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Public: Water: Transportation
waterline to California   (-2)  [vote for, against]
proposed water line to California from great lakes

I have Proposed routes designed from the Great Lakes to California, and also to Texas if anyone is interested , lets get funded from the Government to Help People instead of sending rockets to space place holes in ozone

Well I'm Just a Dumb Hillbilly trying to make a suggestion to bring water not only to California But Texas and other Western States where they are in need of water. The suggestion for folks to move where there's water is a great Idea , Oh Yea It Might be Crowded and Use up all that water ! That makes sense. A project of this size would create jobs for years to come, But I guess who is worried about this Country and needs of the people of the United States, The Same people we send our troops to Other Countries for Our freedom and welfare , But we do Blow up their Cities and Then Take Billion's of Dollars to rebuild their Needs. Doesn't Make sense to me Either But again Just A Dumb Hillbilly, I meant to say about the rockets and Ozone - why would we want Pay for Mars Missions and such sending their payloads Through the Ozone the damage it, I do agree with some rockets going through for security & such But be Limited , Scientist do say Rockets Do leave holes in the Ozone that never repairs itself completely, They will reduce back But not completely But in time damage does keep continuing to wear away continues, But Maybe they are wrong ! Guess time will only tell - But we will Never know due What we are told. Anyway Not only Main Trunk lines to be built , Also Lateral lines, Pump and Pressure facilities and a number of other needs to be built. But I'm sure this will be a cost that will never be approved.
-- bh, May 21 2015

some light reading for you Solar_20Desalination_20Aquaduct
[FlyingToaster, May 21 2015]

Coastal_20City_20Wastewater_20Relocation [FlyingToaster, May 21 2015]

Snow Trains Snow_20Trains
Because water doesn't flow so easily in winter. [Vernon, May 21 2015]

It might be viable to refill the Great Lakes (which are currently being used as Detroit's flush tank), by getting those half-built-then-abandoned desal plants in California up and running. Where does Texas fit in ?
-- FlyingToaster, May 21 2015


Nearly right, [FT]. If you lived some distance from a line joining the great lakes to California you would be able to think of this massive engineering project and say "Oh, far canal"
-- hippo, May 21 2015


sorry hip, changed tacks.

"Oh, far canal" indeed.
-- FlyingToaster, May 21 2015


Here's a novel proposal based on similar advice we give to starving African peoples: move to where the water is.

The Great Lakes are a delicate ecosystem and critical shipping route that we've managed to mangle pretty badly thus far.
-- RayfordSteele, May 21 2015


//I have Proposed routes designed from the Great Lakes to California// I'm pretty sure there are already routes from the Great Lakes to California. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are roads - the US is quite advanced, you know.

//instead of sending rockets to space place holes in ozone// Hang on. I don't follow. You want us to take the money currently spent on sending rockets into space, and use it to put holes in the ozone layer?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 21 2015


//"Oh, far canal"// - I think these were also Sir Anthony Eden's words when the seriousness of the 1956 Suez Crisis dawned on him.
-- hippo, May 21 2015


//advice we give to starving African peoples: move to where the water is.// I wonder if quite a few of their problems could be solved by gving them maps and compasses.
-- FlyingToaster, May 21 2015


I'm pretty sure I don't trust any civil engineering work done by someone who believes that rockets punch holes in the ozone layer.
-- MechE, May 21 2015


Well actually they do, in the most literal sense, but as the ozone layer is self-sealing, it closes off again after they pass.

No need to worry about California. All you have to do is wait. Pretty soon, everything west of the San Andreas is going to fall into the sea. Then what water supply there is will be more than enough for what's left.
-- 8th of 7, May 21 2015


//everything west of the San Andreas is going to fall into the sea// - unless everything to the east of the San Andreas falls into the sea leaving western California as a small Pacific island
-- hippo, May 21 2015


Ooops. I think we scared him/her off.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 21 2015


//Here's a novel proposal based on similar advice we give to starving African peoples: move to where the water is.//

Moving to Manchester has many challenges that are not related to the almost infinite water falling from the sky.
-- bs0u0155, May 21 2015


One wonders if oil prices will ever be low enough or water prices high enough to just bless oil into water at the desal plants, the way some oil-rich states have done for years.
-- 4and20, May 21 2015


All I want for christmas is a solar panel that drips water courtesy of an inbuilt atmospheric condensation unit (acoustic sterling or crappy peltier and appropriate counterflow hx to keep the cold in). The atmosphere is our global freshwater ocean - might as well use it.
-- TIB, May 21 2015


bh, come back! I want to see the plan for the Rockies!
-- bungston, May 21 2015


It's a fun engineering puzzle:

How much energy does it take to move a gallon of water a given horizontal distance. (Not to mention you have to go up & down the sierra's).

How much energy does it take to generate a gallon of drinkable water from desal? (reverse-osmosis)?

Typically, it's about 100 miles where they break even. Anything that's a longer distance than that, you'll spend less energy doing desal (if you are coastal, which most of CA residents are) than pumping horizontally across states.
-- sophocles, May 22 2015


// Moving to Manchester //

Haven't they suffered enough?
-- 8th of 7, May 22 2015


(uninformed opinion) Went to Manchester once to retrieve a hat I left on the train. Went to a nearby rooftop and looked around, decided to get back on the train. Probably not a wholly objective assessment(uninformed opinion)
-- normzone, May 22 2015


heh, I spent a decade in Liverpool, which means I'm contractually obliged to have a go at Manchester, but it's a lighthearted thing.

How about we pump water FROM CA to, say, the Chicago area as an example. Now, we pump seawater. When it gets to Chicago, the desalinate it, pump it back and keep the salt in a big pile for winter.
-- bs0u0155, May 22 2015


^ desalinate it en route <link>. Alternately, pump sewage plant effluent (ie: water) of coastal cities back to inland water tables <other link>

// Ooops. I think we scared him/her off.// My first anno read "fuck off" for a few seconds (guess who lives on the shore of a Great Lake)... the all caps didn't help.
-- FlyingToaster, May 22 2015


You can find articles about a "Small-scale solar desalination system" which claims to produce 15 liters of clean water a day, although it wasn't in production in 2014. Something like 50% of the world's population lives on coasts somewhere, so the most efficient solution wouldn't seem to require a lot of centralization.
-- 4and20, May 22 2015


Towing icebergs from either polar cap, then carting them to California by train would break even(ish), costwise.
-- FlyingToaster, May 22 2015


//Towing icebergs//

The enviros won't like that one bit.

I still think floating a vast black sheet a few mm under the ocean surface would work. Place it up wind from wherever the ideal rain formation zones are and let the sun bake off the water for you.
-- bs0u0155, May 22 2015


Desal is really tough, clean water is hard to come by. Rather than piping from the great lakes why not use new scanning technology to search for and pump water down from an aquifer?
-- Duck Lagrange, May 22 2015


The aquifer is where they presently get their water. It's being overused.
-- RayfordSteele, May 22 2015


//why not use new scanning technology to search for and pump water//

What new scanning technology?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 23 2015


// pump water down from an aquifer //

Down?!
-- notexactly, Jun 07 2015


Don't you just hate it when fresh meat posts an idea, then doesn't stick around to be insulted?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 07 2015


/generate a gallon of drinkable water/

The drinkability is not the issue. This water is for irrigation. The good places to grow are where the water is not. It is a shame not to grow things there.

I still would like to see the proposed routes. That stuff is fun. Come on bh!
-- bungston, Jun 07 2015


A fiver says that they are straight lines from point A to point B.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 07 2015


Fiver is the prophetic rabbit from Watership Down. Clearly, therefore, [MB] speaks the truth.
-- pertinax, Jun 12 2015


//[MB] speaks the truth.// Often wrong but never unsure.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 12 2015


" I'm not sure where Texas fits in."

It's the biggest puzzle piece, just drop it in between California and Florida.
-- normzone, Jun 12 2015


//Isn't most of the water Canadian ?// You'd think so : the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountain Range, both shared with the 'States, are pretty wet.

But, I think whoever started that rumour had just finished a "Creative Accounting and Statistics" class, and included Hudson Bay (which drains about 1/3 of all Canadian fresh water into the Arctic Ocean, but is itself in the range of ocean salinity) in the mix, and/or ran the calculation based on surface area, not volume (in the cold, water doesn't evaporate as much: a puddle-depth body of water is a "lake" on a map). Nothing compared to the "statistics" of the pipeline-vs-rail debate of course, but still...

Other than that, I think there's some rivers that flow between Cda and the US (in random directions).
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 12 2015



random, halfbakery