Water Troubles

[humblescribe]

The Weather Network A glass of ocean water: Quebec company wins award for desalination technology

The company is quickly gaining international recognition for their technologies that purify ocean water solely powered by the motion of ocean waves. The desalination systems are placed on buoys that are anchored 200 metres to three kilometres from the shoreline, a distance that was chosen based on wave height and sightline away from the coast.

A ‘pumping’ action occurs when the buoys rise and fall with the waves, which compresses the seawater and squeezes it through a reverse osmosis membrane. This results in concentrated saltwater being released back into the ocean and clean drinking water being sent to the coastline through an underwater pipeline that is connected to the buoy.

The smallest desalination system consisting of five buoys can produce 50,000 litres per day and larger systems of 100 buoys can produce one million litres per day.

I like that most, if not all, of the marine life stays where it belongs and the fact that these buoys are a ways away from the coastline.

To put the volume of water desalinated per day with these buoys in perspective:

One ac-ft of water equals 1,233,481.83 liters of water. So, this "large" system of 100 buoys will provide about 81% of an acre-foot. While nothing to sneeze at, this volume is not a lot of water, perhaps what an "average" household consumes in a year.

We're gonna need about 100^5 or more of those buoys if we want to have a guaranteed supply of fresh water.

[raison de arizona]

The Weather Network A glass of ocean water: Quebec company wins award for desalination technology

The company is quickly gaining international recognition for their technologies that purify ocean water solely powered by the motion of ocean waves. The desalination systems are placed on buoys that are anchored 200 metres to three kilometres from the shoreline, a distance that was chosen based on wave height and sightline away from the coast.

A ‘pumping’ action occurs when the buoys rise and fall with the waves, which compresses the seawater and squeezes it through a reverse osmosis membrane. This results in concentrated saltwater being released back into the ocean and clean drinking water being sent to the coastline through an underwater pipeline that is connected to the buoy.

The smallest desalination system consisting of five buoys can produce 50,000 litres per day and larger systems of 100 buoys can produce one million litres per day.

I like that most, if not all, of the marine life stays where it belongs and the fact that these buoys are a ways away from the coastline.

To put the volume of water desalinated per day with these buoys in perspective:

One ac-ft of water equals 1,233,481.83 liters of water. So, this "large" system of 100 buoys will provide about 81% of an acre-foot. While nothing to sneeze at, this volume is not a lot of water, perhaps what an "average" household consumes in a year.

We're gonna need about 100^5 or more of those buoys if we want to have a guaranteed supply of fresh water.

And I was getting all excited about this until you went all mathematical on me. Drats. Onward and upward though.

[Jim]

That's just for the time being...whether or not the scale can be increased in the future will be the key.

Remember, the first autos were only 0.75 horsepower and look where we are today.

[Azastan]

And I was getting all excited about this until you went all mathematical on me. Drats. Onward and upward though.

Their method takes care of the high energy use of traditional desal plants, but you still have the issue of dumping concentrated brine into the ocean, which kills adult fish and fish eggs. The more water that is produced by desalinization, the more salty brine is produced and the brine needs to be diffused over an even larger area.

[pipistrelle]

The Weather Network A glass of ocean water: Quebec company wins award for desalination technology

The company is quickly gaining international recognition for their technologies that purify ocean water solely powered by the motion of ocean waves. The desalination systems are placed on buoys that are anchored 200 metres to three kilometres from the shoreline, a distance that was chosen based on wave height and sightline away from the coast.

A ‘pumping’ action occurs when the buoys rise and fall with the waves, which compresses the seawater and squeezes it through a reverse osmosis membrane. This results in concentrated saltwater being released back into the ocean and clean drinking water being sent to the coastline through an underwater pipeline that is connected to the buoy.

The smallest desalination system consisting of five buoys can produce 50,000 litres per day and larger systems of 100 buoys can produce one million litres per day.

I have a feeling this will have unexpected and very bad consequences.

[RTH10260]

On the plus side the salinated water gets quickly mixed with the surrounging sea water in small quantities per buoy. In contrast land based operations will dump a huge stream thru a pipeline into the sea (if they don't go one step further and use the concentrate to recover salt by evaporation).

[raison de arizona]

So we just need something that uses a lot of salt. Somebody ought invent a car powered by salt, or a power plant.

[Jim]

Quick Batman...to the Saltmobile!

[RTH10260]

[keith]

video of canyon wall collapse in Lake Powell

"We" said this would happen when they built Glen Canyon Dam. The geology is SANDSTONE. Sandstone absorbs water like a sponge, and when it does it collapses like in the video and fills up the canyon.

One day Glen Canyon dam will be all silted up and the Colorado will have the tallest man made waterfall on the planet.

Suggested reading: "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey

[sugar magnolia]

Not sure this is the right thread, but it is water related.

Second boil water alert announced before previous one lifted

JACKSON, Miss. —
There is once again a citywide boil water alert in the city of Jackson. It was put in place before a previous notice was lifted.

The Mississippi State Department of Health issued the alert Thursday after samples of water showed conditions that were cloudy to the point that could lead to an increased chance of containing disease-causing organisms.

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This comes as crews are still trying to fix the issue at the O.B. Curtis Water plant that caused the facility to lose water pressure, which prompted a citywide boil water alert last week.

Giveaways of bottled water continue in Jackson. Councilman Kenneth Stokes announced that he will be giving away cases of bottled water Friday at 9 a.m. at the Golden Key Activity Center across the street from Brinkley Middle School.

We've been under the original City BWA for a week now, and then the State issued one Thursday. We were also under a heat advisory when it all began so the grocery stores were all out of bottled water.

Next up: Broken water mains all over town when the lines are re-charged, which means more BWAs. There's a reason we call this "boil water season" here.

[Volkonski]

[raison de arizona]

Big Bear Lake in CA is looking decidedly…unlake-like.

D2CDA557-2217-4537-BACE-338BAF5B4189.jpeg (511.76 KiB) Viewed 1474 times

[AndyinPA]

I cannot remember his name, but someone, I think in the late 1800s, warned that there would never be enough water in the Colorado River to support an expanding population. Obviously, no one paid attention.

[Danraft]

I won’t accidentally disclose my age… I don’t recall know who that could be, but this drought is horrendous. Wheat production in the US is projected to be very poor.

[Azastan]

I won’t accidentally disclose my age… I don’t recall know who that could be, but this drought is horrendous. Wheat production in the US is projected to be very poor.

Overall, yes, but Washington's wheat production is going to be quite high, and Oregon will also have a significant increase over last year.

Wheat grown on the Palouse yields up to 100 bushels per acre, twice the national average.

[Jim]

I won’t accidentally disclose my age… I don’t recall know who that could be, but this drought is horrendous. Wheat production in the US is projected to be very poor.

Overall, yes, but Washington's wheat production is going to be quite high, and Oregon will also have a significant increase over last year.

Wheat grown on the Palouse yields up to 100 bushels per acre, twice the national average.

Add to that the lack of wheat from Russia and Ukraine with the war, they should get one heck of a price this year!

[AndyinPA]

I won’t accidentally disclose my age… I don’t recall know who that could be, but this drought is horrendous. Wheat production in the US is projected to be very poor.

This is in 1916, but it may be what I was thinking about.

https://grist.org/climate/politicians-k ... gnored-it/

n 1916, six years before the Colorado River Compact was signed, Eugene Clyde LaRue, a young hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, concluded that the Colorado River’s supplies were “not sufficient to irrigate all the irrigable lands lying within the basin.” Other hydrologists at the agency and researchers studying the issue came to the same conclusion. Alas, their warnings were not heeded.



A. Fleck: The “aha” moment for me was when I found the transcripts of LaRue’s 1925 congressional testimony, when he said, as clear as could be, that there’s not enough water for this thing they were trying to do. It erased any doubt I had that the reports were too technical and people didn’t really understand them. He was there testifying before Congress, and they just chose to ignore it. None of the senators followed up. They were clearly choosing to willfully ignore what LaRue was saying.

[RTH10260]

Indictments in Flint Water Crisis Are Invalid, Michigan Supreme Court Finds
The cases against former Gov. Rick Snyder and other top officials were thrown into doubt by the ruling.

By Luke Vander Ploeg and Mitch Smith
June 28, 2022

FLINT, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court said on Tuesday that former top state officials accused of wrongdoing in the Flint water crisis had been indicted improperly, upending some of the highest-profile prosecutions in recent state history and leaving residents whose tap water turned toxic eight years ago frustrated by a lack of accountability in criminal court.

When they brought charges last year against former Gov. Rick Snyder and others, prosecutors said those officials had failed to protect the safety and health of Flint residents, who were sickened by increased levels of lead and by Legionnaires’ disease after the city’s water supply was switched to the Flint River in April 2014.

But prosecutors appointed by Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, relied on a judge acting as a one-man grand jury to issue the indictments against Mr. Snyder, a Republican, and eight others, including the state’s former health director and the state’s former chief medical officer. The Supreme Court, in a 6-0 ruling, said on Tuesday that single-person grand juries, which have long been used in Michigan, could not be deployed in that way. Prosecutors said they planned to continue pursuing the charges using a different legal approach.

Still, for many in Flint, a city that was once a hub of the global auto industry, but that struggled with disinvestment, blight and poverty even before the water crisis, the Supreme Court ruling was seen as yet another betrayal. Some among Flint’s 81,000 residents had called for years for charges against Mr. Snyder and others, and had criticized an emergency oversight policy that allowed state officials to take control of the financially challenged city government and change the water source.




https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/us/f ... arges.html

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

[raison de arizona]

Indictments in Flint Water Crisis Are Invalid, Michigan Supreme Court Finds
The Supreme Court, in a 6-0 ruling, said on Tuesday that single-person grand juries, which have long been used in Michigan, could not be deployed in that way.

These are the cases they decided to suddenly figure this out on? Really? Color me jaded.

[Volkonski]

[bill_g]

The Weather Network A glass of ocean water: Quebec company wins award for desalination technology

The company is quickly gaining international recognition for their technologies that purify ocean water solely powered by the motion of ocean waves. The desalination systems are placed on buoys that are anchored 200 metres to three kilometres from the shoreline, a distance that was chosen based on wave height and sightline away from the coast.

A ‘pumping’ action occurs when the buoys rise and fall with the waves, which compresses the seawater and squeezes it through a reverse osmosis membrane. This results in concentrated saltwater being released back into the ocean and clean drinking water being sent to the coastline through an underwater pipeline that is connected to the buoy.

The smallest desalination system consisting of five buoys can produce 50,000 litres per day and larger systems of 100 buoys can produce one million litres per day.

Interesting. I wonder what the costs are?

[Volkonski]