If you want manufacturing jobs - then you have to let them do manufacturing here. Manufacturing takes water and power... no way around it.
I'm sure that the water is not so much "used" (as in it disappears)... I'm sure they have a method for returning most of it. I would be more interested in what their controls are for the re-release of that water.
Just looked through the article - they estimate that ~40% of the water will be evaporated - with 60% going back. So that means this is only going to "drain" 2.8M Gallons per Day... and how much of that evaporated water will fall back into the lake as rain too?
We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs. As long as they are using the natural resources responsibly and not polluting them or making a long-term impact... we need to allow them to
Just looked through the article - they estimate that ~40% of the water will be evaporated - with 60% going back. So that means this is only going to "drain" 2.8M Gallons per Day... and how much of that evaporated water will fall back into the lake as rain too?
We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs. As long as they are using the natural resources responsibly and not polluting them or making a long-term impact... we need to allow them to do their thing.
No industrial process is going to the 100% clean
So the big question is what else goes back with the water?
According to this study [umich.edu], natural evaporative losses can be up to 0.6 inches per day. Assuming it's really just under half an inch (about 12mm), natural evaporation from Lake Michigan can reach 183 billion gallons per day. That 2.7 million gallons lost per day - and as the article says, most of it to evaporation - is about 0.0014% of the current evaporation. Is moving evaporation from the lake surface to a site right next to the lake surface an issue? In other words, relocating around 1 thousandth of 1 p
2.6e-5 km^3 water drained divided by the 58000 km^2 surface area = 4.5e-10 km of depth lost per day = 0.00045 mm/day, which is slightly less than your assumed 10 feet. Plus, this water will return to the lake pretty quickly. The water consumption is the stupidest thing to be worried about. It's not like they're sending it into a black hole for disposal. The contamination of the returning water is the main thing to be concerned about.
If you want manufacturing jobs - then you have to let them do manufacturing here. Manufacturing takes water and power... no way around it.
I'm sure that the water is not so much "used" (as in it disappears)... I'm sure they have a method for returning most of it. I would be more interested in what their controls are for the re-release of that water.
Just looked through the article - they estimate that ~40% of the water will be evaporated - with 60% going back. So that means this is only going to "drain" 2.8M Gallons per Day... and how much of that evaporated water will fall back into the lake as rain too?
We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs. As long as they are using the natural resources responsibly and not polluting them or making a long-term impact... we need to allow them to
Just looked through the article - they estimate that ~40% of the water will be evaporated - with 60% going back. So that means this is only going to "drain" 2.8M Gallons per Day... and how much of that evaporated water will fall back into the lake as rain too?
We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs. As long as they are using the natural resources responsibly and not polluting them or making a long-term impact... we need to allow them to do their thing.
No industrial process is going to the 100% clean
So the big question is what else goes back with the water?