448
Arizona's solar-over-canal project will tackle its major drought issue
(interestingengineering.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Arizona and the entire South West don't have a drought problem. They have an aridification problem. While this canal project is a good move in general and we should have been doing it years ago, there is no solving the over-population of a desert. One look at Colorado River basin and its reservoirs is enough to know there is nothing we can do to fix it.
With any luck pretty soon they'll look at alfalfa farming in the desert too
Why the fuck are humans so stupid that we decided to grow one of the thirstiest crops in the fucking desert.
Because entrenched, and exceptionally wealthy interests. Reading about how about in CA there are tons of Colorado River fed foreign owned farms growing alfalfa to export to the middle east is the definition of capitalist success...the profit of a commodity has been made the most efficient; acquired cheaply for something otherwise impossible with international arbitrage as the medium.
Every time someone asks people in the southwest to take shorter showers show them this: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2022/02/24/california-water/
We should probably update the dictionary so the word 'greed' is synonymous to dumb, stupid, ect. Cuz it sure seems that greedy people just have a super low IQ.
They already do.
Also, all those new Intel wafer plants near Phoenix.
And Samsung and TSMC and others
Yeah... but sometimes you've gotta accept that a band-aid is all you can do. While this doesn't fix the underlying problems, if it works it'll provide more water and low carbon energy, which is better than nothing.
Unfortunately they will just use even more then, so the "shortage" will be maintained.
The "one more lane" of water supply.