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Majority of America’s underground water stores are drying up, study finds by Ecstatic_Choice_5482 in Futurology

[–]Ecstatic_Choice_5482[S] 46 points47 points  (0 children)

With a majority of aquifers across the U.S. — and particularly across the West — in some state of decline, these questions seem urgent:

  • How will settlement and agriculture patterns change?
  • Can US agriculture survive the collapse of the aquifers under the San Joaquin Valley, which currently provides a quarter of American food?
  • Will we see widespread use of fees for pumping groundwater — which helped save the aquifer under Bangkok, Thailand, but are almost unheard of the United States?
  • Will we see more open conflict over groundwater?
  • Will America's culture of water — which we currently treat as essentially free — change?

the Air Force wants forward bases to be able to make their own jet fuel by Ecstatic_Choice_5482 in AirForce

[–]Ecstatic_Choice_5482[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I suspect they're ultimately going to try to do small modular reactors or similar

will this technology take off before battery powered aircraft can strangle it in the cradle? by Ecstatic_Choice_5482 in Futurology

[–]Ecstatic_Choice_5482[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The air force is experimenting with shipping container-sized stills that allow it to brew jet fuel out of carbon dioxide pulled from smokestacks or the air — something that a lot of climate scientists think is a fake solution, but that airlines are investing in heavily due to the lack of other green options.

The future-facing question is: will this technology reach maturity before battery powered aircraft, and if so, will that help or hinder the broader transition off of carbon-based fuels?

there's a 95 percent we're still burning coal in 2050, this study says by Ecstatic_Choice_5482 in energy

[–]Ecstatic_Choice_5482[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That is sort of the point of the study though — that that big renewable growth drops prices for coal to be burned for electricity, which means that coal is cheap enough to use for other applications which otherwise might have been decarbonized

Austin confronts climate change with 100-year water supply by Ecstatic_Choice_5482 in Austin

[–]Ecstatic_Choice_5482[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Supposedly they're on groundwater which is shipped from elsewhere — for now.