Pipelines From Flood to Drought

Floods to Drought: Check out the EcoFlow DELTA 2 here: bit.ly/3xGcqns and amzn.to/3dUEpIT and use code RBNUGZH7 for an extra 5% discount.
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I was recently thinking about floods and droughts, and how both are getting more extreme, and I started to wonder, why don't we pump water from areas prone to floods to areas prone to drought? What is the hold-up, is it even possible, and how might it actually look? That's what we're looking into today, so if you've had the same idea, sit back and relax and let's dive in. Pipelines From Flood to Drought.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:37 Intro To Water
02:11 Water in California
05:57 Drought Prevention
06:34 Floods
07:12 Flood Risk Management
08:01 Flood Prediction
10:31 Infrastructure Feasibility
11:22 Oil Pipelines?
13:23 Costs?
14:34 How much Water?
16:09 Conclusion
what we'll cover
two bit da vinci,california drought,water crisis,hurricane ian,droughts and floods,how to solve floods,how to solve droughts,floods and fires,Why Not Pump Water From Flood Areas To Drought?,flood management,how to solve california water crisis,how to solve california drought,how to solve california wildfires,pumping flood water,extreme weather 2022,extreme weather ian,hurrican ian,ian,ian storm,hurricane ian floods,desalination,desalination plants, INSANE Plan Fixes Flooding & Droughts at the Same Time!. #Califonia #floods #californiafloods, Pipelines From Flood to Drought

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Check out the EcoFlow DELTA 2 here: bit.ly/3xGcqns and amzn.to/3dUEpIT and use code RBNUGZH7 for an extra 5% discount.

[@mynyasabut]

I've a question bugging me for decades, could you cover it in one of your videos? How much of an influence if at all have, space rockets launches huge ammounts of energy released into the athmosphere throughout the years?

[@keithwhite5657]

What makes you think nvidia are going to do better at predicting the weather as the met office has had problems for years and you still ignore the problem of the Haarp creation that's called The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program that pumps millions of Watts into the atmosphere to help change jet streams that's just the start of there research or is this idea to work with haarp that covers up haarps movements? as we know haarp has many haarp stations around the world as the biggest one is in Norway .

[@GlueFactoryBJJ]

IMO, not only is this "something that should be looked at, but it is NECESSARY. Water storage and transfer (pumping) will become increasingly important as weather patterns continue to change due to climate change. The west coast is not the only place "water rights" are becoming a major issue. The aquifers in the Southeastern US are becoming a huge legal issue as they are beginning to be overused. The same with many interstate rivers. It's time for us (here in the US) to wake up and realized that while "water" seems to be unlimited, "water, when you need it" is not.

[@brianwnc8168]

This is an inspiring idea that seems likely to be necessary if we are to secure out food supply. Great video. I appreciate your work

[@griffincherry7748]

Write a bill! Get it to congress! Lobby and get this passed! It would create jobs and be great for the environment and save money from flood damages!

[@KJSvitko]

For decades property developers have filled in wetlands and built homes, strip malls and shopping centers on them. Wetlands are natures over flow, flood storage and ground water recharge ares. Wetlands need to be protected, expanded and appreciated for the flood control and water storage that they provide.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

So true

[@silvergreylion]

You have to realize, though, that the root cause of floods is deforestation. Forest areas have soft soil, which rain will soak into immediately. On open areas with hard soil and little to no vegetation, rain will mostly pool and run off, into streams and rivers and/or nearby areas, which will overflow, causing floods. Viktor Schauberger predicted this. He called it full-cycle for a natural system with plenty of forest, and half-cycle for systems without. Half-cycle means there will be ongoing cycles of floods and droughts, when most forests have been cut down. The only way to fix it is reforestation. Pumping water around is a band-aid solution, and will fail as floods and droughts will only become more severe over time. Look at India to see what that would look like; rain for months on end, flooding living areas, destroying people's homes, then drought, which will eventually force people to migrate. Forests naturally attract rainfall, whereas open areas generally only get rain from large rainstorms. Temperature in open areas lack the regulation from the water and moisture, and swings from very high during the day to very low at night, both of which cause the soil to dry out further. Farming the wrong way is a contributing factor for the hard soil. Viktor Schauberger invented a plough, which flips the soil a full turn, leaving it mostly undisturbed, but allowing rain to soak in. A cover crop such as grass should also be left in place over winter, to avoid the soil drying out and becoming too compact. Lastly, some past civilizations built terraces on hilly lands, which forced the water soaking into the soil to follow a widely winding path down, retaining the water for weeks or months after each rainfall.

[@donjonjr1]

Yes and add a gutter and drainage ditch everywhere on top of all that. There is not enough recharge basins to compensate for the usaage. Like 2016 when California had record rain fall with inadequate storage capabilities so much fresh water flowed out to sea. Fun fact; 1 inch of rain on a square mile is 18 million gallons of water, multiply that by 5700 square miles (for Los Angeles and orange county) equals 100 billion gallons, multiply by 20 inches for that area equals 2 trillion gallons of water. So much water flowed out to sea but it was sweet having a constantly flowing river in the usually dry river beds into summer. Even the dozens of new waterfalls in the local mountains was a special sight.

[@YodaWhat]

@@silvergreylion > Look at India to see what that would look like; rain for months on end, flooding living areas, destroying people's homes, then drought, which will eventually force people to migrate.< Yes and No. India naturally has Tropical Monsoon type weather, driven by seasonal actions in a vast surrounding ocean. Even in places where there is traditional full forestation still in place, they are 'feast and famine' on rainfall.

[@amanawolf9166]

Agreed. There was an area in Florida, forget which, that flooded like mad. People told the idiot developers "DON'T BUILD THERE!" What do they do? Build homes. Now, now those homes flood like mad because of the area. It's ridiculous. Same goes for that crap sack that wrecked a bunch of mangroves for a development project. These city leaders disgust me.

[@ecidragon]

Instead of pumping all the water to the end point you could just pump it to the nearest part of the Colorado Basin, and then let gravity and current infrastructure do the rest. That would save a lot of work, also you could just empty a few lakes close to the basin, maybe making this all a lot easier.

[@Reciprocity_Soils]

Good idea. Pump water from the east (and north PNW?) towards different reservoirs hopscotching across the country. Good ideas to do something to mitigate flood damage.

[@stevenhake7500]

The big factor is how costly it is to pump water up hill. Water is very heavy. Plus, we couldn't build an oil pipeline across a few hundred miles of wilderness. Running a massive canal across a thousand miles ain't going to be a cake walk. The environmental impacts of this... One might argue it's not ideal. I personally think nuclear desalination is the future.

[@alexfrank5331]

@@stevenhake7500 Pump water upward with solar electricity during the day, then regenerate that electricity when it flows downward. Reservoir can also serve as a battery. It's 2 birds with 1 stone.

[@jmackinjersey1]

How do you propose the patter is initially pumped there?

[@TheBadweasel1975]

as to how look to the dutch thay have been pumping water uphill for centurys, plus the british and the canals for narrowboats etc with locks

[@br3nto]

The other benefit of moving water like this is using it as energy storage. So, don’t just move water in anticipation of a flood, but move it during times of excess power generation. The more water mover in the system to higher elevations means the water can be in the places that need them, but can also be used to recover energy at a later time.

[@tyrelgift5628]

I actually considered this idea about ten years ago when a farmer told me that they had to pump excess water off their fields in Idaho to grow corn (a crop that requires huge amounts of water). But, as I discoved when researching it then it has many road blocks. A few of which I will share. Now keep in mind I still think this is worth pursuing, I just don't think it will be anywhere near cheap. You can't use the current oil and gas pipeline system even if we suddenly stopped needing oil and gas today. The problem is not cleaning it, the porblem(s) are: the chemicals they where manufactured with that can and will leach into the water contaminating it. Also most of the pipes are steel and will rust out and bust in a few months to a year without expensive anti-corrosion retrofitting. Little anodes that will have to be regularly replaced, the outside environment determining the frequency of said maintenance. Only a few pipelines are 20" or bigger in diameter. The vast majority are "gathering systems" that are usually 12" or smaller. Generally around 8" but include some as big as 18" and as small as 2". To solve these issues I would personally just use polly-pipe or the equivalent approved for human consumption.

[@stephennewcomb4575]

Well it would likely need to be transported to a water treatment plant one thing many people forget is paints and sewage and many other chemicals contaminate our water but is later filtered out to be returned to drinkable water. toilet to tap as they call it. That being said it blows my mind with water shortages every year that California sells bottle water.

[@stevenverrall4527]

@@stephennewcomb4575 The fastest way to solve Califoria's water problem is to encourage more Californians to move to wetter states.

[@tyrelgift5628]

@@stephennewcomb4575 Those pipes are maked of alloys that contain heavy metals and carcinogens. These heavy metals and chemicals help to give the pipes more cathartic protection(basically rust proofing it). But these heavy metals and chemicals can't be filtered out. The only point I'm trying to make is that you wouldn't want to use these pipes to transport water anymore than you would want to use lead based sodder on the copper pipes in your home's water system.

[@stephennewcomb4575]

@@tyrelgift5628 At water treatment plants metals can be treated. They go through a whole day and then some of filtering. if it is especially dangerous chemicals in high amounts they can monitor and neutralize. I have seen it done where they monitor for metals and cyanide due to painting/paint stripping company being nearby. It is usually done during the flocculant and coagulant process but also since the pipes would likely be made of the same material monitoring it for an abnormal amount would be easy. Again talking about water treatment plant and not home filters.

[@cliffordschaffer5289]

Here is one minor problem. The farms in the Central Valley require about 36 billion gallons per day. That's about one-tenth the flow of the Mississippi where it enters the sea. That's a pipe about a mile wide and 200 feet deep. To really work, the pipe needs to go from New Orleans to Northern California.

[@MrStreaty122]

You know what else would help California’s 27th consecutive year of drought? Actually enforcing the water limitations on the elite instead of the common folk (people like Kevin Heart and Dwayne Johnson exceed their water limits every month and have never once had their water shut off) and issuing a cease and desist in conjunction with suing Nestle for illegally draining the freshwater aquifers, a practice the state has been aware of for nearly a decade. Edit: I find it humorous that most of the replies are discussing agriculture’s water usage, and not Nestle stealing the water that’s already there

[@TheAnticorporatist]

Bruh, something like 97% of California’s water use is agricultural. Oh, and neuvo rich actors aren’t ACTUAL elites, your God and savior, Donald Trump and his billionaire election buying buddies are.

[@ivanalvarez5511]

Except that’s nowhere near enough, they’re not the problem. The problem is farmers who flood fields because they’ll lose water rights if they don’t use all the water they’re allotted. A single flooded field of almond trees is probably a years and years worth of what those idiots in Hollywood use

[@LordSaliss]

California hasn't been in drought for the past 27 years in a row. Somewhere in the early 2010's it rained so much the dams and aquifers were overflowing and they couldn't hold as much water as was being put in so they had to keep releasing it. California just doesn't have enough water storage for its consumption and relies on enough water and snowpack being put in each year, which rarely happens.

[@thechumpsbeendumped.7797]

No matter how profligate celebrities are with water it's a drop in the ocean when you consider there at 40 million people in Cali.

[@mrspeigle1]

Yeah let's not handwave the agricultural end of things, how much water does it take to grow 1 almond?

[@trapfethen]

One important thing to note is that a fair amount of Californian farmers use flood irrigation (this is actually where the term acre-feet comes from). Just switching to newer irrigation methods would save tremendous amounts of water; however, water rights are on a use-it-or-lose-it basis and so farmers are actually INCENTIVISED to use the inneficcient method so that they have enough water allocated for future growth if they so choose.

[@flipnotrab]

California and Arizona both do WAY too much flood farming. Granted, they started back in the 50’s when it seemed like there was an unlimited supply. However, those giant farms are still owned by same handful of families that have made millions over the decades, yet don’t think they should have to pay for BETTER water conservation systems. They have the money, they just don’t want to pay for it.

[@korinogaro]

@@flipnotrab stop with the complaining. You wouldn't want to pay it in their place either.

[@flipnotrab]

@@korinogaro You’re ignorant on the matter. These farmers haven’t paid shit for 70 years. Sorry, time to pay up. Go educate yourself instead of looking foolish.

[@shaunkelly9053]

The numbers he uses are misleading too. He lefts out that half the water is let out to the ocean for environmental reasons. Ag gets 60% of what’s left. So farming really only uses like 30% of the total water.

[@480darkshadow]

@@korinogaro Damn, struck a nerve, what a snowflake

[@jasonmachacek895]

An idea. Couldn’t this system also be used to pump into the existing reservoirs out west as a storage tank? Then we could literally use the storm water and pump it back up when it is needed

[@rolandomartinez9076]

To begin storm water is contaminated with no telling what? Everything on the street gets washed away along with this now dirty water. Cannot be directly flowed/pumped into lake, rivers. Along the Gulf Coast when hurricane hit is when 2Bit Da Vinci's idea would work. BEFORE storm waters hit the ground u can build a system to absorb as much of this clean rain water n using the extreme pressure of the hurricane as your "pump" to divert excess water from areas before flood occurs. Not as comic book as u would initially think!

[@jamespatton5044]

Wife and I have been talking about doing this for several years ! It’s. Great idea. We believe it would work. Only problem as you said, need to have people willing to work together to make it come to fruition!

[@cliffordschaffer5289]

The amount required to feed the farms in California is 36 billion gallons per day. That's about one-tenth the flow of the Mississippi at its mouth. That's a pipe about a mile wide and 200 feet deep. It would have to go to Northern California. And the idea of using floods to get the water doesn't work. The water is needed steadily throughout the summer and there isn't enough storage to hold it all. It is comic book stuff.

[@victortillamillamonster4083]

I think it's a huge oversight that the pipes would probably rust out quickly. Industrial carbon steel is not meant for untreated water.

[@poppyshock]

A huge problem that areas currently prone to flooding face, but not addressed in the video, is that most flooding is caused not by excess rainfall, per se, but a lack of permeable ground to absorb the rain. Increased urbanization (e.g., pavement) causes water to flow in directions it did not in the past, when it would be more directly absorbed as it fell. And those flooded areas aren't necessarily feeding reservoirs in the first place. Edited for clarity (I hope).

[@climeaware4814]

I agree developers need to cut back on LARGE style parking lots that funnel most of the wain water into the storm drain system!!!

[@theschpliff]

i had the same thought while watching the video, not sure why it was not addressed considering that that's the main issue that can be solved within a reasonable time frame (rather than piping from houston to la)

[@jetli80]

The excess rain is caused by warming climate due to human energy generation.excess rain is just a result of climate change done by human

[@nithia]

Even if not intentionally I think the reason the over development of non permeable ground and focus on reusing the gas pipe lines to move water has more to do with getting rid of gas then moving water. There are many factors to both issues. Wind and solar actually requires a lot of petroleum to make parts and move parts to location. The batteries are not efficient enough to sustain a healthy power grid for periods of low wind and low light without another form of power keeping the grid balanced. Also, to make enough batteries to hold that much power it requires strip mining lithium and other elements as well as still needing petroleum. So unless you went nuclear for the power you would not be able to pump the water in the first place. Another issue is over developing agriculture in areas that have problems with water and require it to be pumped in. There are many better locations in the country that could be used for farming that would not have the same water issue but due to regulations and development factors those areas either are not able to be use for farming or they are used for farming industrial use products rather then for food. (also almonds are very water wasteful despite being tasty) And as someone that lives around Houston it is very true that development is our flooding problems biggest factor. It is not a matter of stronger storms making areas that did not flood before now flood but rather the new flood area is the area that a few years ago was undeveloped forest and now has a retention pond surrounded by houses and shopping centers as the metropolitan area expands out to gobble up the smaller cities around it.

[@Dan-fx7qy]

Wrote a 60 page thesis on this subject lol

[@stevetodd7383]

The problem is that, in order to make a difference, you need to move HUGE quantities of water. Unless you’re working with gravity and have relatively small distances to travel then it’s just not practical. Pumping takes vast amounts of power, so much that pumped storage systems are used for grid scale peaker plants. Oil pipelines in comparison are tiny compared to the water volumes from floods. Floods typically overflow rivers that are 10’s or 100’s of yards wide, not a paltry 36 inches.

[@Zeero3846]

The proposal is not to pump the water only when it floods. It's a too late at that point. We couldn't pump fast enough. Rather, it's to preemptively pump water out when there is a high risk of floods as indicated by weather models and current water levels, so that the rivers and reservoirs don't overflow. This kind of pumping can afford to be slower. Risk management is the key mission, not disaster recovery.

[@zinaj9437]

@@Zeero3846 - It could be done for seasonal shifts or excesses, especially as we're adjusting to the new norms. Snowmagedons at greater amounts or where it doesn't usually snow could melt the overload of snow and shift the water to reservoirs that have room. With a cross country network of canals or pipes that could shift the flow with a few changes, staged water for future use would be an option.

[@shaunhall6834]

Watch the video again and you might pick up some more information about your statement.

[@nunyabidniz2868]

Use trompes. You wind up moving a whole lot more water to achieve the end result, but you're basically using gravity as your power source...

[@adurpandya2742]

As long as its net downstream, this might be possible with less energy.

[@360-media]

I have sent this idea or at least a version of it, to political leaders for at least 20 years. Not only would this solve the issues of drought and alleviate massive flooding (especially along the Mississippi), but it would also create a huge number of jobs which we are in need of in 2022. Great video keep up the good work.

[@philipdillon83]

Mabye if you fund their reelection and committiee chairs, then they will actually litsen to you. Otherwise you're wasting your breath.

[@slappy8941]

It's so simple and sensible that there's 0% chance of it ever being implemented.

[@360-media]

@@philipdillon83 That said, there is so much opportunity for politicians to enrich themselves handing out contracts on this idea, it makes one think there is something more sinister at play when a good idea is canned. If my tiny brain conceived this so long ago, I can only speculate that others with more computing power upstairs had thought of this as well. Maybe the casualty rate isn't high enough. Who can know much at all when politics rules the day.

[@drfarrin]

No, this is a terrible idea. The guy in the video REALLY side steps the cost of this project. Using oil lines is awful because it's the wrong pipe for the job, those things would corrode in months if not a few years. Second, it is INSANELY expensive to pump water up a hill. He really isn't telling you the truth about the cost of doing this. I was once a policy advisor for a political candidate who wanted to do just this. I went and talked to experts who actually work in water (and not some programmer dude at Nvidia) and they said that just pumping 10% of the needed water for San Antonio from Houston would cost more that the state of Texas' GDP. It costs more money than the state makes in a year just to build and power pumps to supply one TENTH of a single city's water supply. There ARE options available and technologies worth investing in, but this video contains NONE of said technologies and techniques.

[@360-media]

@@drfarrin Dude it’s the concept. He is only highlighted the general idea. And I did not criticize him for that. My idea is similar not exactly the same. But the concept will work depending on how it is executed. Ever hear of the Erie canal. There are many ways that this could be done. what is insanely expensive is the law of loss of life, property, insurance money, and more. That is insanely expensive. Putting the James Webb telescope into space was insanely expensive. Putting men on the moon was insanely expensive. An aircraft carrier circling the globe is insanely expensive. Cost are relative. What are your ideas for saving lives, property, farm land, and all of the other costs associated with flooding, and drought? What are your big ideas other than pooh-poohing on other peoples ideas. And why do you listen to policy advisers and all of that BS? Desk jockeys are the problem with the world. What is your expertise in pipeline.? I don’t think anybody would want to be pumping water through oil lines anyway. And just for the record water is pumped through pipe lines every day and they do not corrode in months or years. I suggest you stop thinking in the box and get out of it for a breath of fresh air. By the way, ask your so-called experts if they’ve ever heard of aqueducts, you know the concept it’s been around for a couple of millennia. Anyway thanks for your input, everybody deserves a chance to speak their mind.

[@matthewshields]

I have a background in Civil Engineering, from my perspective if we wanted to invest in an expensive system that can move water across the nation we need local storage systems to capture the large volumes of water that result in flooding. The two reasons for this are that the intense rainfall and subsequent flood are short-lived and the more volume you must transfer, the higher the cost. Additionally, from my understanding, one of the reasons the Colorado River reservoirs are so depleted is because we’ve overdrawn water and the limits, we put in place to maintain capacity based on what could have been a historically very wet period that we failed to adjust once conditions became dryer. In a system that draws water from the Mississippi for instance, we’d need to account for historic flows and set a minimum flow rate that reaches the mouth of the river to reduce the risks of using too much water. Excess water you be sent to places like Atlanta and out west if minimum conditions are met. A system like this would have to account for environmental impact, displacement of people, and maintaining navigable waterways (all of which are possible to mitigate). A project like this would be multiple decades-long, and we should continue to focus on investing in methods to reduce water usage regardless of whether a megaproject like this is built. Reduce, reuse, and recycle in that order.

[@dennisclark1927]

While I have been Following your channel for awhile, I had not seen this one until an underwater archeologist friend of mine recently pointed it out to me. It reminded him of ideas, concept papers and business plans I prepare over 15 years ago that used re-activated, refurbished or relined unused oil/gas pipelines to transport recovered floodwater to areas in need of water. The big difference between what you have presented and what I presented back then (in short) is I made used of decommissioned (or soon to be decommissioned) oil-fired or coal-fired power plants located along waterways to pump water (when levels were above flood stage) from the waterways into the plant's multi-million gallon holding tanks, perform primary solids settling and biologic disinfection (to kill unwanted/invasive organisms like zebra mussels), then pumping the water through the re-activated pipelines to areas needing water. This was marketed to several water companies who did not show any additional interest.

[@mr.j9303]

I mentioned this idea over 30 years ago, and now here we are.

[@ilotitto]

You can look into the Olmos Irrigation Proyect in Peru, they channeled the water from the very wet east side of the Andes mountains through a 20km tunnel to the very dry west side.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

I’ll have to check it out

[@earthwizz]

@@TwoBitDaVinci The Snowy River project in Australia does this too, a massive undertaking that required a level of consensus no longer available here or in the USA. Our dualist, adversarial political system is specifically designed to be divisive, splitting society almost exactly in half which negates the 'voice of the people' to the advantage of the corporate interests dominating our govts. Divide and conquer on steroids. We most definitely need more rainforest on the planet.

[@charliez7130]

@@earthwizz A great example - we need more of these national scale/size infrastructure projects in Australia!

[@ehombane]

@@TwoBitDaVinci Not for USA, but there was a project to fill those under the sea areas from Africa. Being lower also would have generated electricity. And would have transformed an desert in a sea, and create that green area around it. But projects were too expensive for those times, a century or more ago. And actually you had in the USA, something similar done by accident. The Salton Sea. Now ruined. And rain forest effect by pumping wet air from the sea was a fantasy of mine. Not pipes, but tunnels in the bedrock. Eventually helped by a greenhouse salt water lake to add more humidity. Sure, a lot of humidity will condense in the tunnel, but that will be just a good desalinization part. Obviously, the project will take decades to complete. All is needed is just few of those digging machines working all the time. Not big expense at country level.

[@PCinefro]

@@jackm3040 it’s not just to deliver water to those that need it, but to remove it from where it’s not wanted. And with all the drought going on, extra water will have value.

[@johnnyrot1075]

A few words that you need to consider, Friction loss, Horsepower (Or Kilowatts), Head lift, Suction loss When you add all these up you are inevitably just looking at an actual PIPE DREAM. Dams are primarily used for water storage. Flood control or mitigation is a distant second, regardless of what ever others may infer Even the best possible release plan prior to an anticipated flood event generally causes flooding or at best primes the event to flood anyway. Now back to the first paragraph. Its is generally cheaper to desalinate water than pump substantial volumes of water over 100s of miles. It takes more Kilowatts (horse power) to pump the water than it dose to desalinate the same amount and while Aqua-ducts are more efficient if the topography allows, the flow rates cannot be substantially increased to cope with flood events. There for the best option is to dump or use the overflow spillways and let nature do the work for you.

[@davidquist8963]

Excellent point but I think you missed one more point. Dry areas are generally dry for a reason. There is something that discourages water from going there naturally. So while this is generally caused by some of the things you mentioned, it also implies low humidity. With low humidity, you have the issue of evaporation. More and more of the water would fail to make it to the destination causing a huge loss in volume, and as such efficiency.

[@Argrouk]

@@davidquist8963 Adding water helps with humidity. Studies have shown that adding a lake to a dry area increases cloud cover, rainfall, dew etc and rejuvenates the flora, further improving the situation. If you ignore the problems of capture and transport, dumping and storing more water in dry areas would over time have a net benefit,

[@tjam4229]

@Johnnyrot10, All you need to do to pump over a mountain is get the water STARTED...once you get enough of it over the mountain, gravity takes over, and it will syphon the rest of the water from it's source. (providing the source is just slightly higher elevation...like the midwest to low lands of california) Then, once the majority of water is syphoned to target location, then you can use pumps to pump it short distances. Using gravity to take water over VAST distances saves a ton of money. Leaving the cost of "pumping" the water to shorter distances.

[@tjam4229]

@@Argrouk , It's hard to compete with mother nature... If the land is dry due to topography, ie Desert adjacent to mountains; it's a never-ending battle to try to convert dry lands to wet lands...It will fail or be cost prohibitive...like Australia failed with their attempt.

[@tjam4229]

@@davidquist8963 , very true. It's hard to compete with mother nature... If the land is dry due to topography, ie Desert adjacent to mountains; it's a never-ending battle to try to convert dry lands to wet lands...It will fail or be cost prohibitive...like Australia failed with their attempt.

[@joseleon1303]

I have been suggesting pumping water from flood prone regions in the east and south for years, finally, someone is actually considering it!

[@rikcoach1]

I love the idea. Here’s my concern. Water, unlike oil expands as it nears freezing temps. A lot of the western states as we are all aware are very cold during the winter. This makes me wonder what measures would need to be taken to keep the water from freezing thereby protecting the pipes from bursting. Ok, that’s my two cents. Big love all.

[@rolandomartinez9076]

As long as u have a relief valve to allow for water expansion. A sealed container filled to brim would expand, stainless steel has some flexibility.

[@sharonscott9250]

If the water keeps flowing / moving it is less likely to freeze. That is why it is sometimes recommended to open a faucet in winter storms. Keeps you home piping from freezing.

[@rolandomartinez9076]

Salt water as it freezes separates itself. In a standing vat/tank of salt water no movement salt will settle to the bottom pure water floats to top as it is lighter than salt water. This how to create new potable water in high altitudes or cold climates.

[@rogerwilson6367]

I worked in desalination for 25 years and the one thing I can say for certain is, it's very expensive and only energy rich countries can afford it. Moving water around is probably the best and only long term answer, but I think pumping large amounts of water large distances has it's own problems/costs. Pressure drops along small pipes is a problem but I doubt the problems are insurmountable if we had the will to do it. There is probably enough waste plastic in the world for the pipes if we could recycle it.

[@tonydeveyra4611]

It seems like direct lithium extraction and other uses of selective membranes, to get valuable materials out of the desal brine might change some of the economics around desalination.

[@kennystrawnmusic]

@@tonydeveyra4611 Not only that but let’s not forget the potential for sodium to replace lithium as the ion source in batteries going forward. You could have desalination plants do double duty as Na-ion battery factories and the result would be EV sales subsidizing the cost of desalinated water.

[@rogerstarkey5390]

@@kennystrawnmusic Watch this. OK, its not about "Sodium" but I believe Sodium gets a mention and the same limitations apply.

[@kennystrawnmusic]

@@rogerstarkey5390 Already did. Your point?

[@tonydeveyra4611]

@@kennystrawnmusic you take the sodium and the lithium out for making batteries. Take out the chloride. The minerals that remain after that are great fertilizers for plants and even for growing the soil microbiome that builds up soil carbon and fertility. There are many companies that are making seawater based fertilizers even with the sodium and chloride still in there. Once you take those out (or significantly reduce them) it becomes wayyyy better

[@dakotabrewer9762]

This needs to be combined with regenerating the local flora and root systems. One of the major contributing factors to drought is lack of water retention in the soil. The soil needs a healthy micro biome and root system from local plants to properly retain water and recharge the aquifers. When the land above is dry, cracked or pavement... that water will run off and never recharge the local sources.

[@IHroddin]

Exactly Dakota, we need to replenish our ground water instead of diverting it out of the cities and housing/apartment developments.

[@CarltonS]

I agree with the importance of soil with sufficient void space (as enhanced by organic matter) and depth to retain water to support the growth of plants that have value to people and wildlife. However, in semi-arid to arid parts of the U.S. -- which are mostly between the 98th meridian on the east and the crest of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains on the west -- evapo-transpiration greatly exceeds precipitation, and there is very little recharge of aquifers except along the relatively few streams that get most of their water from higher elevations in the Rocky Mountains. Wells that take water out of the aquifers there (such as the Ogallala) are doomed to eventually run dry, and I doubt that much can be done to replenish them within a period of centuries.

[@jeffbybee5207]

@@CarltonS if the excess water flowing north to the artic sea were sent south along the front range of the rockies all the way to New Mexico the Ogallala aquifer could be totally refilled in a few years

[@CarltonS]

@@jeffbybee5207 Assuming that the Canadians would cooperate in constructing the massive system of pipelines/canals and pumping stations required to send water south to the Great Plains in the U.S., how would the water be added to the Ogallala aquifer? It's not like a big underground cavern, where it would be possible to just add water to the high end and let it fill back up by gravity within a few years or decades. In fact, it is sandstone which, although porous, does not transmit water all that quickly at the low natural gradient of the formation. It would be necessary to distribute the water to thousands of injection wells and/or infiltration basins scattered every few miles across an area of hundreds of thousands of square miles. Hardly very feasible. It might be feasible to do this on a smaller scale by taking water out of the reservoirs on the Missouri River in Montana and the Dakotas, especially when they are full. But then there would be an issue with the water often having suspended solids that would plug up the aquifer.

[@davelambardo6464]

Dakota, you are spot on with this! I have been watching the facts of this happen for years in the mountains of Oregon where I spend the majority of my time. As old growth timber goes up in flames and second growth or even older stands are now being clear-cut on public and private lands again it is clear that the water is drying up with it! These large trees had root systems that bind soil, but the really thing is the cover they provided also creates springs of water or wetlands. Throughout the entire year areas that used to never dry out are emptied of water. It brings into question for me why our government has taken up the "stratagey" of "stage and contain "forest fires instead of putting them out. And in the last 2 years logging practices have changed. They are clear cutting all forest again. Not just privately owned land.

[@use_less43210]

Plus, the power of river water is exponentially higher during flood events, which can then be harvested to offset the cost of pumping. In other words flooding not only produces more available water, but it also produces more available power to help pump the excess water.

[@chaz706]

There's two problems I have with ANY proposal like this: 1) Economic output concerns: the Mississippi watershed and waterways transport 60% of all US grain exports. ANY INTERFERENCE WITH THIS is a major concern not only for the US but all other countries the US exports grain to. Unless a plan is made to make sure this doesn't happen it's an automatic NO GO. 2) Safety concerns: a pump failure WILL cause flooding downstream. A pump failure ANYWHERE along the pipeline will cause catastrophic events. The power has to be on 100% of the time. Period. No questions asked. 99.999% of the time WILL NOT CUT IT. It has to work... and it ALWAYS has to work. Last I checked: California has problems keeping the lights on. This is a NO GO.

[@Mr-Gecko]

This was done in South Africa years ago. In Mapumalanga or eastern Transvaal, we pump water between overflowing and low-level dams. All this was done with one control room connected to pump stations around the eastern Transvaal. Not that complicated to scale up.

[@charlesabar8735]

Yes but realize that Ricky is talking about the U.S., where nothing happens, because of bureaucracy. Talk, maybe. Nothing else.

[@justinfabbott]

Yeah that’s all well and good over a 100miles but this guy is suggesting moving water from somewhere like New Orleans to LA. That’s a bit different. The time it would take to move the amount of water for this idea to be plausible would require a massive size pipeline.

[@ConcreteLand]

@@justinfabbott it can start smaller though. Start with refilling the large lakes that are running low. There is already infrastructure to pump out of those lakes to needed areas so half the battle is done.

[@xrayou812]

@@ConcreteLand Yes there may be lakes on the receiving end that are running low but where are these reservoirs holding all the water in New Orleans. you know the ones you want to pump down?

[@jimgraham6722]

@@PennaMinecraft Probably cheapest solution, but desert has its attractions.

[@warmon6]

@1:42 "71% of earth surface is covered in fresh water" Guessing you meant to say "water" and not "fresh water".

[@gizzabem]

I would also want to add that we’d also need to prepare bigger water treatment plants near the source of the water sheds holding these new reservoirs. And would like to add in that we should start creating ways to store kinetic energy from gyms. Idk just a thought

[@kangaroorun5116]

I have a Mr Cool mini split airconditioner at home. What kind of Ecoflow system will I put-up to help in my energy consumption?

[@MrCwildeman]

This is exactly what we already do in South Florida. The canal systems in South Florida are quite extensive and are lowered several feet before hurricane landfall and pumped up to Lake Okeechobee. If the hurricane is making landfall near mid state, the lake is lowered and pumped into the canals in the southern parts of the state. Florida has no shortage of water though so its only to manage flooding and not for drought purposes.

[@JaybayJay]

I've been saying this for years, and alot of people in Florida call me crazy.. They would also have 1000's of gallons of water for fire fighting.

[@donnacsuti4980]

Unfortunately Florida is sinking some and sea-level is rising and you destroyed the aquifer system with canals so Florida is going to have a hard time keeping sea water inundation out of the farm land and drinking water ( Calif has the same problem in our central valley and big parts of the great plains lowland central USA). We do have to start thinking how to best do something with as little risk of harm as possible.

[@someotherdude]

@@donnacsuti4980 Florida isn't sinking, just to be accurate, world ocean level has always been rising, and now it's accellerated. The 'crisis' would be the 'extra' rise- about 1mm per year. It's a non problem.

[@skygge1006]

@@someotherdude the big problems is that as the speed of the rise increases it will penetrate our aquifer system in Florida and destroy it. That is of course if it speeds up depending on a bunch of factors although we might be able to avoid such a bad problem from occurring.

[@mrright1068]

The mass immigration into FL puts more demand on our aquafers there is concern about sea water inundation during the dry season. Because of blue city mismanagement I do not seen the immigration levels slowing down any time soon which will mean more dry season pressure on the water resource.

[@wingsuae]

This concept was working more than 30 years ago in South Africa, and was managed by pumping water from one dam to another in the dam linked system by means of a 6" pipe and pump. In addition, If every building has a sizable water tank connected to the gutter system, this would have a substantial impact on flooding and garden watering...

[@grizzlygrizzle]

Socialists and others who want the people to be helplessly dependent on the central government are trying to ban the practice of rain-water collection in the U.S. Private wells are also coming to be more regulated.

[@rdelrosso2001]

3,000 years ago, when King David was King of Israel, there was NO indoor plumbing, of course! The Bible says that, back then, people put the bathtub up on the ROOF! When it rained, the tub filled with water and you would go up on the roof (weather permitting) and take a bath!

[@TIMEtoRIDE900]

@@rdelrosso2001 That wouldn't work - get 2 inches of rain, take a 2 inch bath !! Also the dust and bird poop, and who wants to go second or third? They DID use cisterns which funneled all roof water to a box underground.

[@inchranger]

@TryNDoxMe Well, truthfully.. not really considering anything with an electric motor is DC, you could ideally run it with solar panels like your vehicle would use an alternator and along with a small battery system be able to use it an night if needed. A secondary backup system would be wind power at night or to use a Dual fuel generator that could use Natural Gas or propane in rural areas. Maybe consider actual 110-240V AC in a city. I dont think realistically we can or should have entire world running on Solar/wind power. As Utopian as that sounds.. in another 100 years, they'll be telling us of the impending DOOM of Natural gas build up could explode an entire city at the flick of a slight switch or spark of a joint in da hood ! :facepalm:

[@inchranger]

@TryNDoxMe Your right, smarter people live in the deserts.. lol I grew up in S.E Michigan snow-belt and live in Nevada for years.. the Politics alone in Michigan should keep people out of it, not the weather.

[@kennystrawnmusic]

Shouldn’t be any more difficult to build a cross-country water pipeline than it is to build a cross-country oil pipeline. If we can build Keystone XL, then there should be no difference between that and building a water pipeline from Florida to California in terms of cost.

[@starlittle93]

True..they want nothing other than profitable project.. Sad but true..

[@DtWolfwood]

At $3-4/gal oil pipelines pay for themselves. Water at pennies/gal, this will be a forever money sink from maintenance. If you can convince all the states this feeds to pay a water tax to build this pipeline it would work, or become a socialist utopia.

[@VitalVampyr]

@@DtWolfwood Also people use a lot more water than oil.

[@hawks9142]

Problem is there's no "big water" only big oil. Just because we have solutions doesn't mean greed won't stop it

[@BrianSmith-lo3mj]

@@DtWolfwood The water pipelines could be paid for if we charged 40 - 50 cents per gallon.

[@cna5018]

I have been saying this for years. Thank you for making this video

[@johnjulie6657]

A few years back I posted something along the same line. I like your ideas and I hope you're not laughed down!

[@jeffbybee5207]

I think your off by saying 1000 times less viscosity equals 1000 times more flow Also the higher speed of the liquid causes higher pressure losses. The chart I checked game 18000 gal per minute for a 24 inch pipe. The 36 inch pipe you referenced is currently flowing 17600 gpm so if my coss section equivalent it is flowing about 40 percent of max volume to limit pressure losses

[@mikeschuler2946]

Almond milk and oat milk are two popular examples of milk alternatives. It takes about 1.1 gallons of water to make a single almond, and 92 almonds make up about 1 cup. With almond milk, there is generally a ratio of 1:3 or 1:4 cups of almonds to water. This means that it can take up to 101 gallons of water to make just 1 cup of almonds, plus an additional 3 or 4 cups of water to make a small serving of almond milk.

[@mikeschuler2946]

@ Ui Chroinin good points milk is not for everyone. My brother can’t drink milk and I tease him with Oreos but I don’t like people saying we should ban milk

[@kevinclark1685]

2000 gallons water for a pound of beef. just price things appropriately to include all costs

[@mikeschuler2946]

@@kevinclark1685 and grow things where they grow best . We have more rainfall than Seattle I have cat tails growing on my lawn 😕

[@CarltonS]

@@kevinclark1685 I agree, and have seen much higher figures for cattle raised on forage grown with irrigation. I live in the Colorado River watershed in western Colorado where the local ranchers dump several feet of irrigation water on fields growing alfalfa, with little sense of conserving it because they have a legal right to do that at no cost to them (other than pumping). There should be an interstate market in water that gives them the right to sell all or part of their water rights to water users downstream, particularly in Arizona and California. And federal legislation will be required to establish that because there are so many interests in Colorado and other "upstream" states that fear having to compete with downstream states in such a market.

[@KDarkmoon1]

@@kevinclark1685 That is a false comparison because water consumed by cattle is released back into the local environment where it came from and it is filtered naturally as what doesn't evaporate sinks through the earth and replenishes the water tables that feed the wells that provide the water for the cattle.

[@djl9999]

Have you assessed the topography of the oil pipelines vs the needs of the water transfer? Specifically, oil pipelines generally go from north (Canada, where the oil is found) to south (southern US, where most of the refineries are. Water transport has to go from east (where the rain and floodwaters are) to west (California and the southwest) where the drought is. Also, did you consider relaxing the requirement a bit by leveraging existing river sources (such as the Colorado River) for some of the transport?

[@lagrangewei]

a pipeline can't carry enough water. so that isn't even the problem. if it can be address by pipe, flooding should never occur since we have water pipe all over. the volume of water can only be moved by a canal.

[@smokeyhoodoo]

The colorado river is the watershed that's the problem bud

[@emuhill]

@@lagrangewei That's not entirely true. California's aquaduct to send water from the Colorado River to LA is a pipeline actually. While Arizona's CAP is a series of canals, pipes, and pumps. California also has to pump their LA water over some mountains as well.

[@emuhill]

@djl9999 If we was to do something like this like say divert flood water from the Mississippi , it would be best to divert it as far south as possible. Then send it west over the continental divide where I-10 runs. The continental divide in this area isn't much of a barrier unlike say where I-40 runs. It'll still have to be pumped but it won't be as bad as it would if it was sent thought the area around I-40. Then from there to various reservoirs in Arizona and up onto the Colorado Plateau to Lake Powell. If we was to send coastal flood water from southern California, it would have to be pumped over the coastal mountains east of LA as well as various desert mountains. Something we are doing anyway with Colorado River water. The real problem is that there is simply not enough storm runoff to make something like this worth while. It would just be best to simply pump it to the nearest reservoir in southern California.

[@rolandomartinez9076]

No need to interfere with cross flow lines using current infra struture.

[@trisld]

I had these thoughts but didn't have the engineering to make it work. I do think some combination of the ideas mentioned here in the video, and also in the chat, can help a lot.

[@kevinmontgomery1054]

I've wondered this for 40 years. Thank you for doing this.

[@lukesutton4135]

We murdered Gaddafi soley because of this reason. The slave owners will never let us slaves of America have it easy and will insure that the costs are passed onto the slave class. We've had the money and technology for decades. Israel salinisation plants? What a nice gift from the slaves of America, hopefully we will stop supporting a country whos flag is the the Star of Saturn and not of David. The truth? Jaballist who have infiltrated the "conservative" movement are the same ones who murdered Jesus and turn Jesus against God.

[@garypurtle5506]

Finally someone else gets it, thank you!!!!!

[@phantomblooper84]

I've been wondering about this for decades. If we can do it with oil, why not water? I've always wondered if there would be any issues transferring invasive species or anything like that. Glad someone is talking about it.

[@whiterabbit2786]

Along the way, the water could be heated sufficiently to kill off any invasive species.

[@Camboge]

@@whiterabbit2786 sounds like big energy use

[@HerbaMachina]

Because we need to move the oil anyhow and pipelines are more cost effective than containers on trucks or trains. Also it's less energy intense to pump oil per volume than water because it is slightly less dense than water is.

[@cliffordschaffer5289]

Reasons why not: 1) The amount of water required 2) Where the water has to come from and go 3) It isn't as simple as taking flood waters and moving them. For one thing, there isn't enough storage to hold the flood waters on the receiving end, all at once. 4) The water is needed in a steady supply throughout the year, not all at once. And, so forth. Anyone who thinks it will happen knows nothing about the water needs of California and how they work. It is comic book stuff.

[@phantomblooper84]

@@cliffordschaffer5289 the water should be moved from reservoir to reservoir across the country, instead of it all being pumped to one location. I agree it would take a huge amount of energy, but so does pumping oil. I feel like this is something we could make work if we wanted to. Most people's water comes from a long way away already. The water in our municipal system comes from 100 miles away, has to hit multiple storage and treatment facilities along the way, but they figured it out and made it work.

[@kellykbartram8569]

I have been advocating a flood pipeline from east to west for years. I was very happy to see this video. 🤠👍

[@ghostwrench2292]

Me too. It's just common sense. One part of the country is constantly flooding and the other part of the country is in drought. I'm not a smart man but even I didn't have much trouble solving that problem!

[@1artillery1]

Fuck no leave the east out of it

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@ghostwrench2292 A “smart man” would spare a glance at the map and recognize that the continental divide, divides the country for a VERY good reason and overcoming a series of 14,000 foot mountain ranges is no mean feat.

[@indisputablefacts8507]

The pipelines for oil generally flow north south - not east-west like would generally be needed. And even then, the carrying capacity of an oil pipeline is absolute peanuts compared to what you'd need to make a real dent. Finally, flood-prone areas are generally lowlands, east or along the Mississippi, and the most draught-stricken areas are in the West and generally at a higher elevations. Moving massive amounts of heavy stuff like water uphill is always going to be energy-intensive.

[@fakshen1973]

That's everything I thought before shutting off this nonsense video. Just ONE gallon of water is around 8.5lbs (3.75kg if we're going to do some real physics calculations). That mass would have to be pumped over the rocky mountains. The amount of energy and PRESSURE to do that with any real useful volume would be ultra expensive. A desalinization plant on the coast would be MUCH less expensive to operate. Water also contains contaminants and encourages corrosion... unlike petroleum products. So the maintenance and upkeep would be much higher.

[@PD-yd3fr]

@@fakshen1973 Rocky Mountains average 4,400M high, lot of head pressure, they would have to pump from reservoir to reservoir (the way they do in mines). Huge amount of energy and cost. Would also have to consider high silt content in the Mississippi causing issues as well

[@cantonmasti]

Let me make it simple. Floods damage mainly is due to improper under ground drainage system, if we add water storage man made ponds connecting with proper underground drainage paths to every city, no issues. But thinking of taking storm water from Qubeck to Austin texas with what ever the pipes is a PIPE DREAM my friend!

[@darrellwilson9184]

A client of mine, Karl Lohman, published a paper on this some 20 years ago. We even gave a copy to Congressman John Mica who was Chairman of the transportation committee at the time. Karl's Idea was a system of 40-50 ft pipes pumping sea water out of the Pacific to the top of mountains out in California. There the salt and any other minerals would be extracted, then allow gravity to push the water either into reservoirs or eastward to communities that need it. The system would distribute water where needed and also be used to transport excess water, goods or people using "Pigs" a cylinder that rides inside the pipe. The cost would rival the highway budget but employ a lot of people. Railroads & truckers won't want the competition but the fuel savings over time would make this a feasible system.

[@romlyn99]

I love this idea. But we need to combine it with a wetlands restoration, farm planning and reforesting effort too. And if you look at the cost of flooding and drought - it makes sense to do this. The biggest problem we have is that we are not storing water in the soil. We need to shape the land and grow vegetation in the right ways to slow down the flow of water across the land. Taking lessons from permaculture. A hat, belt and shoe principle. Similar to what was done in the Loess Plateau restoration project. Imagine rain hitting the hills and instead of flowing off the hills and taking away top soil and flooding the below areas, it flows down slower, storing water in the soil as it goes. To allow water to flow into the soil we need bugs and worms opening up channels in the soil. To do that we need trees and undergrowth, which means having well managed forests. So the hat is any slope with a 20% or less gradient, the belts is where you have terraced farm land and the shoes are small and varied water catchment wetlands.

[@zarroth]

Permaculture works only in 2 cases. 1. Restore a damaged environment back to its healthiest state, or 2, maintain the healthy state of an environment. The areas in question here were never highly fertile to begin with and are actually artificially boosted in that regard already. You can't use permaculture to increase fertility above what a region can naturally sustain on its own. I know people who will claim otherwise, but i have yet to see them show an example that exists outside of an artificially boosted area, like the canals dug in AZ and NM. Sure around those canals youre going to see improvement...but what about 1 mile away? 5 miles? Oh wow, no improvement no matter what technique is applied? Well of course not, because permaculture doesn't do what your'e trying to make it do.

[@julietcunningham852]

My sister and I had a talk about this some winters ago. Her West Coast state was suffering from extreme drought. A big storm came up from the Pacific, but passed her state by, flew over the whole interior, and dumped its cargo of (now) snow in Boston, MA, where I live. As my (now late) husband had already become too disabled to shovel, I had to do all of it myself, and I hadn't been a spring chicken for decades. I called my sister and said, "I think we may have your snow." She replied, "Send it back", to which I answered, "Come and get it." I am delighted to hear that a solution may be in progress.

[@thomasjoseph5876]

Hey darlin', I am a spring chicken and shoveling snow still sucks lol. Actually, I am a really really really big spring chicken at 6'7" 265 lbs and none of it is fat thanks to doing MMA workouts 4 times a week for fun, a wife that loves to run and teaches 3 different forms of martial arts, and triplet hellion 9-year-old girls also known as "The Wrecking Crew" lol. It's just one of the ways we must pay to live in beautiful Northern Minnesota where there are more lakes in the county I live in than any other county in America. We have over 1100 lakes in my county and I am lucky enough to live on one of them. Over the last couple of decades, numerous other parts of America have tried their best to pump the water from our lakes to their drier areas. We literally have to fight them off when they try. Fortunately, they have gotten the hint, and for the last 5-7 years, they have left us alone. It's kind of funny that in our county, if the land isn't covered by lakes, it is potato fields most of which are used for Mcdonald's French Fries. In fact, the potato harvest just ended yesterday lol. I hope things are going good for you in Boston, it is one of my favorite historical places to visit, (I am a HUGE history buff and actually wasted 4 years of my life to get a degree in it that I haven't used professionally ever in my life lol). But that's ok because you can never learn too much. That's why I love to watch videos like this (crazy cat and animal videos are a close 2nd lol). If you haven't been to Salem, MA for Halloween I suggest you check it out, it is always a blast. I haven't been there for a few years but next year, we plan on taking The Wrecking Crew there for all of their Halloween fun.

[@FreddieVee]

In the 1970's, I wrote to both of my US Senators and my Representative in The House, asking them to sponsor a bill to built desalination plants along all of our coasts and to built pipelines to transfer water from flooded areas to drought areas. I am sure glad I didn't hold my breath waiting.

[@sinchelon]

As we know by now, transitioning from a fossil-fuels to a green-economy is a really difficult process; your ideas of re-purposing pipelines in times of need to solve seemingly over-whelming problems makes sense. Thanks for the insights!

[@roadkill439342]

If we divest from "fossil fuels", which the Green Lobby wants to do, where are you going to get the energy necessary to pump this water from one place to another?

[@matthewhill5130]

The push to shutdown the fossil fuel industry, which our economy and daily lives depend on, to a technology as yet unreliable and still in it's infancy is unwise to say the least. While this administration continues to put this country into deeper debt by financing these changes here and abroad, they are also supporting our largest adversary China. While China has agreed to reduce it's c02 emissions they continue to build coal fired electric generation plants as well as nuclear plants. These are only some if the concerns involved with this mad rush into a new technology. Texas found out recently about the unreliability of wind and solar. But another critical concern is our aging and already overtaxed electrical grid. There is substantially more involved in a transition like this then is being discussed. What would be a much wiser course would be to maintain the fossil fuel industry that everything in our economy depends on While we transition over time to the newer technology.

[@mrhatch117]

You have no idea how much horsepower it would take to pump flood waters from the eastern US to the Dry south west. The size of that pipeline to control floodwaters in a very short period of time would be mind-boggling huge. I am a mechanical engineer in the Corpus Christi (Texas) area and we have our own water shortages. There is a 54” pipeline that provides about 1/3 of the area needs. Roughly 350,000 people. So let’s assume that 54” pipeline supplies the need of about 125,000 people. Scale that up to 40,000,000 people and your pipeline is now 40 ft diameter assuming it runs 365 days per year. If you want that to be big enough to pump flood waters and assume that pumping would happen one month per year your pipeline now is 160 ft in diameter. That would be an engineering marvel.

[@fearsomefoursome4]

Now your thinking with portals

[@joeyhazlett]

I think you missed the point of the video though. In this scheme, you wouldn't pump water after it floods. You'd pump existing stored water out of local storage at a slow and steady rate before the expected floods happen so that the floodwaters have somewhere safe to go instead of directly down river and/or through cities and towns. You wouldn't even need to pump it all the way to the dry southwest, just to an "escrow" reservoir somewhere that isn't used to handle flood control. If the flood ends up being smaller than expected, you just pump (withdrawal) the difference back to your local storage as required. Whatever is left after that withdrawal could be eventually pumped to the highest bidder at their expense, potentially generating income for that town/city/state from their excess water instead of spending money to deal with it when it floods.

[@itslegit7362]

Not to mention the idea of repurposing our fuel pipelines. Like we are going to be 100% electric... Impossible.

[@davidcroxton8306]

Look at the Hydro generation capacity on the Colorado River. Multiply that number by about 5 to get some idea how much energy you would need to the water that high and far. YOU CAN'T PUMP FLOOD WATER!

[@n0validusername]

@@itslegit7362 Yum, petroleum tainted drinking water.

[@nicholasniva5192]

The one worry I have for this is that it could cause problems for existing ecosystems such as wetlands which need overly saturated areas of water

[@booksteer7057]

Not to mention dry ecosystems that suddenly became permanently wet.

[@nicholasniva5192]

@@booksteer7057 you’re 100% right but I just used swamps as an example because the fact is they are far more densely packed with living things

[@danielwatson4864]

The idea is not to suck all eastern waters or drain wetlands, just "flood water" before it damages infrastructure.

[@chrisrydrych3099]

@@danielwatson4864 So what do you do with the floodwaters until you can pump it all? You would need to create huge reservoirs to hold it which would either flood out dry areas or change the ecosystem of swamps or lakes. You also need the proper topography to do a cost effective reservoirs. You cannot store water effectively in a place like Louisiana because it is too flat.

[@russthils8094]

Agree. What is actually feasible is the collection of moderate amounts of rainfall (

[@longochu8588]

Nice topics. Here are two challenges I can think of when using pipelines to move water: 1. Is the current pipeline network coverung or near the target areas with drought and flood? 2. The impact of ecosystem in the water if we are pumping water between river systems. I believe such concern put a pause on many dam projects in California and can be more impactful when moving waters (and the living creatures in it) between regions.

[@BaffledBelief]

What about when these pipes cross tribal lands

[@dmal-ty5qw]

@@BaffledBelief native americans are gonna have to get over it. the entire country is more important. They should just assimilate and we should do away with these reserves.

[@BaffledBelief]

@@dmal-ty5qw I would argue California is a desert shit hole and dosent deserve fuck all except what falls naturally

[@dmal-ty5qw]

@@BaffledBelief well thats just an unhelpful opinion, I don't have time for blatant hate and heartlessness. It's 2022 get over it. Native Americans are hurting their communities by being so stubborn. If they just assimilated instead of fighting they would have more of their culture left, and be integrated into American society like the black people did.

[@lagrangewei]

@@dmal-ty5qw how about the native american just declare independent and be a seperate country. US is not their country to begin with, US is just an invader.

[@eyeservantez]

Genius idea. Let’s get it started.

[@snarkmark2806]

There are a ton of septic tanks in FL just full of human waste, and when you get massive flooding, they fill up, and overspill, releasing all of it.

[@coreywalters8334]

Wouldn't it make more sense for the people that live in drought areas to move to non-drought areas? and people that live in flood prone areas to move out them? By doing that it would eliminate the need for the massive amount of energy required to pump that much water across the country. Just a thought.

[@riverpirate1022]

FINALLY! Someone else who GET'S IT! Common sense, right? But NO let's develop and live at on the coastline at sea level or below, next to the sea. But NO let's terraform deserts for development and farm them so we can complain when there is no water in the desert. All of these issues are literally self-inflicted due to ignorance and greed!

[@alanhall6909]

Good point, but it won't do anything about agricultural water needs, which is the biggest problem.

[@NathanTarantlawriter]

So... do nothing. Ok.

[@anderander5662]

The people who choose to live in the desert want you to supply them with water.... perhaps I'll consider if they supply me with warm weather and sunshine

[@stevedriscoll2539]

Yeah, now that it has become a problem it's all the sudden "we" that have to fix it. So let's just steal water from the "non-essential" states. What will the hard left think of next

[@mochabangz]

I literally think about topics like this all the time

[@grammacilleturner7134]

I have thought about this for many years, I just didn't know how to accomplish it. I think it is worth doing. Saving money for insurance companies in the flood areas and in the drout areas with the fires. This will also help to reset our weather patterns. The wildfires in California put a build up of ash on the glaciers keeping them from growing to help keep things cool. I think it should be done. It would be a win - win - win for every one in the USA and residually across the world.

[@patrickmorse7549]

Hi Ricky, I like the idea but the flow rate math is off. Water pipes have limited flow velocities to about 8 ft/s to prevent damage to the pipes. Assuming a 36" ID on a pipe, the pipe would only be able to flow about 112 acre feet of water per day. I was contemplating this idea the other day and to me it would make the most sense to repurpose the Boring company to make water tunnels instead of transportation tunnels across the country. In theory, many of these tunnels could be kept at relatively the same elevation and each municipality or region that wanted to withdraw water would pump the water up to the surface to reduce transportation costs.

[@nathanbanks2354]

Those numbers at 14:30 sounded off to me too. Thanks for providing better calculations. I also wonder about the energy required to pump this much water, but I like the idea of moving water to reduce flooding.

[@Ubiquities]

The flow rates are demonstrably off. I stopped the video, and did some back of the napkin math a 36” pipe delivering 600M barrels per day hypothetically should have an exit velocity of round about 4000 mph. Best I could figure was about 680,000 barrels a day, or a 12% increase. After that everything else falls apart when you adjust the math. Instead of 30M homes the keystone pipeline would service 36k homes. Then you have the cost, about $8B for 2k miles. Or $220k per home construction cost, before maintenance and operations. We use vastly amount more water than we do fuel. There are niche cases for pumping water but the scale and costs aren’t considered in this video.

[@Paul-zk2tn]

112 acre-feet per day? What kind of bat **** crazy freedom units is that??? I joke of course. But on your point, it does seem a little far fetched to pump so much water across country, and absurdly expensive.

[@JMark1991]

Kinda a shame that the whole video is based on the assumption that that much water can be moved reusing some old tubes that already exist, but then you check the math behind the 1000X number shown and it is wrong by at least 2 orders of magnitude :(

[@martingelinas1721]

@@Ubiquities When I heard the numbers I was thinking the same thing. My own calculations gave flow rates of about Mach 5 exit velocity. Even with multiple parallel pipes, those daily volumes are greatly overestimated. I still like the general concept.

[@RealTechnophoria]

The best solution to increase water is to use permaculture on farm land, especially unused and degraded land, to super charge water percolation so you can capitalize on any rainfall. This idea does seem like it would definitly be helpful however. Having the ability to stabilize areas independent of rain really helps.

[@fairamir1]

Or pump water out of the ocean and desalinate it.

[@lorddane4147]

We could also focus on recycling more wastewater. Based on what I could find with some quick searches, the US recycles around 10% of its wastewater intentionally, if the sources I found are correct. Which means there could be a higher yield of wastewater we can tap into and recycle so we can get more clean water. If we want the most amount of water, the US would have to work on Permaculture Desalination plants and Wastewater Recycling but it requires a lot of cooperation.

[@RealTechnophoria]

@@lorddane4147 if we could recycle almost all our water that would be such a big boon! Singapore has closed it's water loop, and I wouont pretend it'll be as easy for most bigger countries but it's possible! Singapore themselves has actually said they want to sell their climate change technologies to other countries to help them do the same!

[@lorddane4147]

@@RealTechnophoria We definitely would like better tech to recycle our wastewater so 90% of it isn't wasted. We do have the tech we just aren't using it as much as we need and we don't have the amount of plants open to do it. Plus it would be better if we could do it faster so we can help the Colorado River Basin and especially the Salt Lake Area considering how dangerous it will be if the Great Salt Lake drys up

[@melaniecotterell8263]

If we can enslave the Chinese we could have them terrace every mountain and hill.

[@playlisttarmac]

Interesting presentation. I live in Perth Western Australia. We have desalination plants. But in the very north of the state we have plenty of water in the Ord river scheme 2223km away. Many studies were done on piping / shipping the water to Perth and it was not economically viable. So instead we use desal.

[@drfarrin]

"not economically viable" is an understatement. It would have cost most of your nation's yearly budget to build and power and maintain that thing. This guy's video is not based in reality at all. It's just tech jargon that makes it seem that if you invest in the companies he's flogging that they'll somehow solve your problems. I recommend a channel called "Practical Engineering". The guy who does that channer is an actual engineer and talks a LOT about infrastructure and how it works. We're actually pretty effective at using nature to solve our water issues and keeping the environment relatively clean/healthy. That whole "use oil pipelines" bit is just blowing smoke up your ass. This dude demonstrates an astonishing lack up understanding of how water demand works and how difficult it is to safely pump clean water anywhere.

[@hosslane320]

Question , when crude is drawn out of the earth , does water fill the gap ? Volume , how much to replace what's been drawn out over all of these years ? Thank you .

[@robertashton8942]

Hi Ricky. Thank you for this excellent video. What a great subject. You briefly mentioned the Almond crops in California. Almonds are notoriously high in water usage. They are the worst. I think as a first step for California, the state should start a program to phase out production of Almonds and reduce it to just 20% of what it is right now. This will result in huge water savings enough to address the drought issue in California significantly or even completely. The farmers who farm Almonds should be given incentives from the State to change to other low water consuming crops. Why not crop Agave then make Tequila right here in California.

[@Steamrick]

Because almond demand is going through the roof due to the vegan movement. Many vegan substitute products use almonds or almond milk in them. Almonds are a cash crop. Agave... I have doubts.

[@LeckieInstallsLondon]

The same could be said about animal products, too! 70% of the Colorado river is syphoned off for animal agriculture - something we dont need to consume but we choose to because we prefer animal protein over legumes. At this point, almonds and meat are luxuries this planet can no longer afford.

[@t_c5266]

@@LeckieInstallsLondon this is factually false. Like incredibly factually false

[@adammenhennett]

@@LeckieInstallsLondon consuming animal protein and green leafy veg for millions of years is what fuelled our brains and evolution to the point where we have medicine, hot running water, germ theory, surgery with anaesthetic, space exploration, the Internet, and all the other amazing marvels that exist today. It was not beans that got us here. They just don't have the goodies that human physiology requires, which led to us as a species NOT consuming them en masse because there were much better animal sources available. So, you do it long enough (millions of years) and you will adapt to it. Doesn't make it morally better or worse, just a basic fact of physiology. Our human bodies have evolved by benefiting from animal sources of protein and fat, and now that means that we benefit most if we consume those same products, not by swapping it out for something we have never historically consumed - especially this new alarming attempt to introduce plant based frankenburgers and other highly processed food like products.

[@LeckieInstallsLondon]

@@t_c5266 which part? I can link studies to both my claims, can you to support your claim that it is "incredibly" incorrect?

[@whylikethat8637]

I thought about this for Australia, especially the Sydney basin. I did not know about the plan they already tried and decided it was uneconomical. Places where there are not the pipelines, an open channel might be constructed. To make it more viable, solar panels could reside on top of the water to provide power, minimize evaporation and provide income to become more sustainable for servicing. I know these types of panel setups have been discussed before. Thank you for all your work to bring this content.

[@spacegamer85]

Lastly to truly make this project self sustaining or as least provide positive cash flow - have an end buyer (co-op, municipality, etc) ready to purchase surplus water. To make this work - it needs to be reliable (if not constant) and not just for flood control but that part would be like a switch to turn from the primary sources of water harvest to flood control/mitigation. Large retention ponds have diverse uses when the excess water is not being used.

[@nazgulXVII]

If you have an open canal, going up and down becomes a lot more difficult, I imagine

[@CaedenV]

The Eastern interior of Australia is a big bason. The idea was to dam it up, and create a giant man-made lake in the middle of it. I think Real Engineering or some other similar channel made a video about it a couple months ago, and it was really neat! But my take-aways for why it wouldn't work were 2-fold. 1) there were too many stakeholders with too many differing opinions on the plan... not the least of which being the people who lived there not wanting their home to become a giant lake. 2) the costs and reprecussions of the plan were too difficult to accurately account for. Some models basically showed that you would still have a giant desert, but with a lake in the middle of it, while others showed the whole area becoming swampland with dense trees and lots of added flora and fauna. Some cost projections were laughably small, claiming it would only cost a few million to install 1 well-placed dam, while other cost projections showed hundreds of millions of dollars to monitor and maintain the project in a sustainable manner. Ultimately it never happened, and likely never will happen.

[@skateguy50]

Need the boring company to make some tunnels. In Massachusetts we have underground tunnels from the quabbin reservoir that brings the water to the Boston area. Basically the made a man made reservoir to hold then watershed from western Massachusetts and pipes it artificially to the Boston area. This is same idea on a much larger scale

[@James-mb3je]

"Uneconomical" capitalism again getting in the way

[@TheLatsiomichael]

I was just talking about this idea with someone two weeks ago, looking forward to see how feasible it is at the end of the video

[@RodneyHickman]

I'm all for it. I think we should seriously consider pumping ocean water from California to the Great Salt Lake which is currently running out of water. The Great Salt Lake is already Salt Water. The Great Salt Lake has what is known as a lake effect. Where storms that pass over the great salt lake pick up extra water and drop it in the mountains as snow. The snow melts filling the Colorado River. Which flows back to southern California. This process takes the salt water from the Great Salt Lake and turns it into drinkable water. So in effect, this would turn the ocean into drinkable water for the western united states. This also makes better skiing for everyone!! It would fill downstream lakes like Lake Powell which is also very low. This is another very dry area that can take advantage of lake effect moisture. Good Luck with your insane plan. Hope you have success!!.

[@The_Quaalude]

That would increase the concentration of salt in the lake and kill everything in it...

[@ComteSt.Germain]

Another thought, why not look into some of the recent projects in some of the most arid places on earth where they are using more natural water management techniques such as using swales, gullies, and other water flow slowing techniques that allow for the water to stay in place longer, and saturating the ground more. This would help to refill natural aquifers and encourage native plant growth. Using non-invasive drought-resistant plants would also help. I do like your idea of essentially creating small rain forests to help create many small microclimates that encourage consistent natural rain creation.

[@ZaZen___]

A mixture of both would be incredible but people underestimate that what you mention is often so much more powerful and economically feasible since we are working with nature instead of trying to out engineer it. Love this comment. Bioswales are awesome.

[@docferringer]

@@ZaZen___ The Colorado River feeds aquifers and powers the Hoover Dam. That water benefits so many people and so many ecologies that its waters are almost completely gone by the time it reaches LA. I mention all that because, if we put ANY money into a project like this one then it should go to benefit that river. Rising temps are taking more and more water out of the river as evaporation, and California has lined parts of the river in concrete to keep the water from soaking into the soil. IMO we need that water refilling the local aquifers and we need that evaporation feeding rainclouds. We can make Colorado River be the beneficiary of one more megaproject, and through that river benefit so many citizens and our country as a whole.

[@ZaZen___]

@@docferringer Like the massive permaculture projects they did in India but for the CO river? Sounds great. CO is my resident state too😉

[@brakanone6809]

@@docferringer well I pee alot that should help

[@CD-vb9fi]

@@ZaZen___ You are spot on... working with nature is far superior to science and engineering methods that eschew natural methods of manipulation of the land.

[@goneg8or]

Honest question: Is there anything to worry about if micro organisms are moved from one area to another in the water?

[@mbern4530]

Not sure about micro organisms, but there is a chance bigger insects and even other animals could be sent and they can wreck havoc on an ecosystem. It's happening in places where channels have been built like suez for example.

[@abcdefghijklabcdefghijkl]

Filtration systems.

[@christhebuilder3752]

Right. Just wait till the Asian carp get sucked through one of those pipes and start a nice family in California. It's easy to say 'filtration'.. what would that look like? Bars going across openings? Like on a culvert that I see clogged all the time?

[@DavidHalko]

@@christhebuilder3752 - electrify a filtration area to stun the carp so the can be filtered out without too much difficulty… they do this to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes

[@DavidHalko]

Radiation & ultraviolet light & H3 bubblers can be used to treat water before movement… all driven by renewables.

[@timandnatd]

You can't say ecoflow has legendary build quality and reliability...the new units seam to be doing well, but the old ones have a LOT of issues.

[@dellcoc]

I came up with a similar proposal when I was in the 2nd grade. My teacher told me it was not possible because it wouldn't turn a corporate profit. She radicalized me against corporate America at a very young age.

[@thomasrebotier1741]

Desalination energy cost is equivalent to a height difference : (source wikipedia desalination) for sea water you need a pressure boost of 3 bars, thus equivalent to pumping water 30 meters high (100 feet). So energetically speaking, the choice is between pumping water half way across the country, including over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras, or pumping it 100 foot up from sea level (plus destination elevation). Quite clearly the energy cost of desalination is hugely less.

[@ComteSt.Germain]

One thing I did not hear you mention was pumping water back into the natural aquifers. There is a large amount of water pumped out of the aquifers that take a long time to replenish; why not help the refilling process along instead of simply pumping water out of one area and into another?

[@jesseatkins1835]

If you pump.the water into ponds and wetlands you are doing the same thing. Plus you are creating habitat for wildlife and plants The water is also filtered so the water going into the aquifer is clean. Plus you would not need to pump as much out of the ground because you have the surface water resources.

[@unholyrevenger72]

You can't refill Aquifers once theyre empty. the weight of the ground above the aquifer crushes the empty space left by the lack of water. The best you can do is keep aquifers the size they are now and do what oil drillers do, as they suck out the oil, they pump in water to keep the ground from collapsing any further.

[@Tom-ws1qz]

If you notice on shopping centers, office campuses and residential developments a corner of it is used as a catch basin for runoff. More of this water saving conservation needs to be used especially where it is used the most on large and small acreage farms.

[@brakanone6809]

where I live we pump to flood the flied then send the rice etc. to china how much sense does that make .And cali does basically the samething in it's own way and they dont even try to manage the water /conserve etc. Like use underground irrigation or how about everone update their toilet to a more modern one

[@aliciaalfonso5486]

Super Fantastic Work! TY ;) A

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

🙏

[@kajurkulp8108]

That is exactly how we got into this in the first place!

[@patrickcallahan2210]

It seems unlikely that water could be piped in the keystone pipeline as quickly as you are thinking. 600k barrels/day is about 1.7 m/s volumetric flow rate for the heated oil and if you were to multiply that by your 1000 number you would have water flowing in the pipes at 1700 m/s volumetric which seems insanely stupid (and nearly Mach 5...). Just imagine turning the pipes off, lol. (I'm a bit rusty so my math could be off).

[@poeticinjustice2914]

1681 m/s is specifically the number I landed on. Guy in the video assumed viscosity was the only limiting factor, not flow velocity.

[@EV3NTH888]

I'm glad the conversation is being had about using the pipelines for pumping water, I thought it was ridiculous we weren't already doing that. I had this conversation with someone a couple of months ago.

[@bzuidgeest]

It is ridiculous. Pumping water around is a patch on the real problem. Very old fashioned farming methods and poor crop choices. At least in the case of California. More modern farming that uses less water and a revision of the broken water rights situation, that distributed more water between states then there is fixes a lot more a lot easier.

[@annonymous6906]

@@bzuidgeest Agreed, nothing against the poster, but this is another "brilliant idea" from Cali, which is a sign that it's not a good idea. All I'm hearing is "Let's (everyone else) spend BILLIONS pumping water from the rest of the country so we can keep growing Almonds and Avocados in the desert." This couldn't possibly be a problem *cough Lake Mead water rights cough*...

[@darenwilson5606]

I agree, pipelines are a wonderful idea. We could also build more oil and gas pipelines. Thiswl would cut down on the cost of transportation, and lower the environmental impact caused by shipping large amounts of gasoline.

[@xiiibujinkan]

@@darenwilson5606 Pipelines have an environmental impact. Period. You're trading one evil for another.

[@martalli]

California does not need the Midwest's water. Stop acting like water should be free or nearly free, especially water you have diverted from its natural course. Start charging a market rate for water. Farming will quickly adapt, or move to places where there is more water. Did you know that most farms in Illinois don't irrigate *at all*? Diverting water hundreds of miles to farm in California is kind of crazy. Once you charge market rates, or perhaps a progressive rate, most excessive use of water, like grass yards and large scale irrigation, will solve itself.

[@JoeBuk724]

Great idea! Hopefully it can actually be put into action. Especially if they pump it to an already existing source like Lake Mead.

[@davidwillims2004]

do we need to build additional reservoirs to hold more water? and add systems to monitors for each reservoir?

[@budsorey]

We have already seen what the western states do to rivers like the Colorado. What do you think would happen if we have a way to connect eastern rivers to them? Bleed them dry as well.

[@yodaddy4944]

99% of Floods aren’t caused by releasing stored water from dams when a storm comes. It happens from rain directly over and around the affected area and between basins/dams. So this plan is fine for equalizing water levels between reservoirs but won’t help with flood damage mitigation. Only thing that can help with that is increasing/improving the storm drainage below street level. Which also isn’t water that I’d think is of suitable quality to pump into a reservoir untreated considering the pollutants. And even then I’d think that there’s no way to treat that volume of water quickly enough to effectively “take advantage” of the flood waters.

[@finitykarl]

I agree, each of the flood video/photo examples I saw in the video fit that scenario too, instead of dam backup. His analysis in this video focused on how interesting California is, not where and why floods and water surplus commonly are.

[@jeffbybee5207]

If there are enough water retention structures the ground can hold most anv precipitation. One rancher in AZ in his lifetime built 20,000 such structures on his creek. Government researchers comparing it to a nearby natural creek found a 30% increase in water runoff but it flowed 3 times as long. There are utube videos on similar work in India western saudi arabia and Africa. In Africa dams across gully fill with sand where water can be retained underground so it doesn't evaporate but a fawset on the dam taps into that lens of water with out pumping. . It's really neat to study. Also please check out Alan savory . His work on grazing animals benefiting the land Is fascinating

[@kennethreister7619]

Normally I find these videos interesting and informative. But I'm sorry to say I had to laugh when I heard the suggestion of using existing Natural Gas and Oil pipelines to move water to prevent flooding. It reminded me of when a co-worker suggested that tank farms should be built so they could be filled with Mississippi flood waters. The volumes of water that are shed from uplands and end up in lowlands, streams, rivers, flood plains are vast. It all happens fast too. Not addressed in the video is the energy that would need to be used to move those huge volumes of water between reservoirs. Again as Yo Daddy suggests pumping water between reservoirs solves very few flooding problems

[@marypatten9655]

however: lowering water levels in rivers that are prone to flooding areas around them makes sense. it is actually the pver flow of rivers tgat does cause flooding

[@kennethreister7619]

@@marypatten9655 there is a remote possibility of preventing flooding on some rivers where there is a large reservoir upstream of the flood prone areas. The transfer of water would likely have to start weeks or months ahead of the cause of the flooding event. The time period is dependent upon the Volume received, volume to be moved, the diameter of the pipes, the power/volume of pumps, length of pipe, elevation differences, friction, availability of power to run pumps etc. 2 bits' expectations of the velocity of fluid transfer appear to be way off. Take a look at the penstocks that are used to transfer water at Grand Coulee Dam to Banks Lake. They are enormous. His example and calculation of the Keystone pipeline and an estimation that 1000 times more water could be moved is unrealistic to an extreme. He seems to be suggesting that the water could move at 3000+ miles per hour (assuming typical oil pipeline velocity of 3 to 8 mph). The fact that the estimated volume could meet the needs of 30,000,000 households says nothing about the volume of water that is moved by nature in a flooding event. It seems like a cool idea but I just can't see it as workable without the environmental damage and displacement of people, farms, and wildlife as thousands of more reservoirs are created. People nee to change their expectations on where they can build their homes. Floods occur naturally and can be beneficial to wildlife and more.

[@danielnwoke4274]

Genius idea and something the world is going to need...world wide water grids!

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Yes!

[@The_Quaalude]

People need to stop complaining about how hard this is and get to work. I thought this was America ⁉️🇺🇲

[@treyweaver5396]

Thanks!

[@jeffarmfield2346]

Interesting idea and thoughtful presentation. Bur you left out arguably the main hurdle to all of this...water rights. The places that have excess water will never agree to share that water. Just look at some of the cases surrounding the idea of piping Great Lakes water to the Southwest.

[@privacylock855]

You hit the nail square and you only two thumbs up. it shows how uninformed these people are.

[@firefighter1c57]

Once you move the water from say West Virginia to California, you might very well create a rainforest in California, you might also end the rainforest in West Virginia...

[@tree18is]

We got this!

[@michaelleue7594]

Interesting idea! I'm pretty sure the viscosity argument is total bunk, but aside from that, really cool food for thought.

[@finneylane4235]

There is already a discussion among executives of the Wyoming-Utah pipeline, scheduled to be decomissioned in 23 IIRC, to utilize it for pumping from the Oregon coast to re-fill the Great Salt Lake. It's very exciting to see the idea being investigated.

[@brettneff7900]

Too bad the GSL isn’t drinkable…. Maybe they should pump it up to reservoirs instead of wasting it in the Salt Lake

[@danielvonbose557]

@@brettneff7900 Ocean water isn't drinkable either, the water could go to desalination and waste brine to the lake which is way saltier than the ocean anyway.

[@tylershepard4269]

Actually pumping water from the ocean into the GSL would increase the evaporation from the GSL, which would increase the precipitation near the GSL helping to increase the area’s fresh water supply. Pump salt water inland and let it evaporate in salt pans/sinks and you’ll increase local precipitation significantly.

[@danielvonbose557]

@@tylershepard4269 There are already massive evaporation pans operating on the lake, a major source of salt and fertilizer. Ocean water could supply desalinated water for drinking, but also brine to go.

[@deadwoodturning8804]

This could also help with the rising ocean levels by moving some of that water to an existing inland sea. A good percentage of our freshwater snowpack comes from the lake affect snow. It's like natures massive de-salination plant. The reason the levels are dropping so fast is because we are diverting too much of the rainwater run off to other uses. If the Great Salt Lake goes dry, the resulting cloud of arsenic dust will make much of the state's east of it toxic, not to mention the loss of around 75% of the world's supply of brine shrimp.

[@AaronRobertson]

I work for The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for 20+ years, we operate the State Water Project canals from Northern CA to Southern CA and also the Colorado River Aqueduct from the border of AZ to Los Angeles and distribute the water to all over Southern California. I have been saying this exact things for quite some time now. We have the ability to make gas pipelines, freeways, etc all across the continent but water pipes? Not been done yet. I also proposed going from the Pacific northwest to Northern CA area, since the distribution is already set up from there. We are only getting 5% allocation from the State Water Project this year. I proposed running a cluster of pipes (incase one has a failure) along freeways/roadways. CA pays for the water, imagine the income other states could generate selling off water from reservoirs as they prepare for deluge (one weather phenomenon we can predict.) I would go a step farther and ensure a distribution all over the US so you can migrate the water where it is needed, maybe a farm isn't getting enough water, can route to that region. If you run the pipeline with solar you can generate power to run the pumps necessary to keep the water flowing. If we have a good water year would could sell any excess water to Mexico (They are currently part of the Colorado agreements along with 5 states.)

[@ElectricDanielBoone]

PNW doesn't have enough water for itself now. We've been removing dams for salmon etc, so less water is impounded up here. East side of the Cascades has the biggest water shortage up here. Not enough water for our own agriculture.

[@morgananderson9647]

Funny thing is California does not want to pay for it's self inflicted water problems. The people of the PNW (I'm a 50 year resident of Seattle) expect you to solve your own water problems. Oil is not going away in the next 20 to 30 years. So good luck getting the pipelines. PS. The majority of Electrical power in California is generated from Fossil fuels. Renewable fuels will never RELIABLY produce the energy California requires. Brown Outs anyone can't charge your Tesla from solar in the dark...

[@gravelydon7072]

Totally disagree with moving the water all over the country. That is a good way to have an even worse disaster than CA not having enough water. Think about what could enter the water system. One of the worst would be the Zebra Mussels. Then there are other things that are bacterial. But what do I know, I just worked for one of the largest water management agencies in the US and who after 9/11, the Federal Government wanted to Federalize part of with background checks for national security reasons. By the way, East of the Mississippi River we had the largest of the pump stations from 1955 till recently when they built a new one on the Mississippi. Currently they are dumping 1500 cfs to the ocean by natural flow at just one structure alone. And all the rain that hit the Orlando area will be going East, or South into Lake O.

[@AaronRobertson]

@@ElectricDanielBoone Thanks for adding information to the discussion. There is a lot that would need to be studied and figured out for sure. I'd say that we could do better as a nation as a whole with our natural resources. We couldn't put some areas at risk so others could benefit.

[@1DwtEaUn]

Thinking more on this, it seems like adding moisture to the drought areas leading to evaporation/transpiration could just mean needing to cycle even more water from the flood areas due to cycling of the already exported flood waters being precipitated back down on the flood areas.

[@twillison8824]

This video has aged well in one month, Mississippi so low that barges are getting stuck.

[@vortexgen1]

When it rains in southern CA, most of the water just runs straight out into the ocean through the concrete canals in the cities for flood control. Also when you pump water by canals or pipes, you have to be careful about relocating fish and plant species from one coast to another. I have thought about this same thing for a long time and would love to see this happen.

[@phatpatatit]

Good point. Would be helpful to add mesh screens or other strong materials allowing water to pass thru but keep fish and plants native to where they belong.

[@mrpoquah]

@@phatpatatit how would you handle having to constantly clean said mesh screens, bearing in mind that they would have to be fine enough to keep all living things out of the pipes?

[@bobshagit9503]

simply add it into the ogallala

[@russellday5003]

Run through small diameter black ABS pipe for long distances in the desert only during hours of daylight, have discharge on a thermostat to release at 150 degrees, not much will live through that.

[@bobshagit9503]

@@russellday5003 still trillions of dollars wasted on a dumb ass idea

[@acmehighperformance2826]

Some water tables could be useful for transportation and storage too. Pump into the closest points To the supply and extract far on other ends saving a lot of pipe in places.

[@ritahodges254]

I've actually said this for quite some time but but one of the things I said was don't just pump water to another reservoir pump it to another aquifer to refill the aquifers because that will help the rivers that are drying up and if you help the rivers then in turn you're going to help the reservoirs. There have been places where they pumped so much water out of the aquifer that the aquifer itself collapsed and when that happens you lose that aquifer so if you refill the aquifers from places that are going to flood I think it would help prevent that from happening.

[@nitetrane98]

This reminds me an awful lot of the plan to fly to the sun at night because it's not as hot.

[@waynep343]

A cotton farmer near Delano ca got the state of California in the 1920s to drain the 9th largest lake in the United states so he could plant more cotton. This drastically changed the evaporation and rain fall around the south end of the san Joaquin valley but it also caused drought on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountians.

[@johnmichaeltracy9050]

we seem to work real hard to beat the crap out of mother nature instead of working with her. u.s.a. is a short term, immediate gratification country, we want it, just do it, damned the preplanning and studies on what the effects will be.

[@TheHalcyonAnon]

I think we oughta just fill that lake back up.

[@craigcottam]

2 problems I can see: 1, will we have enough flood warning to pump enough water to mitigate wastage? 2, will the areas that receive excess water start making demands on pumped water even when there is no excess water to pump?

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Interesting questions

[@dougwills]

And this is my concern. As a Virginia and NC resident, I have seen plenty of flooding and excess water at times, but I have also seen times of drought. It seems to me that once the pipeline is put in place, even when we do not have "excess" water, California will (almost) always need more. What happens when we want to say "no" as we build our water inventory levels back up, but they say "well, you might not have excess, but you have enough to share."

[@TheAnticorporatist]

Also, they need super badass storm drain systems, also capable of diverting storm surge (where applicable)…don’t need to export salt water to California and Texas, lol.

[@ipp_tutor]

@@dougwills I think the point is to only pump water out when the weather forecast models predict there will be a flood that will overflow the reservoirs. The idea isn’t to take water that other’s have in store and aren’t using, but to take water that would otherwise be lost to the ocean if a flood comes by.

[@jeffsaginaw1769]

I been talking about a national WPA type project to create a method to pump water from wherever there's too much to areas in drought for 30 years. Most folks argued it was too massive to happen. Good to see this video.

[@cliffordschaffer5289]

The California farms require 36 billion gallons per day. That is about one tenth the flow of the Mississippi River at its mouth. That is a pipe about a mile wide and 200 feet deep. Then, the pipe needs to go to Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta, in Northern California, among other places. You get the funding worked out and I will start right away.

[@jeffsaginaw1769]

@@cliffordschaffer5289 I wasn't talking about supplying CA with water. I was just thinking of the often large flooding events in US and that water could be used in the west. Not envisioning "mile wide pipes..."

[@cliffordschaffer5289]

@@jeffsaginaw1769 The water from flooding comes at the wrong time of year to be useful and there isn't enough storage space to hold it until it could be used. Furthermore, trying to use it to control floods would probably require bigger pipes than just plugging one in at the end of the Mississippi. More water coming all at once. And California is the place where it would do the most good, if Superman could do it.

[@cliffordschaffer5289]

@@jeffsaginaw1769 If you want to store that flood water, then the first places you need to fill up are Lake Powell, Lake Mead, Lake Shasta, and Lake Oroville. After those, you would need a series of pipes running to each of the lakes over a few hundred miles of Sierra Nevada mountains. That would be a tiny start to the idea. Just for grins, pull up Google Earth and work out where those pipes would have to run.

[@imhereforthework]

I been on this idea..lol crazy great minds think alike.

[@JT-bg2vy]

Possibly even utilizing a 'leech line' method along route to strategic areas could help too. Although it would add additional costs, it could be somewhat minimal and have a giant impact.

[@alexdo3838]

just dig a new river might work

[@lnwolf41]

Here is an idea, why not fill the Salton Sea with ocean water to its previous levels, and use it as a water battery. They could float 1 square mile of solar PV to generate power, and line shore line with all the various "water from air" devices, and the various desalinations projects for viability

[@mybudinesd4545]

You’re highlighting something that many people have said that I work with in the military we see countries without water in other countries with an abundance of freshwater and we try to get them to do just that pipe it into the neighboring country

[@barrylafratta5720]

great idea