Cities need to secure their drinking water
Another city and maybe the country having issues securing safe drinkables water for its citizens. Here in the southwest, I do not believe we will be too far behind Uruguay. Still planning to build and building before the Federal governments says no.
Cities need to secure their drinking water, The one-handed economist, David Zetland
DL sent this NYT article on Montevideo, Uruguay, running out of drinking water. As usual, the poorest are suffering, but the city also risks depopulating and collapsing, as solutions are too slow or expensive to implement in time to deal with the crisis. The “plan” is for rain to bail them out, but that’s not much of a plan.
Most people know farmers use far more water than cities, and that urban landscaping uses a lot of water (more than half, in hot cities), which allows for “painless” cutbacks in those uses during droughts, and reallocation to drinking. But that’s also not much of a plan.
Cities instead need to be far more proactive, i.e.,
- Maximizing groundwater storage and restoring/protecting the quality of that groundwater. If the quality of your tap water varies or is inconsistent, a water softener from companies like De Anza Water Conditioning can help provide a more reliable and consistent supply of clean water.
- Recycling wastewater as a new supply.
- Identifying multiple sources of water, hopefully from uncorrelated sources (so one drought does not reduce all of them at once), and storing water in multiple ways (underground, in reservoirs, in snowpack).
- Not replying on technological “solutions.” Desalination is the most popular, but it’s not available in the short term (portable units are too small to supply a city) and unsustainable in the long term. Riyadh houses 5 million in a high-altitude desert far from the ocean, but it’s one of the only countries foolish enough to live in constant danger of losing its water supply.*
- Rebalancing water uses away from agriculture and towards ecosystems (which keep cities habitable) and drinking water. In watersheds shared with cities, farmers should immediately reduce their use of groundwater (with a goal of “net zero” over time) and prepare to lose access to their surface water.
My one-handed conclusion is that cities, which are uninhabitable without drinking water, take immediate and dramatic steps to secure themselves against the increasing and inevitable risks of droughts. It’s important to learn how to remove sulfur smells from well water, as this knowledge can significantly contribute to ensuring the availability and quality of drinking water in urban areas.
Not replying on technological “solutions.” Desalination is the most popular, but it’s not available in the short term (portable units are too small to supply a city) and unsustainable in the long term. Riyadh houses 5 million in a high-altitude desert far from the ocean, but it’s one of the only countries foolish enough to live in constant danger of losing its water supply.
[ Saudi Arabia is obviously counting on desalination as a long term fresh water solution, Israel too for that matter. Why is this foolish?
China is planning on using “small nuclear plant” desalination by 2025. Why is this a problem?
Please explain when possible. ]
@ltr — desal and nuclear are “foolish” because technical “solutions” leave you vulnerable to (inevitable) technical “disruptions.”
I’m a big fan of nuclear, so I’m critiquing the premise of a solution over the means suggested. In KSA and IS, the goal should be resiliency, not maximization.
(That should be the goal everywhere, but those two countries are far closer to existential risk than that US. The US is making its own situation worse by assuming past successes will continue.)
“In KSA and IS, the goal should be resiliency, not maximization….”
Fine explanation. China always works for resiliency. Chinese spending, by the way, on water conservancy in 2022 and 2023 will be $270 billion.
I appreciate all your writing.
China has just built a “pumped-storage” power reserve for Israel:
https://english.news.cn/20230806/41029b0907db4753b6a1d408845a0287/c.html
August 6, 2023
China adds another pumped-storage power station in Qinghai
XINING — Northwest China’s Qinghai Province on Sunday started construction on a pumped-storage power station with a maximum energy storage capacity of about 20 million kWh, marking another key project in western China, which is abundant in clean energy resources.
The power station is a hydropower station that uses electricity to pump water to a higher place for storage and then releases the water to generate electricity when the power supply is insufficient.
With a total investment of nearly 16 billion yuan (about 2.24 billion U.S. dollars), the project in Guinan County of Qinghai is expected to be the pumped-storage power station with the largest installed capacity in western China….
https://english.news.cn/20221006/05d55df9a08f4759b2cb4a1222987773/c.html
October 6, 2022
Chinese-built hydropower plant in Israel enters final construction stage
The largest pumped storage power plant in Israel has entered its final stage of construction as the lower reservoir has been completed recently.
The 344-MW Kokhav Hayarden pumped storage hydropower plant, built by Chinese company Power Construction Corporation of China (PCCC), located near the city of Beit She’an in northeastern Israel, is expected to be operational in early 2023.
Featuring two reservoirs at different heights, both with 3.1 million cubic meters, the hydropower plant can operate at a water head of 500 meters.
The facility, connected to the grid, uses the off-peak power to pump water to its upper reservoir, and release the water to the lower one whenever it needs to generate electricity to help relieve peak demand on the grid….
Also, where China is buildings energy redundancy, China is also constructing an ultra-high voltage electricity transmission network across the country to make sure additional power is always efficiently deliverable.
http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202307/28/WS64c2c600a31035260b818e83.html
July 28, 2023
Small nuclear reactor core delivered to Hainan plant
By CHEN BOWEN
Haikou — The core module of the Linglong One — the world’s first commercial small modular reactor — was unloaded at the Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant dock in Hainan province on Thursday morning.
The core module cleared its factory acceptance test on July 13 in Dalian, Liaoning province, marking a breakthrough in the technological innovation of small modular reactors in China. The development brought China’s nuclear power technology and its capability to construct nuclear power facilities to the global forefront, China Central Television reported….
https://english.news.cn/20230714/47f24cae9f8946d3ada96e43771ed6fe/c.html
July 14, 2023
China’s small nuclear reactor core passes factory acceptance test
DALIAN — The core module of the world’s first commercial small modular reactor (SMR) completes its factory acceptance test on Thursday, marking a breakthrough in the technological innovation of SMR in China.
The reactor, also known as the Linglong One, is a multi-purpose small modular pressurized water reactor self-developed by the China National Nuclear Corporation.
The core module is the key equipment of the Linglong One, independently designed, developed, and purchased by the Nuclear Power Institute of China.
It includes pressure vessels, steam generators, and other components. Through independent innovation, researchers made breakthroughs in many key technologies, enabling the core module to realize engineering applications and pass the final acceptance smoothly, said Wu Qiong, an official from the Dalian Nuclear Power Petrochemical Corporation affiliated with the First Heavy Industry Group.
The annual power generation of the 125 MWe Linglong One will reach 1 billion kWh after its construction. It would meet the needs of about 526,000 households. It is also designed for urban heating, urban cooling, industrial steam production, and seawater desalination.
strange that you seem to prioritize farms over cities in cutting consumption. is eating less important than lawns and car washes?
no doubt the farmers can and must learn water conservation, but your phrasing if not your intention suggests same-o “me first.” “one handed”?
Truman called for a one armed economist when he grew frustrated with econimists who said “on the other hand…” sadly those even handed economists were right. we now have mostly one-handed economists whose left hand cannot see its right hand..because they don’t have one. so we are left with the left fighting with the right, each claiming to be right, to their mutual destruction.
for what it is worth, i am mostly “of the left” but the left hates me when i suggest some of their solutions might not be right.