As an engineer, here's how I look at the idea of pumping water from Mississippi to the West

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John P Funk said:
Central planning of agricultural production has never "worked", but instead has caused the deaths of millions in Russia, China, Ukraine, Laos, etc. I think it's best to let Adam Smiths "Invisible Hand" do its work.
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While I agree that central planning is a disaster for agriculture we also have to acknowledge that agricultural markets in the US and the world are very far from a free market. Starting with the massive subsidy that is all the water and irrigation infrastructure in the US along with tax policy, import tariffs and various direct payments to farmers we are nowhere close to a free market. The chance of adopting something similar to a completely free market in agricultural is also close to zero. What percent of the US senate would be run out of office if they came out for eliminating all agricultural subsidies and tariffs? Beyond the farmers themselves their is a pretty big group of voters who are in favor of affordable food.

The best option is to adjust various agricultural policies to disincentivize growing water intensive crops in areas with limited water that can be grown in areas with more water. As JFR noted winter vegetables are an example of something that it likely makes sense to grow in Arizona and California. There is enough water to do that if we grow less things like cotton and cattle feed. The government does not have to say you must grow this much of this specific crop.
 
ndscott50 said:
disincentivize growing water intensive crops
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Wouldn't raising the cost of water accomplish this? I think we're saying the same thing in different ways, you want the government to institute "policies" and I want the market to do it. Granted it's not an easy question, and I agree we are a long ways from a "free market"(which is kind of my point). Letting a 100 year old agreement rule tomorrows releases, just doesn't make sense(and never did).
 
Phillbo said:
I don't think Az grows much Cotton anymore...
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Unless things have changed a lot since 2017, cotton is the #2 crop in AZ after hay/forage in terms of acres planted--182,000 acres in 2017. AZ is the #11 cotton growing state in the USA. But in terms of $ value, cotton is far down the list compared to vegetables (including melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes) and other ag products in AZ, including hay, nursery crops, cattle, and milk. And in the big picture, of the 26 million total ag acres in AZ, 22 million are pastureland--only 1.2 million acres are cropland.

Have fun with this report from USDA, which summarizes (and expands on) all of this...

 
Gunny said:
So it's out of the question to move the farms. It is what it is. They will continue to suck the system dry unless a miracle happens. Have fun with that.
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Are you even aware of the things that are most important to humanity? Do you even know where our food comes from?
 
I do know growing up that my home state of Wisconsin was considered the dairy capital and at some point California tried to abscond with that notion. So I assume dairy works in the Midwest??? Thought maybe those farmers could stop farming the desert and move to the Midwest to a state that gets quite a bit of rainfall. But some of you act like that's out of the question thus I said have fun with that. I also stated I'm not a farmer so I was just making an uneducated guess. Was just trying to help. It's NOT my problem. I'm still in Plano, TX like Jay. Mesa is on hold until somebody can come up with a real solution.
 
flowerbug said:
except for the problem that for every gallon of ethanol you don't burn you are instead going to be burning gasoline which has to come from somewhere (which means the price of gasoline would be higher than it is). even if i don't particularly like it and would be much happier if we weren't doing this, it ends up as a likely net positive for the short term. in the longer term, electric cars will end up being a much better option. in the middle where we are at now every bit of electric generation that is clean is a gain for the planet.

to get back to the Lake Powell aspect of this there are certain amounts of water that are currently being used for power plants and that could be thousands of acre feet.
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Consider this, at least 3,000 gallons of water are required to produce one bushel of corn. Even the nation's largest Ogallala Aquifer is running short of water, which runs under corn country. We could also rescind the executive orders and make America energy independent again.
Studies show
  • An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
 
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iamaverb said:
Consider this, at least 3,000 gallons of water are required to produce one bushel of corn. Even the nation's largest Ogallala Aquifer is running short of water, which runs under corn country. We could also rescind the executive orders and make America energy independent again.
Studies show
  • An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
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Facts are amazing
 
It still astounds me that diesel, an unrefined gasoline, went from less than the lowest priced gas to the highest price gas. My buddy had an entire fleet of diesel trucks and MAN was he pi$$ed when that started happening and that was his biggest gripe. Unrefined gas goes through none of the cleaning processes of the refined gasses at the pump. His words. We're lucky in TX because we are 87/89/93 and we have no ethanol stations all over. One of my worries moving to AZ was where to get good gas and ethanol doesn't cut it.
 
California uses 4 to 5.5 maf per year to grow alfalfa.
Optimum alfalfa irrigation in Imperial Valley is over 60 inches of water per year.
ucmanagedrought.ucdavis.edu

Alfalfa

UC Drought Management - Alfalfa
ucmanagedrought.ucdavis.edu ucmanagedrought.ucdavis.edu
Flood irrigation uses about twice a much water as drip. Drip is expensive to install and gophers are a problem.
Alfalfa is exported in huge quantities to China and other Asian countries, mostly for dairy cattle.
I have a hunch that subsidizing alfalfa drip irrigation would be a lot cheaper and yield a lot more water than a pipeline to the Mississippi.

There is no one solution to Colorado River water problems, but there are lots of solutions that can help.
In San Diego, we build a huge desalinization plant. Unfortunately it uses a lot of energy. We also paid a large portion of the concrete lining costs of the All-American canal, saving a large amount of Colorado river water.

I recall reading somewhere that if we ate no meat one day per month, the water savings would fill up Lake Powell. I doubt that it would but it gets you to thinking...
 
Greg Archer 71 said:
Privatizing water is a no-no. When a company gets a hold of a natural resource such as water its first concern is to secure investment via shareholders. Its second consideration is to make a profit. Its third objective is to deliver a dividend to the investors. The fourth thing on the list is to spend as little as possible 'upgrading infrastructure' whilst creaming the 'client' for the services they've no intention of supplying. As they say - better the devil you know.
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You don’t have to privatize water in order to have a market set prices. RF spectrum is not privatized, it’s extremely regulated by the government, but prices for RF spectrum are set by the market through auctions. If you want to remove the insane, gross inefficiencies in water use in the SW then letting a market set prices is entirely sensible approach and there is absolutely no need to privatize to do so.
 
Gunny said:
It still astounds me that diesel, an unrefined gasoline, went from less than the lowest priced gas to the highest price gas. My buddy had an entire fleet of diesel trucks and MAN was he pi$$ed when that started happening and that was his biggest gripe. Unrefined gas goes through none of the cleaning processes of the refined gasses at the pump. His words. We're lucky in TX because we are 87/89/93 and we have no ethanol stations all over. One of my worries moving to AZ was where to get good gas and ethanol doesn't cut it.
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The law of supply and demand. It's ironic that the only way you can get diesel prices to fall is to stop using it.
 
Holy Catfish, Martha! Why would anyone grow corn?

Section = 640 A.
Good yield of corn: 250 bu./ A.
Price of corn: $6.60/ bu. (it was $7.60)
Thus 640 X 250 X $6.60 = $1,056,000........$1650/ A.

Just sayin...
 
Gunny said:
Not sure what the demand was 30 years ago but he was none too pleased.
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Yep, that would be me: driving diesels for over 30 years.

Back then, in the single dollar prices of fuel days, auto diesel was consistently cheaper than gasoline by an average 50 cents per gallon. Diesel began to escalate in cost during the Obama administration because of the ravages of the EPA. They required a new and extensive refinement process and diesel has been high ever since.

I was an organic truck farmer the FIRST time diesel reached $5.00 / gallon. My wallet took a whuppin'.

Try Googling terms like sustainable diesel, sustainable jet fuel, new diesel technology, etc. You will see a lot of hope on the horizon. We are going through an hysteria driven by politicians trying to appeal to a much younger but ignorant class of voter. The ICE is not going anywhere.
 
I worked at a gas station during the 1973 oil embargo. Hi test (premium) was 30 cents per gallon. Diesel was a few cents cheaper. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth generally at the thought the price would soar to OMG, 50 cents. There was a huge movement to diesel vehicles over the next few years and the cost of diesel correspondingly increased dramatically, thanks to our old friend supply/demand. Way before Mr. Obama. History, not politics...
 
I grew up outside NYC and lived with the smell of vehicle exhaust as just part of life. A few years ago, I traveled to Mazatlan, where on the long bus ride into town, I noticed a growing stench in the air. It took a minute to recognize the foulness- leaded, "cheap" fuel prevalent in Mexico.
 
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