One of my dad's ideas that he mentions every now and then is that California should build a pipeline from the Mississippi River to California to solve our water shortage problems. His argument is that we can build massively long pipelines for oil so why not water.
I kind of roll my eyes a bit and mention that the price of a gallon of crude is hundreds of times more than the price of a gallon of water* so solutions that work for oil pipelines might not be cost effective for water pipelines. And going over the Rockies is not going to be easy.
But ignoring the political and ecological issues, how would you build a giant pipe/aqueduct from some place on the Mississippi (or even some other River like the Missouri) to California and how much would it cost? An estimate within an order of magnitude or so is all I'm looking for.
There are several questions here
1. How big does the pipe/aqueduct have to be? Assume the pipeline needs to carry enough water to double the California's current supply
2. What is the best route? Maybe it should follow the coast so that you don't need to build it over the Rockies? Maybe you could even build some of it in the ocean. The gulf of Mexico isn't very deep and putting it offshore might solve some problems.
3. How much will it cost?
Please feel free to let your whole eco ethos be horrified by even the mention of this idea. All rants about the absurdity of this idea will be appreciated but what I'm really looking for is how much will it cost to do assuming that all the ecological and political ideas can be ignored.
*Apparently farmers pay about $1000 for an acrefoot (325,851 gallons) or about .3 cents a gallon and a gallon of crude costs about $1.50.
I kind of roll my eyes a bit and mention that the price of a gallon of crude is hundreds of times more than the price of a gallon of water* so solutions that work for oil pipelines might not be cost effective for water pipelines. And going over the Rockies is not going to be easy.
But ignoring the political and ecological issues, how would you build a giant pipe/aqueduct from some place on the Mississippi (or even some other River like the Missouri) to California and how much would it cost? An estimate within an order of magnitude or so is all I'm looking for.
There are several questions here
1. How big does the pipe/aqueduct have to be? Assume the pipeline needs to carry enough water to double the California's current supply
2. What is the best route? Maybe it should follow the coast so that you don't need to build it over the Rockies? Maybe you could even build some of it in the ocean. The gulf of Mexico isn't very deep and putting it offshore might solve some problems.
3. How much will it cost?
Please feel free to let your whole eco ethos be horrified by even the mention of this idea. All rants about the absurdity of this idea will be appreciated but what I'm really looking for is how much will it cost to do assuming that all the ecological and political ideas can be ignored.
*Apparently farmers pay about $1000 for an acrefoot (325,851 gallons) or about .3 cents a gallon and a gallon of crude costs about $1.50.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1Gz7vFI
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