ELi5: Why can’t we build a giant water pipeline across the US? I live in north east US and we get an insane amount of precipitation. Can’t we help out the west by moving some of that to them?
In: 3
You can. It’s just a really dumb idea. It’s far cheaper and simpler to just change water conservation habits. The vast majority of water use is by agriculture, and agriculture does not give a flying fuck about piped water because it’ll cost them hundreds to thousands of times more than what they pay now, which they will never ever pay. They’ll just move somewhere else where water is far cheaper.
The average person is the only group of people willing to pay more for water, but they have very little impact on water shortages in the first place.
So there’s no point in piping it. The people who use most of it don’t want it (crop and animal farms), and the average people living in homes and apartments don’t need it in the first place. There’s more than enough water as it is. You just have to tell the farmers to take a hike.
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