

What is the problem with droughts in California? - kirk21

Why are ppl complaining about the droughts? Seems like you have all the ingredients for desalination: sun + seawater.<p>Am I missing something?
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bazzargh
Scale. Building all of the 17 planned desalination plants would decrease the
water deficit by 0.54 million acre-feet (MAF), but the actual shortfall is
around 10 times that. It'll also take years to bring those online.

You can try out solutions like that here, in the 'California Water Challenge'
game:
[http://www.cawaterchallenge.org/responses](http://www.cawaterchallenge.org/responses)

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dalke
Desalinization is expensive.

A lot of the places undergoing severe drought aren't near the coast.
Transporting water uphill is even more expensive, both in energy costs to pump
and in construction, right-of-way, and repair costs.

The new cost model is not compatible with some of the current economic
systems. Cattle ranching requires a lot of water. It's not obvious that the
cost of building a replacement system is justified.

You might as well as "why are ppl complaining? Why don't they just move?"

Both are expensive, though the latter also has emotional and civic costs that
are harder to measure than desal water.

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PeekPoke
That's not desalination, that's salt production. :)

