We pipeline oil from Canada to Texas, why can’t we pipeline water from the Great lakes to the south?
Edit: thank you all who replied, I’ve gathered that it is technically possible, but would come with a huge amount of legal, environmental, and practical issues due to the amount of water that would actually be needed. It sounds like there are far more practical solutions available if the need became dire enough.
In: 45
Technically possible. There isn’t anything super difficult about doing it.
a) Humans use far more water than oil (converted to energy) per day. If agricultural use is factored in, it is many times more water per person per day. So there would need to be a lot of pipes.
b) Expensive. Oil is sold at $50-100 or more per barrel (42 gallons). One barrel of water, in most markets, would cost several cents. Pumping water a great distance uses lots of energy so the cost of water would need to be much much higher than any normal consumer would be willing to pay.
c) Capital cost. As above – lots of pipes, lots of pumps very very high capital costs. Who’d pay for it? Which taxpayer or consumer would be willing to fork out thousands of dollars a year to pay back loans to build this infrastructure? It would be hard to convince folks in, say, New York state, to pay for water to the Southwest so the cost would have to be borne by a fairly small population.
d) Source of (fresh) water? Most of the mid-west relies on aquifers which are already drying up. Most of the West coast states are water starved until up to areas near the north. The amount of water needed would affect the local ecology – it would be politically impossible to get permission to pump the amount needed.
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