To be fair, I think the posters above are right about the viability of canals based on topography. Goddamn Kansas may be flat, but it’s also tilted–in the wrong direction. So, pipes it is, I think. That solves the weather problem as well, though frankly I think that’s overblown (I mean, they build houses out there that get ripped to shreds every time a tornado tears through, and yet people seem to think it’s livable).
I can’t see how a 48-inch pipe is worth it. May as well go big if you’re going to bother at all. The Colorado River Aqueduct uses 16-foot concrete pipes. The pumping is just a function of pressure drop due to flow and altitude. It’s a non-trivial cost, but electricity is cheap–particularly renewables.
And yet analysis shows that in hot California, solar panel covers decrease evaporation. Evaporation is not just a function of heat; more significant is just slowing the rate at which humid air is blown away. It doesn’t have to be sealed; just blocked well enough to slow wind and convective currents.
As I mentioned above, I’m not yet convinced about the economics; it takes more material to build solar panels into a canal-spanning cover. But claiming that they actually increase evaporation is wrong. And if you’ve decided that you need a cover, putting solar panels on may decrease the net costs.
The Central Arizona Project loses about 4.5% of its water due to seepage and evaporation. Of that, 3% is lost from evaporation from Lake Pleasant, the reservoir that buffers the Colorado River water. The remaining 336 miles loses 1.5% through some pretty dry and hot climate.
The karez system of underground aqueducts, from ancient Iran and Central Asia, is a 3,000 year old technology for bringing water to arid lands, still very much used over there. It must have a lot to recommend it for having been in use for so long.
Yeah, those karez/qanat systems are pretty nifty although quite localized. Too bad many were damaged/not maintained by various conquering people over the centuries.
Sadly, in the US, due to water rights laws setting up similar systems would often be quite hindered now.
I did some checking on the longest stretch of the CA aqueduct. 280 miles straight line distance, 400 miles actual. Keep that in mind in guesstimating the length of a canal from the Great Lakes to Nevada. (I see that subsidence is a major headache in CA due to groundwater extraction. Something they are doing a lot of in the Great Plains. So add that to the maintenance costs.)
I keep looking at the topography of the Great Plains and the slow rise over all. How do you take advantage of topography to minimize the number of pumping stations and not zig-zag all over the place to have the water in the canals flow slightly downhill over the maximal distance?
As to the idea of pipes/tunnels over such a great distance, the diameters involved just make going across Kansas prohibitively expensive, never mind the whole length.
An interesting example of an under-the-continental-divide tunnel is the Adams Tunnel. 9.75’ in diameter. 13.1 miles long. Carries a whopping (!) 213,000 acre-feet per year. Scaling that up would be … non-trivial.
All this talk of canals and pipes misses one large cost- the property to put it on/under. How much land would be taken in eminent domain? How many lawsuits would tie this up for how many years?
Early 20th century example from Australia, with the desert goldmining town of Kalgoorlie requiring [and luckily being able to pay for] vast quantities of water for daily operation. It was over 500 km long and was at the time the longest freshwater supply line in the world, and is still in operation.
Many years ago, I recall reading about routing high-tension electrical lines - and the proposal was that railroads should rent the space above their tracks, and at the same time draw from the lines and change over from diesel-electric locomotives to electric locomotives. So pipelines alongside of the tracks or under high-tension lines might also be feasible.
Railroads go through huge numbers of towns/cities (the towns were built up around the railroads). For pipelines you don’t want to to do that; you want to just go through rural areas if at all possible.
Do power companies with high voltage electric lines actually own the property under the lines–or just have easements?
In fact, in the early days of the internet and the heyday of phone competition, railroads did exactly that - leased the right to lay fiber optic cables along their right-of-way. But buried, IIRC. Of course, a fiber cable is a lot less intrusive and easier to lay than a many-foot-diameter pipe.
Utilities do generally own the corridor of land under high tension power lines (or are granted an easement by a government that owns it in the case of federal and state lands) because of their need to keep the land clear and have access.
I propose using the right-of-way of the railroads but instead of just laying culverts below or to the side of the track, just rip up the track entirely, replace it with big underground water conduits, and ship people and goods in sealed pressure vessels in suspended in the water. I call this concept…Hydroloop.
You may now bow in respect of my indomitable brilliance.
Yes to all, plus I will be buying reddit using my vast collection of Tether and Titcoin crypto to “promote free speech and free water” while impregnating as many women as I can so as to flood the population with my genetic legacy. Who do I call about getting on Joe Rogen’s podcast?
More than that at least one, Southern Pacific, used it’s excess communications capacity to provide long-distance telephone service – after a series of lawsuits to break AT&T’s monopoly – which eventually became Sprint – Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony.
The problem is caused by agricultural use of water and climate change.
You are not going to pump/desalinate/magic your way out of it. The shear volume will prevent anything other than evaporation and gravity being enough. You need another Colorado river to start solving your problems.