[CrazedZooChimp]

[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

OTOH, actually investing in water collection and storage infrastructure to match the growing population and agriculture business would alleviate much of the issue.  Also, stupid environmental policies and allowing beverage companies to siphon off drinking water to bottle it reduce the available supply.  IMnsHO, there's no excuse for not having at least a dozen desalination plants running off abundant and relatively clean natural gas up and down the coastline.  There's also no excuse for not being able to collect more water from the melting snowpack.  California has done a terrible job - across both Democrat and Republican administrations - over the last 50+ years, and now we are paying the price for it.
[/quote]

Desalination plants are very costly to run.  They don't exist because the water they provide is more expensive than water from other sources.  Now if there were better market pricing that might not be the case, but it is now.  It's certainly more expensive than pumping ground water.  And don't be so big on the "clean" natural gas.  It's better than coal (or god forbid burning oil for power, but that's pretty unheard of these days), but it's not clean.  If it were, California's ghg emissions from power generation wouldn't have increased 35% in 2012 after San Onofre shut down (and drought related drops in hydro power).

As it is, even the new desal plant opening in San Diego is going to probably have to shut down if this drought ever ends because it won't make economic sense to keep running it.

[CrazedZooChimp]

[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

OTOH, actually investing in water collection and storage infrastructure to match the growing population and agriculture business would alleviate much of the issue.  Also, stupid environmental policies and allowing beverage companies to siphon off drinking water to bottle it reduce the available supply.  IMnsHO, there's no excuse for not having at least a dozen desalination plants running off abundant and relatively clean natural gas up and down the coastline.  There's also no excuse for not being able to collect more water from the melting snowpack.  California has done a terrible job - across both Democrat and Republican administrations - over the last 50+ years, and now we are paying the price for it.
[/quote]

Desalination plants are very costly to run.  They don't exist because the water they provide is more expensive than water from other sources.  Now if there were better market pricing that might not be the case, but it is now.  It's certainly more expensive than pumping ground water.  And don't be so big on the "clean" natural gas.  It's better than coal (or god forbid burning oil for power, but that's pretty unheard of these days), but it's not clean.  If it were, California's ghg emissions from power generation wouldn't have increased 35% in 2012 after San Onofre shut down (and drought related drops in hydro power).

As it is, even the new desal plant opening in San Diego is going to probably have to shut down if this drought ever ends because it won't make economic sense to keep running it.