Having water artificially cheap for agricultural uses is a mistake.

If you're concerned about food security, subsidize actual food that could go to people in some way, but let water hit a real market price.

Else, we end up subsidizing water for clever export and other uses we don't really want, and we remove any incentive for efficiency in water use.

> I'd just like to object to the creation of a general sense of sacrificing farms for fabs.

"I was wrong, but I think my comment was still right based on vibes, so I wasn't wrong after all."

really stretching the definition of recycle there. Material staying within a closed loop is kind of a requirement for something to be recycled. The farms don't do anything to keep the water available and have to extract more water from other sources

Water loss from evaporation and transpiration are inevitable, and run off is a large chunk of it. Nearly half of the water used in farming is lost, and some of that becomes run off that pollutes the environment and whatever bodies of water it reaches.

I mean, yes, use eminent domain to take the water… and then get TSMC to pay for it.

Maybe another big player in the system would even help build momentum to get these laws changed permanently…

> Water is only going to get scarcer in the west as climate change goes on.

Predictions are all over the place but the average prediction seems to say that at least half the US gets more water.

I think the reasoning here is to have the fabrication being done away from areas where a natural disaster might cause an issue. No earthquakes, no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no heavy winter storms with a ton of snow, etc. If you locate it on an elevated area with good drainage there won't be any problems with desert storms/flooding either.