Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Israel, a much smaller economy, has built desalination plants that are even supplying neighbouring countries with water while at the same time supplying a decent size agriculture sector that actually plants and harvests in very desert like conditions.
California certainly is rich enough to do it, and they are also located in literally the perfect place to build the plants.
|
It still doesn't work for agriculture. Israel uses it for domestic water, and in those quantities the high cost is much less of an issue. But with current desalination technology, agriculture can't really be competitive using it when other places can get water for essentially nothing.
Even if you ignore the massive capital costs of desalination plants, just the electricity usage makes it cost-prohibitive. A pound of beef would use about 25-30 kWh of electricity if it used desalinated water while a pound of chicken or pork would use about 10 kWh to desalinate the water.
Israel primarily uses grey water for agriculture, along with using water saving measures like drip irrigation. Both of those things (along with growing appropriate crops) would be a far more effective ways for California to conserve water than desalination.