Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
But pumping water over long distances requires vast amounts of energy as well. Based on the numbers I've seen, pumping water about 6-700 km uses the same energy as desalinating the same amount of water. So pumping it thousands of kilometres is a non-starter. Just the electricity costs would be 5-6x the price of desalination.
|
Fair enough, but it doesn't address the potential capacity issue and/or time to make enough plants to cover the people affected. We also have no idea how many people would actually need the water and where. Again I don't think the cost will matter it's "what can we build the fastest and easiest to get this stuff the fastest and easiest" and I believe that will land on pipelines and probably, initially, trucks with barrels. I think it's a misnomer to think that people will always default to the most cost-effective solution. We absolutely do not. If that were true Canada would have a bunch more pipelines and LNG ports. Idealism can get in the way of proper solutions. And idealism doesn't just include environmentalists. Trump is an idealist, but his ideal is him as King of a strong and potentially expanding America.
Look it's a hypothetical, but I think thinking about water just like any other resource that goes into our cars or phones is slippery mistake. The main point is, when people need it, they will come for it. And it's not even just about water. We can't be blind to what Canada would look like to an imperialist. Small and likely easy to take population, basically limitless resources, crazy amounts of space for all your unwanted, and Arctic supremacy. Trump is old AF so I can believe he'll be dead before he does anything insane but if people like him continue to be the trend in America, it'll trouble for Canada.