Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
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.
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You do know where a lot of the grey water comes from, right?
First there is water from the desalination plants, which is then saved & recovered as much as possible, then there is grey water....
Israel also treats all their sewage, recovering almost 100% of it.
And over 80% of the water overall is recovered and reused bringing the real life cost of the desalination plants down, as the water they produce is constantly reused as much as possible.
How much does California recover?
From there, Israel has found a way to supply a growing agriculture sector in more desert like conditions than California has. Also, California has large aquifer systems that they seem hellbent on depleting instead of managing properly.
You are right, one approach doesn't solve everything, but California is doing nothing outside of hoping it rains and snows.