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A lot of the western US has been in drought nearly my entire life. They have been using the underground rivers nearly to depletion (Kansas) or importing water via massive pipelines from other states (California). It's been completely mismanaged even down to choice of crop (I.E. Almonds aren't drought friendly and should not be grown in places that have them).

I imagine if things get even slightly worse it could help lead to a collapse.



Are these repurposed oil pipelines? Or dedicated fresh water pipelines built specifically to replenish water supplies?

I'd imagine as oil declines, the pipelines from the gulf might be able to send desalinated water back inland.

Not sure how feasible this would be, thoughts?


The issue there is desalinating the water in an environmentally responsible way. It's hugely energy intensive.


There have been some encouraging results recently. For example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22269115

In any case, the time frame we're talking about is 10-20 years from now. Lots of time for even more breakthroughs.




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