Is Orange Co. built out?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Mercedes-Benz

But the fact remains that every last drop is used for something. And in this case it's Agriculture. Either water your unnecessary grass or starve to death. It's your choice.

I heard recently that a handful of crops which account for a small portion of California's production, consume a huge portion of the water. I remember one of them being rice. Maybe the middle of a dry plain that depends on imported water isn't the best place to be growing rice of all things.

[Mercedes-Benz]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

I heard recently that a handful of crops which account for a small portion of California's production, consume a huge portion of the water. I remember one of them being rice. Maybe the middle of a dry plain that depends on imported water isn't the best place to be growing rice of all things.

Yeah check out Colusa CA. They grow rice there and the rice causes a lot of humidity. The humidity brings in a lot of mosquitoes. I know someone who lives there who uses this as one excuse to dislike asians. She is Caucasian. 1/2 German and 1/2 Irish. Tara Maynard. LOL. I haven't heard from her in years. She is a fair person most of the time. Don't get me wrong.

But alas maybe it's a bad idea to grow rice there after all. Instead they should grow something else which might bring in more money like soy beans or corn for Ethanol or biofuel. I tasted their rice there and it's terrible. It's not near as good as the long grained rice from Malaysia.

It's so American to run things that way.

[Mercedes-Benz]

Originally Posted by killer2021

absolutely not, the key is to start building ultra- high density units.

Infrastructure has to be upgraded obviously. We would desalinize our water. We would have to switch over to more nuclear power (or other CHEAP, reliable source of power). As for transportation, we would need more emphasis on public transportation.

Maybe some day we can have a whole county with electric cars. It's possible to wirelessly send electricity to propel a vehicle on land or in the air. It's starting to become more feasible. They call it "Tesla" type of technology. If this were the case one would never have to recharge their car batteries again. The car would be permanently connected to the city grid which is powered by renewable energy and other forms of energy that haven't been discovered yet.

Every so often on the street or highway would be a big metal utility pole that transmits electricity to passing vehicles wirelessly through the air using some sort of frequency/tesla type technology. That would be the day! I'd like to see more amphibious vehicles too. And vehicles that can fly like airplanes or be driven like cars.

[Mercedes-Benz]

Originally Posted by killer2021

absolutely not, the key is to start building ultra- high density units.

Infrastructure has to be upgraded obviously. We would desalinize our water. We would have to switch over to more nuclear power (or other CHEAP, reliable source of power). As for transportation, we would need more emphasis on public transportation.

They already have a desalination plant in Huntington Beach which is combined into the currently existing natural gas power plant.

Desalination is extremely expensive compared to getting drinking water from far away mountains through man made aqueducts. It can supplement the water supply but can not replace it. Plus it has the undesirable effect of making the offshore salt water high in saline level which harms the marine life.

Plus Nuclear is not the best option because the waste can be made into bombs or worse, dirty bombs. Terrorists love to target Nuclear power plants.

Also Nuclear energy is not practical. Before building more nuclear plants Americans should find a way to dispose of the nuclear waste which is currently sitting on site at the power plants they came from. There is no place to discard of it and nobody in their right mind would want to take it and burry it in their own backyard. Look what happened with that nuclear dump fiasco in the Nevada mountains. It makes the term "United States" kind of like an oxymoron. Because Nevada didn't hold up their end of the agreement. It's more like the "Divided-States" or the "competing-States". Those two latter names are more suitable these days.

Plus you can't just hand over the nuclear waste to some unsuspecting third world country. It could contaminate the worlds oceans. Or other countries that you throw it away to might use it to make a bomb to drop on New York City. Big apple.

[brianguy]

Originally Posted by Mercedes-Benz

Maybe some day we can have a whole county with electric cars. It's possible to wirelessly send electricity to propel a vehicle on land or in the air. It's starting to become more feasible. They call it "Tesla" type of technology. If this were the case one would never have to recharge their car batteries again. The car would be permanently connected to the city grid which is powered by renewable energy and other forms of energy that haven't been discovered yet.

Every so often on the street or highway would be a big metal utility pole that transmits electricity to passing vehicles wirelessly through the air using some sort of frequency/tesla type technology. That would be the day! I'd like to see more amphibious vehicles too. And vehicles that can fly like airplanes or be driven like cars.

you still have to generate the juice, no major solution for that yet, and that's where it becomes messy due to the pollution given off by the generating plants.

as an alternative, you'd need huge wind or solar farms just to generate a fraction of the electricity needed to propel everybody's electric car. not very cost effective. so as it stands right now, wouldn't reduce much pollution because the green technology isn't available.

plus electric or hybrid electric car batteries are very toxic (to produce and to dispose of). I like alternative fuels (hydrogen, natural gas, etc) better than electric cars right now.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by brianguy

you still have to generate the juice, no major solution for that yet, and that's where it becomes messy due to the pollution given off by the generating plants.

as an alternative, you'd need huge wind or solar farms just to generate a fraction of the electricity needed to propel everybody's electric car. not very cost effective. so as it stands right now, wouldn't reduce much pollution because the green technology isn't available.

Could go this route for energy:

[luckodeirish]

Charles, I like how you think.

[brianguy]

I'm not disagreeing, but will believe it when I see it

[J1ndo]

Originally Posted by Mercedes-Benz

Maybe some day we can have a whole county with electric cars.

That wouldn't improve traffic one bit, though (though the air would certainly be cleaner). The problem is that the automobile is a poor means of transportation in densely populated areas. On the plus side, though, when you're sitting completely stopped on the freeway, your electric car won't be idling and wasting fuel. That's always a plus.

[dtran103]

There is still A LOT of open space to build in Orange County, especially towards the wilderness and barren lands east. But the open space is very beautiful and I hope (against hope?) that the county leaves it untouched.