Author Topic: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....  (Read 7632 times)

sdp

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Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« on: January 31, 2014, 04:55:08 PM »
I just read in the news......  Over the last ten years Las Vegas has added 400,000 people AND during that same time has reduced the city's total water usage by 33%!!  Sweet.

arebelspy

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2014, 10:38:53 AM »
Neat!  Have a link handy?
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thepokercab

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2014, 10:52:02 AM »
Its badass, but its also a requirement if we (residents of states who rely on the Colorado river for survival) want to continue to maintain quality of life here. The current drought is the worst we've seen in over 1,000 years, and Lake Mead is at dangerously low levels.  Here is a good article describing the situation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/us/colorado-river-drought-forces-a-painful-reckoning-for-states.html?_r=0

The take-away quote:

Quote
Reclamation officials say there is a 50-50 chance that by 2015, Lake Mead’s water will be rationed to states downstream. That, too, has never happened before.

“If Lake Mead goes below elevation 1,000” — 1,000 feet above sea level — “we lose any capacity to pump water to serve the municipal needs of seven in 10 people in the state of Nevada

This is prompting a bunch of new conservation measures in Las Vegas such as not allowing new homes to grow grass.  Also, newer homes are built now to conform to decreased water usage, hence the decrease in the last 10 years.  Also, treatment technologies have gotten more efficient and effective, allowing for more water to be conserved: 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/herb-jaffe/bills-go-water-usage-has-actually-gone-down-thanks-technology-and   

Rollin

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2014, 12:25:38 PM »
Although setting up such a large city in the desert is not very friendly to the environment, they recycle 93% of their water.  It does require a lot of electricity to pump all that water though.  I was just in the Florida Keys and I read that running the water for 5 minutes is the same as leaving a 60 watt light bulb on for 14 hours (they pump their over a hundred miles).

nawhite

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2014, 02:37:08 PM »
I'm currently reading a book about the history of water use (and mis-use) in the West. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner is an amazing read. It makes me scared to think about what the future holds for the west. Water will become far more influential than oil very soon.

Awesome that Nevada is doing so much to reduce usage. Outlawing grass in new homes is a great step forward that most western states should implement. Though even if they recycle 93% of their "indoor residential" water, evaporation from lawn watering is likely at least 7% of total water usage for a home there. Not to mention irrigation water which probably isn't recycled and evaporates about 30% in most farm irrigation projects. But even if it were "recycled" it would return to the river significantly saltier than it came out. Most recycling projects say "the water must be safe", not "the water must be as clean when it goes back in as when it came out."

The Colorado river is already so salty that the US built one of the largest desalination plants just before the border with Mexico because the Colorado was too salty for Mexico's farms to use (when there was enough flow to even get there). Mexico threatened to take the US to international court so the US built the desalination plant.

Sorry, water use is a thorny issue for me as a whitewater kayaker. If you live west of 100 degrees W Longitude (middle of Kansas), especially southern California, I recommend you learn about water use and where you get your water from. Investments in lowering your water use are the absolute best bang for your buck for reducing your environmental impact in those areas.

MooseOutFront

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2014, 03:24:11 PM »
I wish lawns were illegal here in TX.  Don't much care for the maintenance, and then there's the water waste and $$ waste to boot.

somepissedoffman

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2014, 09:36:58 AM »
I wish lawns were illegal here in TX.  Don't much care for the maintenance, and then there's the water waste and $$ waste to boot.
mmmmhhhmmmm, I can't for the life of me understand why it's so important to have a manicured lawn.  We have dirt/clay/sand in our yard, and I love not having to mow it.  When in Rome.

nicknageli

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2014, 10:41:52 AM »
I wish lawns were illegal here in TX.  Don't much care for the maintenance, and then there's the water waste and $$ waste to boot.

Totally agree.  It's a big waste of water and time.

MgoSam

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2014, 10:55:05 AM »
I'm currently reading a book about the history of water use (and mis-use) in the West. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner is an amazing read. It makes me scared to think about what the future holds for the west. Water will become far more influential than oil very soon.



That book was recommended to me a few years ago. Thanks for bringing it up, I am going to add it to my list.

Allen

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2014, 02:34:45 PM »
How best can you invest in water treatment, water rights, water management, etc to profit in the future?

MgoSam

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2014, 02:43:21 PM »
I completely agree about lawns, they absolutely suck and serve no real purpose. When bringing this up to friends they have said something about being able to walk on grass. Um hello, if I want to do that I can walk to a local football field or go to the park. This is better than having to spend time mowing and treating it all for something that provides no useful function. Thankfully I don't own my house.

nawhite

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2014, 03:01:12 PM »
How best can you invest in water treatment, water rights, water management, etc to profit in the future?

Buy land in Canada (for when the climate gets warmer) next to a river where you have water rights?

At a grand scale, most of these issues are decided by the government and monopolies (usually large landowners/farmers). So usually there isn't a public company for you to invest in (or short). The other option would be novel water filtering startups.

oldtoyota

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2014, 08:29:58 AM »
We have perfect grass. It doesn't need chemicals, our water, or to be mowed very often. Zoysia.

I inherited this grass from previous owners, but it's remarkably easy to care for and we're against using chemicals in our yard. It works for us.

When we do mow, we mulch the clippings right back into the grass and use some in the organic garden.




soccerluvof4

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2014, 09:11:16 AM »
Investing a a water ETF is not a bad idea.......as well as picking up share of MWA. MWA will benefit most from all the infrastructure problems that our country will be facing. Do your own homework of course but i have been long the stock.  Its not very volatile either .

sol

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2014, 11:52:09 AM »
How best can you invest in water treatment, water rights, water management, etc to profit in the future?

Oh my goodness, you've asked a question that I am SO going to overanswer. 

I work on this problem on behalf of the federal government, so I'm not allowed to invest in the relevant places.  With that said, I have seen a few different groups of people make large bank by playing the water market.  Some local examples...

1.  The Columbia River is dammed for hydropower generation by the Bonneville Power Administration.  They have a forecasting model for how much water is going to be available, based on the altitude distribution of this year's snowpack in Canada and northern Washington.  Water is bought and sold with futures contracts, just like pork or oranges.  The BPA model isn't very good, compared to the state of the art stuff, so there's a whole secondary market of people doing alternative water forecasting models and then selling that information to private traders.  In years of bad snowpack, like this one, the price of water goes up.

2.  Some state's have laws that are more protective of private water rights than others.  California is basically a free for all wild west race to the bottom of the tragedy of the commons type of scenario.  In Washington, we have water rights allocated based on seniority, with junior users having their water shut off in drought years before more senior users.  The state is just now moving towards considering groundwater and surface water as a single combined resource, so some people are speculating that junior groundwater uses, which are currently unregulated, will soon be curtailed in the same way as junior surface water users.  That would create a market demand as those junior gw users look for alternatives.

3.  In fully allocated basins with no more legally available water rights, there are always private water rights available for sale.  One developer in Washington spent a large chunk of money in the mid 2000s to buy up local water rights from people who weren't using their full allocation, with the intent of using that water to build a resort.  Then the real estate market tanked and the resort wasn't financially viable anymore, but concurrently the price of water in their basin went through the roof and they've made back all of their money and more by selling off little pieces of the water they previously acquired at rock bottom prices. 

4.  Agricultural products have different requirements for soil type, climate, and water.  Some crops are much more water efficient than others.  Farmers in these parts are busily tearing out vast swaths of tree fruit orchards (~38 inches of water per year) to instead plant wine grapes (6-10 inches of water per year) because they make more money on the product for less money spent on water.  This trend is why Washington is now the number two wine producing state in the nation.  Future changes in regional climate are likely to open up more land as suitable for wine grapes (by raising temperatures) at the same time as water supplies continue to diminish, making alternative crops less profitable.  I'd be comfortable betting on Washington wineries going forward, less so betting on pears or cherries or apples.  Though it's always possible the farmers will overshoot and undersupply the demand for those fruits, pushing the prices back up.

5.  Technically we have plenty of water on earth for everyone.  The hard part is getting it clean and delivered to where it needs to be, which is why vast sums of money are being spent on water infrastructure.  Desalination plants in California are a good example.  Here in WA, there's a $5 billion plan awaiting Congressional funding to significantly alter the way a single basin operates their reservoir and canal systems.  If it gets funded, that work will employ a significant fraction of all construction firms in the region for roughly a decade, to complete a project that would provide a reliable and safe water supply to the state's agricultural interests.

6.  Some industries are more water intensive than others.  All of the big internet companies now have server farms along the Columbia River, because it provides abundant water for cooling while simultaneously providing cheap (renewable/green) hydropower for power-hungry data crunching.  Semiconductor manufacture eats water.  Cotton is a killer.  Wood and paper products are harsh.  These industries are going to have to relocate to places with abundant water, which means you could bet against them in places with coming droughts.  In WA we have an exemption for groundwater wells for Confined Animal Feeding Operations, so big parts of the state are packed full of dairy lots because even though dairy farming is super water intensive, there's a legal loophole for it.  For now.

7.  Utility companies are cash cows.  People need power and water in their homes, and they will pay whatever price the utility demands to provide those services.  Some utilities are legally restricted to essentially operate at-cost, like a non profit, for the benefit of the customers.  Others are privately owned profit machines that pay 5% dividends.  Income from utilities is remarkably consistent over time regardless of price fluctuations in they underlying asset, because they have large fixed infrastructure costs.  So if the price of power/water goes up or the demand goes down, they just adjust their pricing model to ensure the same revenue stream.  Some utilities would make a good hedge in a resource portfolio.  Others are in the business of mergers and acquisitions, buying up neighboring utility companies to capitalize on economies of scale.

Water is a local issue, right down to the basin scale.  Like any other business, investing for profit means having a detailed understanding of local market conditions, the applicable regulations, the current players in the field and how they do or may interact, and then getting lucky with finding the right opportunity.  There are already lots of smart people playing this game, so I wouldn't expect to cash in with a hot tip or some vague notion that water is getting more scarce over time.

soccerluvof4

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2014, 01:47:26 PM »
some good stuff SOL...!

shadowmoss

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #16 on: February 06, 2014, 03:25:33 AM »
I guess this explains why they seem to be ripping (litterally) out the  water features on the strip.  No more water around the Statue of Liberty at New York New York, no more long fountain (or anything else right now!) entryway to the monorail next to Bally.

Gerard

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #17 on: March 02, 2014, 06:22:55 PM »
Some crops are much more water efficient than others.  Farmers in these parts are busily tearing out vast swaths of tree fruit orchards (~38 inches of water per year) to instead plant wine grapes (6-10 inches of water per year) because they make more money on the product for less money spent on water. 

The alternative play here, then, would be to invest in tree fruit in places where water is still plentiful (e.g., Ontario).

Big Boots Buddha

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #18 on: March 02, 2014, 11:38:39 PM »
How best can you invest in water treatment, water rights, water management, etc to profit in the future?

Oh my goodness, you've asked a question that I am SO going to overanswer. 


When your free time and desire are there, please over answer anything you might want to. You need a blog.

edit - for my terrible grammar
« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 12:00:14 AM by Big Boots Buddha »

sol

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Re: Las Vegas Is Bad ASS....
« Reply #19 on: March 02, 2014, 11:47:39 PM »
You need a blog.

Thanks, but no thanks.  When the urge to write strikes me I just dump stuff on the mustache forums.  That way I don't have to worry about administrative details, and MMM makes a few cents off of the accumulated clicks. 

Everyone who posts here is making a minuscule donation to the MMM experiment, helping to fund the blog's revenue stream for the MMM family.  I like to think of myself as a supporting contributor, rather than a customer, but in this case they're almost the same thing.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!