Archive for April, 2009
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Why Nobody Listens to (Some) Enviros
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
About a year ago, I corresponded [see emails below] with Dorothy Green a few months before she died. (At the time, I had no idea how famous she was.)
I’ve no doubt that Green had her heart in the right place, but I do doubt the ideological stance that she and many enviro [...]
My Stuff in Several Places
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I was quoted in this SF Chronicle article, saying “raise prices.”
In follow-up interviews, I said the same on KCBS [4:34 MP3] and KSRO.
I also spoke on water and investments at the Investor’s Circle. Here’s 24 minutes of audio [4MB MP3] of the panel discussion between me, Brian Dunn (Growth Capitol Services) and [...]
Speed Blogging
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
“Yes, Southern California has a water problem. No, it isn’t caused by drought. The problem we face is man-made - not nature-made. There is too great a demand for the amount of water available either locally or imported from elsewhere…. The problem was not drought; the problem was unbridled growth.” The authors [...]
Weekend Discussion: Social Water
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
NOTE: This post will stay here until Sunday night. Posts for Saturday and Sunday morning go below this post.
Dear Aguanauts,
Discussion posts allow you to discuss your beliefs on a topic — to share your understanding, experience and opinions — without worrying about what’s right or what others think. (Check out last week’s [...]
California’s Economic Future
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I will be speaking at the first Bay Area Liberty on the Mind Conference “California State’s Bankruptcy and its Economic Future” on Monday, April 27, 2009. 1-7PM.
Here’s the description:
California, the richest state of the union, is now financially bankrupt with the lowest credit rating in the USA. It is the highest taxed [...]
Leshy on Water
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
John Leshy, professor of law at UC Hastings, has a lot of useful things to say about water law.
In this 2005 article [doc], he creates a dialogue between a California cotton farmer and government lawyer charged with the task of explaining why the farmer is facing reductions in water deliveries when she [...]
Insuring against Incompetance
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
After I gave a talk outlining “my” idea for using insurance instead of regulation to raise the operating efficiency of water utilities, LM sent me a link to this book (Managing Environmental Risk through Insurance by Freeman and Kunreuther; Springer 1997):
Can insurance be used as a means to obtain compliance with environmental [...]
Engineers on Native Water and Governance
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
I was visiting my GF’s relatives in Tennessee recently, and I got the chance to speak with them about their work on water infrastructure on Native American reservations, unincorporated counties and places farther afield (Alaska, Nicaragua, Colombia and Haiti).
These water chats [5-6MB MP3s about 30 min. long] will give you a better [...]
Engineers on Native Water and Governance
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
was visiting my GF’s relatives in Tennessee recently, and I got the chance to speak with them about their work on water infrastructure on Native American reservations, unincorporated counties and places farther afield (Alaska, Nicaragua, Colombia and Haiti).
These water chats [5-6MB MP3s about 30 min. long] will give you a better understanding [...]
Flashback: 16-22 Apr 2008
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
These posts are STILL relevant, so please comment (I’ll approve them ASAP.)
Coachella reactionaries protest water rate increases. They are being asked to pay the UNBELIEVABLE price of $10/AF. $1 for 32,500 gallons! What a ripoff! [end sarcasm]
People in Vermont invoke the Public Trust doctrine to reallocate water rights. They want to maximize [...]
Technology Saves Resources
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
This stove design (the “Kyoto Box”) just won the Forum for the Future’s Climate Challenge competition:
The box costs about $6 to make, and ironically uses the greenhouse effect to boil and bake. It consists of two boxes, one inside the other, with an acrylic cover, which lets solar energy in and traps [...]
Behavior Modification
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
JWT sent this:
David, Here is my April water bill from the City of San Clemente:
Water base fee $8.38
Water consumption 6.52 (4 units Tier 1 @$1.63)
Sewer base fee 18.30
Sewer commodity 11.50
Storm drain 2.96
Clean ocean fee 5.02
________
TOTAL $52.68
So the question for today is this; How much higher will the $1.63 consumption price have to [...]
Packing Peanuts
Submitted by PlasticLess.com Blog
Photo Credit: ThrasherDave
When I worked at JustUs Coffee, I had a coworker who was quite vocal about his hatred of Styrofoam packing peanuts. We were a production facility in the middle of major steady expansion, so we ended up receiving packaged equipment quite often. My hatred for packing peanuts was increased several [...]
Read This Paper on Demand Management!
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Kenney et al. have done us all a favor by analyzing several years of data on the effects of management strategies on water demand in Aurora, Colorado.
This paper [PDF] joins the Santa Barbara study on my must-read list.
Kenney et al. make the following points:
They assume that customers respond to the average price [...]
Two Scary Pictures
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Chris Goemans sent me some survey results that explain a lot of the difficulty we face in implementing aguanomic policies in the West.
In the first (Figure 5; click to enlarge), we can see that respondents’ [relative ranking by WHO? managers? customers? Goemans et al.?] prefer to “meet demand during short term scarcity” [...]
Dangerous Consultants
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
In contrast to the careful study above (academics at their best), we (via DB) have this disaster of a “report” [DOC] given to the SFPUC.
Here’s what RFC says:
Since the SFPUC is facing large rate increases over the next several years, it was important to get a sense of the price elasticity of [...]
Clean Water Restoration Act
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
(via DW) The NYT opines:
An internal E.P.A. report furnished to Congress last year revealed that the agency had dropped or delayed more than 400 cases involving suspected violations of the law — nearly half the agency’s entire docket. The reason in every instance was that regulators did not know whether the streams [...]
A New Approach to Biogasoline
Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog
My ideal microbe for biofuel production would consume garbage, excrete gasoline, and die if it escapes into the wild. Excretion of longer chain hydrocarbons like gasoline would enable a less energy-intensive separation, because the product would phase out of water. LS9 is exploring this sort of pathway via microbes, and Virent [...]
Implications of the CARB Ethanol Ruling
Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog
A number of people have written or commented regarding the California Air Resources Board (CARB) ruling that is expected on ethanol later this week. Treehugger had the story:
Corn Ethanol Worse than Oil? California Rules Yes
In what would certainly be a huge blow to the US’ formidable corn-ethanol industry, the California Air [...]
Hindsight Peripheral Vision is 20:20
Submitted by PlasticLess.com Blog
I desperately needed a computer mouse this week and all of my choices in the local retail market came with excessive plastic packaging. I am reusing a flat portion of the plastic as a super heavy duty laminate for my list of emergency phone numbers. I try not to have a cluttered [...]
Poll Results — Walking the Walk
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Hey! There’s a new poll (Earth Day!) to the right —>
Here are the results from last week:
In response to environmental issues, I have (choose 1+)
Selection
Done nothing
11 votes
Done more research
32 votes
Asked my friends to change their habits
19 votes
Lobbied leaders (poltics, business, etc.) for change
23 votes
Changed my small habits (e.g., [...]
Water Budgets
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
Water budgets (often associate with Irvine Ranch Water District) are increasingly popular as a means of establishing “reasonable” consumption levels for residential users who have different water “needs.”
They basically put properties into categories (by number of residents, lot size, landscape footprint, location and/or heat profile) and then give similar properties the same [...]
Shantytowns and Growth
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
JR has two questions:
Will the increasing population of the southwest (which currently appears to be a function of both magnitude and distribution, to use your apt words) actually stabilize and decrease as the demographic transition model theorizes, or will we simply have ever-expanding shantytowns like the one growing in Fresno? [1]
Although the [...]
The Water Cone
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
In response to this post on the 884 million people without access to “adequate water delivery,” HR mentioned this interesting device. It looks low-tech and reliable, but I wonder about daily yield….
Here’s the description:
Based on evaporation levels of 8.8 Liters per square meter (average solar irradiation in Casablanca, Morocco), the WATERCONE(r) (with [...]
More PR
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
These things may be interesting to you. I am not endorsing any of them:
“The Handbook on Integrated Water Resources Management in Basins provides useful advice to improve governance of fresh water resources in the basins, using practical examples of projects already undertaken in various countries.” Download the PDF for free here.
“As part [...]
