Jump to content

Mighty fine

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    176
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Mighty fine

  1.  
    El Paso has the largest inland desalination plant in the world.
    https://www.epwater.org/our_water/water_resources/desalination
    One distinction on this: El Paso is brackish groundwater desalination. With brackish desal, your going on the order of 5000 mg/l to less than 1000 mg/l of total dissolved solids typically using membrane filtration, freshwater blending, or a combination of both.

    With seawater desal, your looking at going from 35,000 mg/l to less than 1000 mg/l tds with your treatment system. That additional level of treatment compounds both your capital and operations cost. Corpus is looking at seawater desal, but it's some expensive water.
    • Like 1
  2. Isn’t Michael Burry (the guy from The Big Short that predicted the housing crisis) investing solely in water and food/land with water supplies that can grow food and then send it to water poor areas..... like Austin someday.

    Austin has untapped options (eg, go east and tap the Carrizo Wilcox aquifer system similar to San Antonio). This coupled with the growth of reuse and alternative technologies such as Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) will set them up well into the future.

     

    With regards to private investment, PPPs are increasing in popularity (see SAWS Vista Ridge wellfield and pipeline). I think the economics on water supply projects are prohibitive to private investment/ development unless (a) you have and can stand to sit on a shit ton of capital/assets for a 20 year horizon without making, or (b) you own a shit ton of land sitting on top of a prolific aquifer (see Temple Inland/Forestar)

     

  3. Yep, I've been saying this for a while. I wouldn't make them illegal, but I would jack up the price of water for heavy users. Something like the first x number of gallons a family or business uses per month would be cheap (or hell even free for the minimum number of gallons needed to live). Then have a tier pricing plan. The next y number of gallons is a little more expensive, then on and on. If you want to water your grass every day, it's going to cost you.
    This is a common practice. Pretty sure a tiered rate structure is also a requirement for utilities mandated to have a Water Conservation Plan.
  4. If I remember correctly, we were gonna use our emergency fund to work on our water infrastructure back after the 2011 drought.
    The state passed legislation in 2013 on this, then it was set up as the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT) and is administered by the Texas Water Development Board. Basically a portion of the rainy day money was set aside and allocated for low interest loans /grant funding for water supply projects.
  5. I remember going up that following Wednesday to volunteer / clean.    The sight of those gargantuan cypress trees uprooted will always be embedded in my mind.   You'd stand next to the root balls and feel like a very tiny person.
    That was my exact thought as well. It was almost like a fleet of dozers came through and pushed up hundreds of tree/brush piles along the banks and sand bars.
    • Like 1
  6. Ajax, I'm 32. My vision at 30 was about the same as yours is currently. Now, I'm at a -2.0 in both eyes without trying. I've had a noticeable natural improvement; eye doctor said this is not uncommon.

    I'm almost to the point where I don't feel that need corrective lenses (except at dusk... driving not lit roads at dusk fucking sucks now even with lenses)

  7. I'm tracking with you on that. And yeah, the development density is critical recycle operations to be feasible economically. Regulatory headwinds still pose a challenge to recycle in some areas; funny enough, I don't believe University Lands allowed large scale produced water recycle/ reuse on their leases until 2017 or 2018.

  8. Almost every major player is reusing produced water for fracs either 100% produced or blended with some fresh water. It’s a green/green solution 
    But at what percentage within their operation?

    Upstream E&P life cycle water management has really grown in the last decade; the produced water managment subsection has really taken off since 2013-2014 or so. The stuff that PXD, DVN, SWN, etc, have been doing on the water side is pretty damn cool and innovative. But let's not pretend that every major player isn't poking new water wells to support growing ops, either.
  9. Everyone has their strengths and deficits.   I never let military or law enforcement or engineers sit on a jury if I can prevent it.  They cannot get it through their heads the concept of you can win a trial with 51% proof.  Their brains do not work that way.  They are hard wired to accept only proof, and tend to automatically disregard the order of the Court to follow the Preponderance of the Evidence  jury charge.  They will not follow it.    They will say after, "I had some doubts...you did not prove it fully..."   No kidding.   That would be a different standard - not the one the Court gave you.   It is useless to educate them, and they will argue that they are right when you tell them that it was more likely than not true.
    Which is all to say, if you have a decision that takes nuance and possibilities with a relatively soft percentage of proof - like under 80 percent, that type of mind will resist  an option that is not a sure thing.   And sometimes you have to make a BIG decision based upon a 'more likely than not'.     That type of mind tends to freeze when making a decision with less than certainty.   Studies show that the type of black-white thinker that is military or LE or engineering tend to be conservative/GOP.   Liberals tend to be folks who see more gray.  We like nurses and social workers and teachers on juries.   They do fine with a 55% proof in a case.  
    So I think that Red State leaders may be slower to act not out of evil intent, but due to  a lack of 100% certainty proof about the Covid-19 response "right decision".  
    If this is too political I will delete it - or a Mod can. 
     
     
     
    Never set on a jury, but how the fuck do you quantify 51% proof? How do you know it's not actually 49% proof?


  10. Child care for most people is not a la carte or daily rate where it just turns off when they’re closed. Most of us are on the hook regardless. Which blows, but I guess that means the workers still get paid. 


    Yep. Seems like a pretty good group of caretakers at my son's daycare, and I'd like for him to continue going there (or maybe not have to go through the pain of finding a new place) and hope they can manage to come out the other side alright.
×
×
  • Create New...