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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 9 comments | | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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giorgioz ◴[] No.42737024[source]
It seems everyone is on the same "We will find new solutions to a new problem". I totally agree.

Here is a list of all new solutions we need: 1) not insure places at higher risk 2) mass desalinification 3) fix US hot climate grids sparkles and/or place them underground 4) Street corridors to isolate fires in neighborhood 5) Build with more fire-resistant materials 6) Install automated hydrant towers with cameras able to spray water on fire remotely (it's done in Spain on the edge of forests and urban areas) 7) Pass on the costs of maintaining of living in expensive risky areas to the people living there and/or give them benefits to move to unpopulated areas with no risk

1) Not all the world will suffer equally from climate change. The parts that are at higher risk should not be insurable so that new housing will not be built there but somewhere else.

2) The idea there won't be water because it doesn't rain it's ridiculous. We live on a planet literally made of water. We'll develop mass production de-salinification plants and have enough water. We need to keep investing and improving that technology. I think having water artifically priced at a low price won't help the development of the desalinification industry. So water should cost more NOW that we can afford it to reflect the R&D cost of it that we must make to have water later.

5) Hot countries don't tend to have plenty of wood to build with. Forests grow with more rain. Building with wood in Spain and Italy is very rare. LA got his wood shipped from somewhere further out. Let's build with other materials in arid fire-prone zones. Yes it's perfectly possible to have houses that are both more-fire-resistant and more-earthquake resistant.

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1. drysine ◴[] No.42737047[source]
> We'll develop mass production de-salinification plants and have enough water.

And then you'll have the brine problem.

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2. grvdrm ◴[] No.42737165[source]
I'm asking naively and honestly: is there a solution to brine? Believe it's pumped directly back into ocean at the moment.
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3. throwup238 ◴[] No.42737559[source]
Desal plants use static mixers to mix the brine with a bunch of ocean water and pump it back out. The specifics depend on the local ecology and ocean currents but it’s a matter of making the outfall pipes long enough (they’re kilometers long usually).
4. giorgioz ◴[] No.42737677[source]
Two step forwards one step back. Doesn't mean the step back made the two step forward not good. I was not familiar with the concept of brine. I thought we would extract the salt from the water and store it. Maybe use it for construction material like with the CO2 extracted from the atmosphere. I'm not an expert and I might have the Dunning-Kruger effect on this. It might be a lot harder than I can imagine/know at this moment but it might still be worth it and necessary.
5. TrapLord_Rhodo ◴[] No.42739409[source]
brine can be used for mineral extraction.
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6. tills13 ◴[] No.42742756[source]
I'm guessing there's local ecology issues with this? Groundwater seepage, etc. Though that hasn't really stopped fracking so maybe it'll just be a non-issue at the policy level.
7. horrible-hilde ◴[] No.42743570[source]
and storing cheese
8. dml2135 ◴[] No.42744802[source]
Can you explain this problem for those unfamiliar?
9. tomrod ◴[] No.42744808[source]
Brine is probably very valuable.

If we make it a slurry, perhaps we could use it to pump to unpopulated areas with endorheic lakes like the Salt Lake or Salton Sea, then mine and refine the resulting slurry.[0]

The concern is the brine getting into the atmosphere -- that can likely be mitigated.

[0] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gold.html