
Las Vegas Is Betting It Can Become the Silicon Valley of Water - tokenadult
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/what-works-las-vegas-213836
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gonzo
Clickbait headline...

My brother, father and grandfather were (between 1955 and 2006) the principals
of what became the largest water well drilling company in Nevada. I worked
there during while a teen and between semesters at college.) I was just there
last week, for my father's 80th birthday, and dealing with the last dredges of
that company (rebuilding a drilling rig that I had to repo, so it can be
sold.)

I'm well-acquainted with DRI, or at least what it was during the 80s.

Las Vegas will never be the "Silicon Valley of water".

~~~
e40
Politico aspires to a pretty low bar, journalistically. I stopped reading them
a year or so ago when it was clear their political articles were just crap,
and as you said, often had clickbait headlines.

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justin_vanw
> Silicon Valley of water

So they are going to invent and continually improve water, and compete
primarily via the intellectual work of keeping their water so much more
advanced than the water available from competing places that they dominate the
worldwide water market, all while manufacturing the water in Japan and later
Taiwan and China (Designed by the Municipal Water Authority in Las Vegas)?

~~~
astrodust
Maybe like Fiji they can bottle it up and sell it all over the world, getting
a piece of the action in the ridiculously high-carbon footprint water market.

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acconrad
Why can't they be the silicon valley of energy? Instead of trying to put water
where it shouldn't, focus on what it's great at - harvesting lots of solar
energy with little cloud cover.

~~~
tyingq
Competing with Hoover Dam's 3.x billion kWhs per year selling for $0.02/per is
probably not a winning strategy. It does sound like there's some long term
issue with levels at Lake Mead though, so perhaps in the future.

~~~
codingdave
It doesn't have to compete - there is demand that is not covered by Hoover's
production. For example, there are geothermal power plants in Utah that
transmit power to Los Angeles. Perhaps Vegas could send solar to LA, and that
geothermal power from Utah could go to Salt Lake...

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BEEdwards
Instead of admitting that humans probably shouldn't live in a desert, at the
very least not set up a tourist trap monument to waste and excess in a desert,
they invest choose to invest billions of dollars in trying to put lipstick on
a pig.

The water knife becomes more prophetic every day...

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-
knife](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife)

~~~
bmelton
When you think about it, factoring in earthquakes, drought, tornados,
hurricanes, sea levels, floods, tsunami, forest / brush fires, landslides,
avalanches, and whatever else I'm forgetting, there really isn't anywhere good
to set up camp and, rightly or wrongly, once someone _does_ set up camp,
they're hesitant to move.

Either way, the situations described in the article, conservation, waste
prevention, and innovation seem to be the exact opposite of that described in
the Water Knife blurb, and will have the luxury of being applicable to places
less arid. While California was having their record droughts, the opposite
coast was experiencing flash floods.

If we can improve conservation, and dramatically improve transportation, it
becomes easier to get water from places that have a surplus to places that
have a deficit, which means we can push flood waters to areas with drought,
and move our way up the Kardashev scale.

Edit: Forgot cold weather and volcanic activity. The cold weather sounds like
something easy to disqualify, but considering the OP's assertion is that it's
a bad idea to try to best nature, it seems that heating falls into that
bucket.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Seattle-Tacoma area, around Lake Washington, from east of I-5 out to the
mountains, about to hwy 203. That's inland enough for when the big one hits
again, great climate, good farming; its a good place to live. Just be sure to
live at least 100 feet above sea level.

The Piedmont area of Maryland, Virginia, North & South Carolina. Good climate,
good farming, minimal natural disasters.

The Hudson River Valley of New York is similar, although a bit colder.

I've heard good things about the Portland, Oregon area, but I haven't been
there. I suggest living east of I-5, again, though.

The rest of the United States has interesting weather.

~~~
pyromine
Don't ignore the majority of New England, there really is no significant
threats to most of Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island, the northern
half of New England might be a bit cold but it's not bad.

Similarly most of the eastern seaboard is fine, and the intermountain west is
similarly inhabitable with minimal meteorological issues.

I don't know where this trope that there are so many issues everywhere comes
from.

~~~
jdminhbg
Most of the eastern seaboard is vulnerable to serious hurricanes and winter
storms like Sandy.

~~~
Retric
Not unless your at sea level or would have flooding issues otherwise. Area I
grew up in had regular flooding on the property with both a river and large
stream on it, but the house was 200+ years old and never had water get
anywhere near it. It's kind of a simple rule don't put your house within 20'
of the water level in the highest flood anyone knows about.

In terms of snow that's a simple trade-off do you want an actual winter Y/N.
It kills off a lot of pests which IMO makes it worth a lot, plus you get out
of the monotony of dry vs wet that most tropical areas fall into. Some people
like going further north so rivers / ponds freeze ect but again trade-off.

~~~
jdminhbg
Sure, but the vast majority of the population on the US's eastern seaboard is
living within a few feet of sea level -- the whole point of those cities being
there is there proximity to sea trade routes.

~~~
Retric
Less than you might think. DC for example is on average 150 feet above sea
level. Even NYC is on average 33 feet above sea level. They mostly have to
deal with bacements and the subway flooding in major storms.

In general flooding is just expencive to deal with so people build there last.
This is also why Katerina mostly flooded poor areas.

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shardinator
Perhaps this is a little off-topic, but I'm convinced we can save a lot of
water by replacing showering with steaming (followed by super short shower to
rinse). I recently bought a facial steamer for allergy issues. 50ml of water
get's me more steam than I can bother to use. I'm usually done with 20ml.

I can't help but imagine that 1L of water would produce plenty of steam to
clean us off. If we then have a quick shower, say 30 sec. Not only are we
saving water, but probably also time, and you get a much cleaner, fresher
feeling.

We use about 35L of water to shower per person each day (I know I use more),
and assuming we have 1 shower a day (I generally have 2), then we are roughly
saving 30L/p/day.

We use about 120L/p/day so saving 30L is a 25% saving. Now that is pretty big.

I'm not pretending I know how to get everyone to steam instead of shower -
perhaps Las Vegas hotels could include steamers, and encourage people to steam
followed by a super short shower. But just saying if we wanted to make our
water last longer, we do have a way that doesn't involve loosing anything of
real value (I'm assuming everyone agrees that a quick steam is equivalent to a
shower).

* Daily water use per person [http://www.melbournewater.com.au/waterdata/wateruse/pages/de...](http://www.melbournewater.com.au/waterdata/wateruse/pages/default.aspx)

* Water use for shower, [http://www.yvw.com.au/home/inyourhome/understandingyourwater...](http://www.yvw.com.au/home/inyourhome/understandingyourwateruse/index.htm) ~ 7L/m * 5min = 35L/shower

~~~
matt_wulfeck
I think it's a fine idea, and I would actually like to try it osmetime.
However in the grand schema of water usage it's not going to move the needle.
This is especially try in places like California where the lion's share of
water is used to grow food.

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shardinator
Thanks, it was too easy to be a big solution.

