California’s Drought Could Upend America’s Entire Food System (Fairfield: 2013, taxes)

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

If it was easy, there would be desal plants all over the ocean coasts.

June 2011, 15,988 desalination plants operated worldwide, producing 66.5 million cubic meters per day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

CA is waaayyyyyyy behind the curve on this. Australia with a much smaller population than CA is setting a better example.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by expatCA

June 2011, 15,988 desalination plants operated worldwide, producing 66.5 million cubic meters per day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

CA is waaayyyyyyy behind the curve on this. Australia with a much smaller population than CA is setting a better example.

And...about how easy is this to do in USA, which is the pertinent country here?

[AmorphicDN]

You are all pretty sure it won't rain again?

Back in the early 2000s, much of Australia was in the grip of a severe drought – so severe, that the climate community was making well publicised claims that the drought would never end. As a result of these scaremongering predictions, from people who claimed to have predictive skill, and the devastating prospect of millions of voters going thirsty, Australia’s state and federal governments panicked, and commissioned the urgent construction of a series of desalination plants. No Cookies | Herald Sun
Here is the story of what happened to those plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_in_Australia
The Gold Coast desalination plant: $1.2 billion / unknown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Co...lination_Plant
The Perth desalination plant: $387 million / 180GWh / year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_S...lination_Plant
The Sydney desalination plant: $1.8 billion / 257 GWh / year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant
The Victorian desalination plant: $5.7 billion / unknown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victori...lination_Plant
The Southern seawater plant: $955 million / unknown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souther...lination_Plant
The Adelaide desalination plant: $1.8 billion / unknown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaid...lination_Plant
Naturally, like any government programme, especially *hasty* government programmes, the result has been a public financial disaster. The Gold Coast plant was mothballed a year after construction, and has never worked properly – the initial opening was delayed because fittings rusted up, before the plant was even switched on. The Perth plant is still operating, though in 2008 it was shut down twice because it was causing ocean die off – deoxygenation of Cockburn Sound. The Sydney plant has been criticised over water quality concerns, regarding the proximity of the seawater inlet to the desalination plant to the nearby sewage ocean outfall. Although it is still operating at low capacity, economists have described the project as a billion dollar bungle.
The Victorian plant, the most expensive at $5.7 billion, has been an unmitigated disaster – it finally went fully operational in 2012, and was immediately shut down, because it wasn’t needed. Due to the deal struck with the private operator of the plant, Victorian residential water bills have risen by 64%.
What California can learn from the Australian drought experience | Watts Up With That?

THE desalination plant has sat idle for two years, costing taxpayers $390 million. And with recent rain there is no prospect of the “white elephant” infrastructure being used for years.
The plant in Kurnell, which is jointly owned by a Canadian pension fund and an Australian fund management company, was turned off in mid-2012 as Sydney’s dams surged to nearly 100 per cent full.
Water levels have remained high ever since and as a result the desalination plant, which is designed to convert sea water into freshwater in times of drought, has never been switched back on.
It is costing taxpayers an incredible $195 million a year — or $534,246 a day — in “service fees” just to have the plant on standby.
No Cookies | dailytelegraph.com.au

[seain dublin]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I just went to Whole Foods (in NM) to get some of their packaged salad greens. The entire section was bare. I asked why--late delivery? WTF?! They said they haven't been getting their regular deliveries, due to the drought. CA has lost a lot of crop, they said. Fortunately, our local growers are doing fine.

Well if your local growers are doing fine, why were the shelves bare?

[stray_slacker]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

And...about how easy is this to do in USA, which is the pertinent country here?

how easy are bullet trains and tranny bathrooms? california has no problems talking about those.

which is the more pressing issue in your mind?

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

And...about how easy is this to do in USA, which is the pertinent country here?

Not very easy as too many groups tie them up in Court for years.

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by AmorphicDN

You are all pretty sure it won't rain again?

Ok, 4 or 5 out of nearly 16,000 plants. These operating plants provide enough water for the whole US, about enough for 300,000,000 people. Many are small and many work just fine and are helping people.

[AmorphicDN]

Originally Posted by expatCA

Ok, 4 or 5 out of nearly 16,000 plants. These operating plants provide enough water for the whole US, about enough for 300,000,000 people. Many are small and many work just fine and are helping people.

Perhaps you missed the parts about how much per acre foot of water it costs to desalinate and how that could as much as quadruple people's water bills? Most desalination plants, if not all, are in places where there are no options. A drought cycle in a place that more often has sufficient precipitation does not cost justify desalination.

[Mini-apple-less]

Hell, I've already noticed insane prices on food and vegetables. Can anyone say famine?

[Ultrarunner]

We still raise a lot of our own produce and have chickens which is legal even in my city of Oakland...

Maybe folks will have to become more self sufficient.

I already see it in my area... more home solar systems, wells, rain barrels, fruit trees... etc.

My neighbor has a heritage fig tree... she is in her 80's and makes about $800 each year at the farmer's market... mostly trades her figs for other produce...