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More on Chuck Devore’s nuclear power for desalination and the ultimate question of development and population growth

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 29, 2007 at 3:00 pm

Yesterday, I posted a link to Chuck Devore’s blog, plus another blogs reaction to it. Today, Chuck Devore posted a response which I will post, but first, here’s an article from the North County Times regarding the Chuck Devore’s proposed ‘nuclear power for desalination’ bill:

A bill introduced earlier this week by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, would allow the building of a new nuclear reactor at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Part of the power produced by a third reactor at the nuclear plant would be used to run a desalination plant to turn seawater into drinking water, DeVore said. The bill would lift a decades-old ban on nuclear facilities to build the reactor at San Onofre.

If history is an indicator, the bill is unlikely to pass. A similar measure failed to make it out of committee earlier this year. But DeVore said it’s time to talk about giving nuclear power another chance. “What I’m trying to do is offer a real solution, even if the leaders in the Legislature don’t want to,” he said. “Eventually, the people of California are going to take note.”

DeVore, who has championed efforts to lift the statewide moratorium, said the bill would help fix the state’s power and water crunch. “A new reactor could produce about 1,200 megawatts of power,” he said. “My bill would require that 240 megawatts of that power to be designated for seawater desalination. This could provide about two-thirds of San Diego County’s fresh-water needs.”

This is a long post … click the more at the end of this line to continue reading this article, which includes Chuck Devore’s response and the larger question of controlling population growth …

To read the full text of the article from the North County Times, click here.

Aqua Blog Maven is not sure if there is enough desalination plants in the works to be able to provide two-thirds of San Diego County’s water needs. Poseidon’s desalination plant’s capacity is said to be 50 million gallons per day. Although that water is practically entirely spoken for, I wonder what percentage of San Diego’s water needs it would supply? Because I know, for instance, that the plant in Santa Barbara would produce water for about 15,000 people. Estimating Santa Barbara’s population at about 90,000, it would then take six of those plants to satisfy Santa Barbara’s water needs. However, that plant is old and certainly new technologies have made gains. However, it would be interesting to know how many desalination plants it would take to satisfy San Diego’s water supply needs. If anyone knows, shoot me an email …

Here’s the link to yesterday’s desalination story for those of you who want to catch up. Chuck Devore responded with this post on his OC Blog:

Very illuminating web comments on the idea from California’s environmental left clarify the ideology we are up against. A post on the WiLD Blog (below) blames our lack of water on development. This, of course, is like blaming our traffic congestion on development. (You can almost hear them intone, “The traffic was fine until all you people moved here and got jobs…”) Governor Jerry Brown shut down freeway construction in the late 1970s thinking it would deter growth (Don’t built it and they won’t come…). History shows that we didn’t build and they came anyway.

WiLD Blog (http://wildcoast.blog.com/2129120/)
“Desalinization projects are the newest hope for the developer lobby in Southern California to find new ways to provide water for all the new construction projects they want to build in our increasingly dry desert… Chuck–our dwindling water supplies are due to the massive development boom in Southern California…”

Of course, if people move to California or have children and we don’t add more water capacity or build more roads, the infrastructure that supports modern life will begin to get overworked.

Perhaps what is really at work here is the more honestly and openly stated goal of simply eliminating people. In an article headlined, “Children ‘bad for planet,’” dated May 7, 2007 in The Sunday Times, the Optimum Population Trust (http://www.optimumpopulation.org/) said having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanor in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags.

To read the full text of Chuck Devore’s post on the OC Blog, click here.

I have often thought about this sort of thing. How do you control development, realistically? I take a moment and think about why I came to California, and why other people come to California. People relocate here for a variety of reasons, but probably the biggest are the weather and for jobs, such as wanting to be involved in the entertainment industry or the aerospace industry. So how do you stop those people from coming? It isn’t as easy as stopping the building of new homes. People will come anyway. Maybe what we really need is launch a massive “California sucks” campaign across the U.S.

And consider population growth in worldwide perspective. Let’s look at some figures for a moment. China has a population of 1.3 billion people with a physiologic density of 3612.2 people per square mile (or per square kilometer – the table I am looking at does not specify). Physiologic density means population per square mile of arable (livable) land. India has a population of 1.1 billion and a physiologic density of 1,707 per square mile. By contrast, the United States has a population of 297 million and a physiologic density of 447.6. Both India and China are facing environmental degradation and serious drinking water shortages. Point is, at some point, things start to go downhill.

Is worldwide population growth out of control?

Here’s a letter from a reader published on the High Country News:

No amount of mitigation for stopping climate change will work unless we stabilize population. Nothing will solve this civilization’s spiral into irreversible consequences and unsolvable problems unless we stop population growth. The March 2006 population projections from Fogle/Martin show the United States growing from 300 million to 400 million by 2040. That’s another 100 million people, folks! This “Human Katrina” will sweep across this nation, making our children victims or survivors. What we really need are national policies on population, carrying capacity, environmental impact, international family planning and alternative energy. Colorado stands in the crosshairs of an added 6 million people by mid-century. Name one advantage to adding 6 million people to Colorado. If we don’t stop population growth, we’re simply painting the deck chairs on the Titanic to make them look pretty. Educate yourself: www.numbersusa.com.

Now there have been some interesting editorials lately that are questioning why, in the face of estimates of exploding population growth in California, why our leaders are preparing to accommodate this growth instead of combat it. Some question what is the carrying capacity of our state, and at what point does having too many people living here wreck the quality of life for everyone. To me, these are valid but difficult questions to grapple with. How do you tell an American how many children they can have, or what part of the country they can live in? Yet, at some point, if population continues to grow, isn’t there a point at which the resources won’t be able to meet demand? Difficult questions, difficult answers.

September 29, 2007 · Filed Under Desalination

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