"It never rains in southern California"

softdown
softdown Solar Expert Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭✭
Lack of water for the southern California farming community has been an inestimable problem for years now. Yet there is plenty of water in northern California. Yet simply taking the water is essentially little more than theft. 

Viable solutions? Seems to me they should be able to hammer out an agreement on price. Oh wait, we are working with California liberals. Oh well. 

Realistic solutions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meDpNwem0Vo
First Bank:16 180 watt Grape Solar with  FM80 controller and 3648 Inverter....Fullriver 8D AGM solar batteries. Second Bank/MacGyver Special: 10 165(?) watt BP Solar with Renogy MPPT 40A controller/ and Xantrex C-35 PWM controller/ and Morningstar PWM controller...Cotek 24V PSW inverter....forklift and diesel locomotive batteries

Comments

  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    softdown said:
    Lack of water for the southern California farming community has been an inestimable problem for years now. Yet there is plenty of water in northern California. Yet simply taking the water is essentially little more than theft. 

    Viable solutions? Seems to me they should be able to hammer out an agreement on price.
    Farmers will never agree to that.  A market-based pricing system for water would mean the end of farming in the Central Valley.  Farmers there prefer political solutions that provide them with cheap/free water.  (As evidence of this, take a drive down the 5 and note how many political billboards are there, placed on farm land.)
  • softdown
    softdown Solar Expert Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭✭
    Was reading that a lot of those central valley acres are farmed by Silicone Valley millionaires. They are likely to be politically connected. I have no expertise in the California water situation at all. 
    First Bank:16 180 watt Grape Solar with  FM80 controller and 3648 Inverter....Fullriver 8D AGM solar batteries. Second Bank/MacGyver Special: 10 165(?) watt BP Solar with Renogy MPPT 40A controller/ and Xantrex C-35 PWM controller/ and Morningstar PWM controller...Cotek 24V PSW inverter....forklift and diesel locomotive batteries
  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    A market-based pricing system for water would mean the end of.....

    That market price for water would end FRAKING, or drive up the cost of new Nat Gas. very quickly let alone food production......Think about no cherry tomatoes at Christmas time (gasp) :o ....  we might have to have bovine teeth implants to survive as the canine teeth we have are for ripping and tearing MEAT, which would be in short supply, but the Nat gas would last a bit longer, Oh market place pricing on a now diminishing product  will go UP!

     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    softdown said:
    Was reading that a lot of those central valley acres are farmed by Silicone Valley millionaires. They are likely to be politically connected. I have no expertise in the California water situation at all. 
    A lot of them are millionaires, but not from silicon valley.  Water entitlements have made a lot of people there into millionaires.  And they react very poorly when anyone in government tells them they have to give up that entitlement.
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    A market-based pricing system for water would mean the end of.....

    That market price for water would end FRAKING, or drive up the cost of new Nat Gas. very quickly let alone food production......Think about no cherry tomatoes at Christmas time (gasp) :o ....  we might have to have bovine teeth implants to survive as the canine teeth we have are for ripping and tearing MEAT, which would be in short supply

    Given that your typical human has 12 "bovine" and 4 "canine" teeth per mouth, I think we'd all do just fine if we had to eat impossible burgers instead of cow ones.

    Agreed on natural gas.  Any time you move a market from subsidized to open there's a lot of adjustment.
  • Dave Angelini
    Dave Angelini Solar Expert Posts: 6,730 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    You will love impossible burgers from South America when the greatest growing region in the world turns into a desert. Three of the countries below us in the Sierra produce 30% of the US food needs. They have lost thousands of acres of growing land to lack of water. The voters have voted for more water and yet 40 years have gone by and not one new storage project has been started.

    The Sierra club that was for Nuc power to stop Dam storage has won this battle for now.


    "we go where power lines don't" Sierra Nevada mountain area
       htps://offgridsolar1.com/
    E-mail offgridsolar@sti.net

  • softdown
    softdown Solar Expert Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭✭
    I seem to sense a lot of angst from long time California residents.
    First Bank:16 180 watt Grape Solar with  FM80 controller and 3648 Inverter....Fullriver 8D AGM solar batteries. Second Bank/MacGyver Special: 10 165(?) watt BP Solar with Renogy MPPT 40A controller/ and Xantrex C-35 PWM controller/ and Morningstar PWM controller...Cotek 24V PSW inverter....forklift and diesel locomotive batteries
  • Dave Angelini
    Dave Angelini Solar Expert Posts: 6,730 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2019 #9
    You may sense that on the forum but most are clueless in this state or just believe what they are told comrad ;)  

    Another cheery thought about the number of cities (7?) and such that are insolvent from unfunded pension liabilities. Folks taking home a couple 100K+ per year and thinking this is great. Until it isn't.

    Colorado is not that far away from this either. The cold winter may save you though.

    It is that time! Cheers!
    "we go where power lines don't" Sierra Nevada mountain area
       htps://offgridsolar1.com/
    E-mail offgridsolar@sti.net

  • softdown
    softdown Solar Expert Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭✭
    You may sense that on the forum but most are clueless in this state or just believe what they are told comrad ;)  

    Another cheery thought about the number of cities (7?) and such that are insolvent from unfunded pension liabilities. Folks taking home a couple 100K+ per year and thinking this is great. Until it isn't.

    Colorado is not that far away from this either. The cold winter may save you though.

    It is that time! Cheers!
    Most are clueless period. Otherwise the streets would be filled with protestors. Common sense is quite uncommon these days. 
    First Bank:16 180 watt Grape Solar with  FM80 controller and 3648 Inverter....Fullriver 8D AGM solar batteries. Second Bank/MacGyver Special: 10 165(?) watt BP Solar with Renogy MPPT 40A controller/ and Xantrex C-35 PWM controller/ and Morningstar PWM controller...Cotek 24V PSW inverter....forklift and diesel locomotive batteries
  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    "Insolvent" and "unfunded" are not well understood and remarkably squishy terms.  Change LT expected nominal return on 20yr investment from ~7-8%  in many/most pension plans to the 0-3% which seems more likely, and there aren't likely to be many fully funded ones left.

    Private DB plans will go bust and/or be bailed out by public plans to some extent.  Public DB plans will go bust and/or be bailed out by the public to some extent.  That they will be bailed out isn't really in doubt, only the extent to which they can/will be is.
    Off-grid.  
    Main daytime system ~4kw panels into 2xMNClassic150 370ah 48v bank 2xOutback 3548 inverter 120v + 240v autotransformer
    Night system ~1kw panels into 1xMNClassic150 700ah 12v bank morningstar 300w inverter
  • Dave Angelini
    Dave Angelini Solar Expert Posts: 6,730 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    Some call that a "haircut" Estragon. This always comes to fruition once a bear market begins. That is long overdue (historically) and diversification/balance is the only safeguard. I hope....
    "we go where power lines don't" Sierra Nevada mountain area
       htps://offgridsolar1.com/
    E-mail offgridsolar@sti.net

  • softdown
    softdown Solar Expert Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭✭
    Was watching an avocado grower talk about the good old days when they got quality "sweetwater" from the delta that the avocado's responded well to. I do wonder if the "sweetness" was caused by Sacramento sewage - which the avocado's would love.

    He called current water from the Colorado river "salty". Well - in a way. Not sodium chloride (table salt) but plenty of calcium and magnesium "salts" from all the rocks the river runs over. Hard water - high pH and mineral content. A lot of plants/trees favor softer, more acidic water with plenty of phosphates/fertilizer/sewage whathaveyou. 


    First Bank:16 180 watt Grape Solar with  FM80 controller and 3648 Inverter....Fullriver 8D AGM solar batteries. Second Bank/MacGyver Special: 10 165(?) watt BP Solar with Renogy MPPT 40A controller/ and Xantrex C-35 PWM controller/ and Morningstar PWM controller...Cotek 24V PSW inverter....forklift and diesel locomotive batteries