water and start selling its surface and groundwater supplies to Nevada and Arizona.

Originally posted by Lancer
I hope they power the desalinization with solar power. It would make sense since they'll be in deserts.

Popular Science Magazine did an informal study and found that if 1,000 square miles of the southern Nevada desert were covered in solar panels it would meet, perhaps even surpass, the United States' electricity needs.

[Az]

How much does it cost to produce a mile^2 of solar panels?

[DRoseDARs]

If it were cheap, it would already have been done. Prices still have to come down or the federal government has to pony-up the money in subsidies and grants. Gee, that might have been something useful to spend away our surplus on...

[Lancer]

"Lancer: the problem is energy, now. You need to power those babies, you know..."

Yeah I thought about that earlier, posted about it even.

If the things are going to be in the desert...solar power em!

[Pekka]

"My point is that even though northern Nevada is desert, we can still support large populations, but we may be reaching a point where further growth will become untenable without importing water from elsewhere. Again, I can't speak for Las Vegas, but I do know they're trying to take groundwater from sparcely populated counties north of them. The residents in the small towns there really don't like that."

Here's a clue. You live in a desert. You should not be surprised. This I could have told you for free before people went there, too.