I kind of forgot why exactly.... My mom always uses piping hot water to rinse out her vases and stuff, and leaves the faucet on for 10 minutes at a time on full blast. she takes 30 minute long showers and hot baths once even twice a week. energy and water wasting at its best. I keep telling her to stop doing that, but she says "We can't run out of water, it's always going to be here." why not waste water? I forgot my own reasons why. But I tell her that even though I don't know, there's a reason as to why people say to not waste water, so she probably shouldn't. so, why not waste it? I honestly forgot my own answers.
well for one the energy used to heat things is phenomenal. Be it electrical or an oil / gas boiler etc. If you cut back even a little bit on hot water usage, you'll save £££ on yout bills come that time of the month.
It depends on where you live. If you are in a coastal city with a large river flowing through it, it probably doesn't matter how much water you use. If you live inland, it may matter a great deal how much water you use outdoors, because that water is lost to everyone downstream. What you use indoors is treated and returned to the river basin, minus a small percentage for pipe leaks. If you live inland and have a less than adequate river source or undersized lake reservoir, then every drop counts, especially during dry times of year. You need to find out what your local situation is. As the poster above said, hot water is a different situation. That is about both water consumption and energy consumption.
but she says "We can't run out of water, it's always going to be here." That's true, but 99% of it isn't drinkable. Until such time as large-scale desalination of seawater happens, we're dependent on rainfall, snowfall, and groundwater, which fluctuate with the climate and usage levels. Droughts in the West and Midwest have the potential to create a fresh water crisis for millions of people. That has already happened a number of times in the West in the past couple of decades. And even if your supply of fresh water is adequate, the water still has to be purified, possibly stored, pumped, heated, the wastewater treated and pumped. All of that takes energy and resources. A little geography question for you: Where does the Colorado River empty? The answer is ... it doesn't. Naturally, the Colorado would flow into the Gulf of California, down by Baja. But by the time the river gets there, every last drop of it has been taken. The mouth of the river is completely dry.
As an old California saying has it, "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting." A close relative of mine in San Francisco who ought to know (she is a Superior Court Judge ruling on utilities cases) says central California, including San Francisco, has a serious water shortage. Sure water can be de-salinized, if you're willing to build a power plant to run the process. And is the new power plant nuclear, or coal-fired, or what? And does Joe Consumer have the money to pay for it?
yeah he kind of does have the money, considering what we consider essentials I'd say joe consumer has some messed up priorities
The Colorado River empties into Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernadino, Riverside and San Diego counties with their fifteen million people. Probably Yuma, Vegas and Phoenix get some as well. Even Mexicali and Tijuana, who knows? I don't know you, but I expect you drink water as well. You might even bathe and wash dishes and flush toilets. That makes you one of the Joe Consumers I was referring to. But I think New Zealand doesn't have a water shortage, does it?
There are plenty of smart people in sun-drenched, solar-fluxed, "it never rains in" southern California. Maybe they can come up with a suitable energy source. They paid for the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, not to mention dozens of other smaller ones. They paid for the California Aqueduct. They paid for the Central Arizona Project. They paid for the Central Utah Project. This ought to be a piece of cake compared to those.
Solar power is a perfect match for a de-salinization plant, because it is so easy to store water. You just make water while the sun is out.
Here's the most important reason for joe-consumer to conserve water... So joe-rich guy can play golf in the desert! El Conqistador, Tucson, Arizona P.S. I love golf but,(sigh) I'm not a rich guy.... ZW
You'd be right to say I use water, lots of it infact. New Zealand has adequate water for most of the country...for now. Some parts especially the farming in the south have water shortages often. What I was more meaning is that most people spend a lot of money on superfluous items, many of which contain plastic packaging...plastic requires a lot of water to manufacture. eg a bottle of water requires more water to make than it stores, and that water is then waste water
Wikipedia has the following article. The Point Paterson Desalination Plant is a planned municipal-scale solar-powered desalination plant with land-based brine disposal just outside Port Augusta, South Australia. The Point Paterson Project utilizes a salt flat owned by a salt company but which has not been in use for solar salt production for decades. The plant will integrate renewable energy and desalination technologies to create environmentally-friendly electricity and water. In particular, the project will significantly reduce the usual greenhouse impacts associated with grid electricity demand for desalination. The article also notes a cost of AUS$370,000,000 for this plant, which will service 34,000 people. That's AUS$10,900 per person.
It's not so much about "wasting" water, as the hidden energy costs of using water. If you live by a river, there's no problem with using water to water unlimited amounts of plants. But in society, we gotta make chemicals to treat water, burn fossil fuels to make electricity to transport it, onto infinity. So typically for every drop of water you use a little speck of coke goes puff.
ok, the overall ammt of water on earth isnt going to increase through conservation. we have the same quantity of the stuff as we did before humans were here to drink it. water is everywhere although its distribution and associated cost for delivery is critical. One shouldnt expect to grow flowers in the desert unless they are able to pay the utility bill. So, why then are so many people on the west coast using so much water? they really arent...its a misconception esp when you look at population figures. its dry out there in the southwest. Conserve water then, that makes sense. keep lake meade full. However do not bellyache about a shortage of water out there. Hell, even the late sam kennison said "we have deserts in america too, we just dont live in em asshole!" but we do live in them. And we farm in them too. Irrigation of lands that are arid to make a profit are draining the aquifers! what was even until the 70s considered an unexhaustable ammt of h20 in aquifers has been reduced maybe by 1/3rd. Stop the farming. Stop the complaining. If thats not good enough then move out of the damn desert!
A fun way to save water is to shower together instead of taking separate showers hehe. There's a reason in itself!
that is why i have my own well on my farm here all the water i ever will need and no purifiing strait up form the ground mmmmmmmmmm taste so good. i wouldn thave it anyother way
the last well I dug a few years ago cost 20,000 two years before that i dug a well in the pasture for my cows and that cost 18000 dollars. The reason i dug the new well for my house was because the old one that was dug in 1940's finaly gave up and couldnt push no more, and caved in. so there is that water saveing for ya my old well lasted for more than 60 years and it taseted just as good the day it quite running from the first time I drank from it 30 years ago as a baby.
