How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 076: California Looks To The Ocean To Solve Drought Problem
California has been in a severe drought for the past 4 years and they had to conserve water in the meantime. However, a growing population and increasing climate change impacts makes things more challenging. So the government of California is turning to the Ocean to solve their water needs. The problem is that in doing so, the consequences would be to increase carbon emissions and potentially impairing ocean wildlife. So what is a state to do? Listen to the podcast to find out.
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Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session76
Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, session 76. Today on the episode, we are going to talk about how California is turning to the oceans for its water, but there is a couple of catches, not just one, but a couple, and we're going to talk about it on today's episode. Stay tuned. [Music] Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, he still puts his hands in the air because he doesn't care. Andrew Lewin. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, your voice for the ocean. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, founder of SpeakUpForBlue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean punner. That's right. I am an entrepreneur, and everything I do is for the ocean. And today, we're going to talk about how a state or an area, in this case California, is going to address their drought. They're turning to the ocean for water, but first, I've got two announcements. One, if you want to support this podcast, you can do so through a crowdfunding project that I launched a couple of weeks ago. It's called Patreon. It's a monthly, it's a recurring podcast, or recurring support crowdfunding source for creators, such as YouTubers and podcasters, such as myself, where you can support podcasts you really love. You can do so at SpeakUpForBlue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. And I have a bunch of different levels that you can support at and incentives to do so. It gets certain things if you support at that level. And I've got goals of where I want to take this podcast and not only and beyond, really, not just this podcast and beyond, to bring you the latest and greatest of what's going on in the ocean and talk about ocean issues to make you aware of what's going on and how you can live for a better ocean. So you can go do so again at SpeakUpForBlue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. And you can give your support there, I thank you in advance for those of you who do give your support. The other announcement that I have to make is next week, next Friday is Christmas. I do celebrate Christmas, so Merry Christmas to all of you who do celebrate that holiday. And so what I'm going to do is I'm only going to post Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, of course, I'm doing this podcast, I'm recording it a little earlier because of the holidays, it gets a little busy for me. So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will be, there's going to be episodes on the podcast, Thursday and Friday, we won't have one. So I'm going to switch the schedule around. We're going to do a research Thursday on Wednesday, it's going to be a little different, but don't worry about it, it won't be too confusing, you'll still get the wonderful content that we know and love. So Thursday and Friday, there won't be a notion to talk Friday, unfortunately, it's one of my favorite days of the week, but we'll have one the next week after that. We'll have one on New Year's, I think, I think that's a good idea. So anyway, we'll get on to the episode, let's get on to the episode, those are the two announcements I have to make. California, as you may well know, for those of you who are in the U.S., even those who are in California, have been fighting a drought, especially for the last four years. They live most of California, especially southern an area, living in a desert, and it's, they're fortunate to have the ocean beside it. Living in a desert with climate change really coming to, we're really seeing effects of climate change happening, the drought has really increased, and it's gone to a point where there are shortages of water, and there are bans on usage of water for specific things mowing or watering your lawns and other sorts of things. So people have to really contain, they've had to really control the amount of water that they use. Of course, that means increase of bottled water and so forth, but the natural water that they get normally to their homes have to be conserved, right, because you don't want to overuse it because we've already been overusing it and we have to be, and people have to be careful just on a regular basis, but now especially when you're in a drought condition. Fires have been happening a lot of, a lot of bad and nasty things have been happening to California, displacing people from their homes, sometimes killing people, which obviously is a terrible tragedy. So the state of California is looking for alternatives to water usage or figuring out where they can get their water. A lot of times they've been using it from the mountaintops in northern California. Now they've decided to head towards the ocean and turn towards the ocean, they've got this huge coast and it's tons of water, but it's salt water. So how do they get around it? They build desalinization plants. A desalinization plant is essentially a plant that intakes water from the ocean, separates the water from the, or separates the salt from the water, and then transports that water to various houses and businesses and apartments and all that stuff. It's often used in Middle Eastern countries, where it's desert, because they have nowhere else to get their water and they get it a lot from the Arabic sea, I believe. Sea of Cortez. I've done some projects before, you know, looking at placement and effects of desalinization plants on the ocean. The problem is there's, you know, the one, on the one thing it addresses a significant problem in the state of California, which is lack of water. There's obviously a lot of ocean that borders California and it's basically prime for the taking. However, there are a lot of concerns from environmentalists and local communities about the effects of the desalinization plant on the environment and on the ocean itself. So we're going to talk about that today and what that means towards for the future. So the one thing we have to realize is when the salt gets separated from the water, it gets passed through, to separate it, it gets forced through these very small mesh size, where the salt molecules can't get through this mesh, but the water molecules can't. So very, very tiny mess size. But the problem is the amount of energy it takes to pass that water through for the separation to happen. It takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of electricity, which causes, you know, which is a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and can affect climate change. And the main concern right now is how is this going to affect climate change in the future? If California is going to be relying on these homes or on these desalinization plants, one has been built in San Diego County. In Southern California, obviously more are in the planning processes. What is that going to do to the climate? And especially with this new agreement that we've been hearing about in the last two weeks about the Paris agreement, the climate change talks in Paris COP 21, what, you know, where every country, 195 countries are planning on taking action, what is this going to do? Is this the right way of getting water to this state? Are we at a point right now where we're just reacting to a drought situation, which is obviously a fairly serious issue, are we reacting too quickly to these types of desalinization plants and that and by doing so, are we contributing to climate change, more to climate change? We're in a process where we need to reduce our contributions, our footprint on climate change. And now we have the desalinization plants that use extra electricity that will announce a lot of electricity that will actually cause more effects on climate change. It will actually increase the emissions. Here's how I see it. Right now, we're in California is in a pretty dire state. And there are many ways that you can use water. And in the article on buzzfeed.com, where I found the article, they mention desalinization is one way of doing it. There are some conditions. There's the climate change condition. There's also the fact that when you take the water from the ocean, you're also taking it. You can also affect animals in the ocean, plankton, larvae in those big water intakes that suck in all the water. Animals can be affected, animals can die. And so you're affecting the local habitat within that area. So that has to be addressed. Then you have the whole climate change problem, of course. So this alternative, the desalinization alternative, comes with a price. The other alternative that was suggested in the article was recycled water. So this is kind of one where you're reusing the water, you're reclaiming the water that you've already used. And it actually can be quite effective as you keep reusing the water. It's not a long term solution, but it adds to the diversity of ways you are producing water, drinking water for the area, right? Less controversial, water is already there, you're just reclaiming it, it's not that bad. Plus it doesn't cost as much money. The money it costs for desalinization plant is actually, the actual cost, they say between 2100 and 2300 American per acre foot or 325,000 gallons. So that's about twice as much as San Diego County pays for the water. It's piped in from further north, so from the north, from northern California. Now that really equates, that sounds like a lot of money per month, but for each household, it really equates to $5 more a month to a new plant for now, and that's one new plant. We don't, California population is increasing, the drought problem is increasing. So you're going to need, if you're going to the desalinization route and only the desalinization route, you're looking at areas, more areas with desalinization plants. So we're getting into more of a bind, so now that's five bucks more now, but eventually those costs are probably going to increase. And I don't know why they increase, but over time, those costs are going to increase. And so your $5 a month now, it could be $10 a month and say five years. It could be $20 a month and say 50 years. Who knows, right? The maintenance is going to increase, you know, and the cost are going to increase because everything increases, right? Everything increases. Nothing really decreases, especially when it comes to cost. And of course, this is something that's very important, it's a very important issue. You have to get drinking water to a lot of people, especially with an increasing population. So in California, it's just one of those places where people want to go. They want to, I grew up thinking that I was going to live in California and I'm from Canada. You know, it was just one of those things where I just thought that's where I was going to be. You'd be a marine biologist, you'd go to California, right? You're on the Pacific Ocean and there's lots of things to see, lots of things to study. Never happened that way, but you know, a lot of people have that California dream. And they want to go out and a lot of times people start a new life, they live on the west coast. It's a very different life. It's a very laid back lifestyle, very, it's a more healthier lifestyle or a healthier lifestyle and that more healthier, it's a healthier lifestyle. However, it is, you know, as someone who grew up in L.A. told me, a friend of mine said you're in a desert, you know, and you're by an ocean. And it's a very weird landscape. It's a very cool landscape, but it's a very weird landscape. Whether it doesn't change that much, it's not a lot of rain. So you're not getting that replenishment of fresh water and it becomes quite difficult to, you know, hold the population the size of California, especially when it's increasing. So, or, or to supply water to that. So there's obviously going to be problems. In my opinion, you're going to have to diversify, the California is going to have to diversify how they get water. So we like it or not, they're going to have to diversify. And one of those things are desalination plants. I don't see, I'm not an engineer, of course, but I don't really see another alternative. Reclamation of water, recycled water is going to be very important. It should also play a role, just in case something goes out, but we should always use as many sustainable methods as possible. But desalination is going to be a huge player. It's worked in the Middle East. I know in the Middle East, they're not as environmentally conscious, however, they need to survive. They need water. If they're going to live in the Middle East and they live in a desert, they're going to need water because they're not getting that replenishment. So that is essentially the episode is California is in a bit of a pickle and it's a dry pickle and they need water and they're going to turn to the ocean and they're going to get a desalination plant. I would like to see, sorry, before we finish that, this article, one of the things, sort of the people in charge of the desalination plant said, is that it passed all permitting and all processes for government regulations and government permitting. I always take that with a grain of salt because the government is also in a pickle. It sees the need for water for a lot to feed or to cool down or provide their supply California. There aren't many alternatives, especially when you're living in a desert and you've been in a drought for four years, most of the Californians in a desert. You have to supply water to this population, it's a basic right to water. They're in a pickle because they're in a jam because they need to actually approve these kind of things, whether it contributes a lot to climate change or not or affects the ocean or not. There are regulations that go into play in terms of when the intakes can go on or when they go off for entrapment, which is essentially the process of larvae and animal eggs getting trapped in these filters or getting sucked into these plants. However, I don't think desalination is really going to go away and I'm surprised that this is really only the first plant that we've heard about coming into California. There are other processes going on, but people are not optimistic of them getting approved, which I guess maybe is a good thing or a bad thing, but really when it comes down to it, we need to get water to people. The health of the people really matter. I would like to see desalination plants take a more sustainable role and they have, this plant has where one third of their energy that they use will be sustainable. They're installing solar panels, obviously in California, that's a good thing that's going to help. They are doing their best to be as sustainable as possible. Hopefully, eventually, we can get those desalination plants to work completely on sustainable energy resources, which would help a great deal. I think with the climate change talks, the agreements that have been made, the actions that need to be taken, I think it's going to force engineers and policymakers and regulators to really get these desalination plants and areas where we need to adapt to different changes in climate change, because the drought is really due to climate change. We need to adapt and we need to adapt properly. We can't just put up things in reaction. We need to think about them. We need to make them sustainable in terms of energy use. They're hoping that the engineers of this project and the people in charge are hoping that and they want to make this desalination plant carbon neutral, eventually, and they are going to be paying for offsets. That's a good thing. Back in the day, 10 years ago, that would never have happened. Carbon offsets are being paid, they're going to make one-third of the energy use sustainable. Hopefully, that will increase over time, and then water gets supplied to the residents of California. I can see this being a bit of a win and a bit of an adaptation to climate change effects. This is what we're in two folks. This is what we're in for a long time, is adaptation to climate change. Even as we get the emissions down, we still have to adapt to the changes that are already happening now. This is one of those alternatives, and it's not ideal, but maybe it can be down the road. We'll keep an eye on these desalination plants, maybe try and get somebody to come in and talk about desalination and the effects on the environment in the past, and maybe we can get more information on that. That's the episode today. If you want to support this podcast more, you can do so by going to speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N, and I really appreciate if you can do that. Other than that, that is the episode for today. I hope you have a great Monday, and I hope your week is filled with holiday cheer. My name is Angeline, I'm the host of the speaker for Blue Podcast. Happy conservation. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)