Posted on 04/26/2007 9:55:22 AM PDT by ckilmer
A couple weeks back I blogged about a widely published report that held that the west was entering into a prolonged drying spell. The New York Times detailed solutions being proposed & implimented that included desalination.
What was not mentioned was an idea that will be bandied about during a meeting in Calgary. That meeting will be held next week in Calgary. It addresses the idea of massive water transfers from Canada to the USA & Mexico to address water shortages. You won’t hear about it south of the border however. The only place this is mentioned is in Calgary.
April 25, 2007 April 25, 2007
Next week, government officials and academics from the three countries will gather in Calgary for the two-day North American Future 2025 Project (see page 6)where they’ll brainstorm ideas on how the continent should implement policies to deal with various challenges - including security, energy and labour.
But it’s the agenda on water that has activists concerned, given that the discussions will be held behind closed doors without public scrutiny, said Maude Barlow, national chairwoman of the Council of Canadians.
”We want this out in the light of day. We tried contacting them and they said this meeting is private,” Barlow said. ”How could it be private if it is setting up the political and policy framework for the future of North America?”
An outline of the proceedings states that climate change is expected to greatly exacerbate water shortages in the United States and Mexico while Canada, which has the world’s largest supply of fresh water in the Great Lakes and elsewhere, is not expected to suffer to the same extent.
It goes on to state that ”creative” solutions - such as water transfers and artificial diversions of fresh water - may be needed to address the ”profound changes” that are bound to occur south of the border.
Water transfers is something that’s hotly debated in Canada … but you don’t hear much about it in the lower 48–though President Bush has mentioned his support for the idea. Asked about the possibility of water transfers world renowned water expert Peter Gleick said the economics simply weren’t there. Mr. Gleick says.
I actually think this enormous controversy over bulk water exports is a little bit silly because no one’s going to be able to afford it,” he says.“And frankly I think some of these people who complain because they have been prohibited from doing it, I think we’ve saved them a lot of money. I think they should have been allowed to do it and go bankrupt.”
Santa Barbara looked into the idea several years back and decided on water desalination even at then current prices.
Never the less, according to a joint report entitled Global Water Futures produced by the CSIS and the Sandia National Laboratories.
Finding 5: Solutions must be innovative, revolutionary, and self-sustaining. Current
trajectories for improvement in freshwater availability and quality are inadequate to meet global
needs in a timely way. Innovative solutions must be found and employed that replace steady,
incremental rates of progress with dramatic, revolutionary changes. These solutions must be designed to be self-sustaining over the long-term.
Given the recognized urgency of the need for water solutions and the fact that the meetings are behind closed doors, it looks like much of the time & effort will be put into expediting Bush’s desire for water transfers–rather than doing any actual brain storming.
This is a shame. Especially as likely it will suck up what federal institutional energy there is behind water desalination R&D. Its especially shameful because the feds could get so much more bang for their buck out desalination R&D.
So if you happen to know someone who knows someone who is attending the meeting in Calgary next week…be sure to mention to them that basic research suggests that the cost of water desalination & transport will collapse in the next 5 to 10 years.
Here are three promising avenues of research mentioned in this blog from three different research labs.
Here’s a strategy for turning municipal sewage into pure water and oil.
Here’s a strategy for cutting the cost of pumping water
To hasten the pace of research, I would greatly increase the amount of money available to federal university & corporate labs for water desalination research. As well, I would include DARPA in the effort to fund start up companies. Further, I would suggest three ways to focus research dollars.
The first would be to make available prize money like the X-Prize that Newt Gingrich touts as a frugal way to get the most bang for the research buck. I blog about this in a piece called harvesting research unknown unknowns.
The second suggestion would be to attack known unkowns by employing a much less publicized method of crowdsourcing scientific research which I discuss in detail here.
How does a research administrator best deploy his dollars between projects competing for research dollars? Choosing rightly between known knowns is difficult. In fast paced industries companies use something called prediction markets. I discuss this strategy here.
Finally, make plain to those in attendance that the pace of scientific innovation in the next 20 years will likely be more than the last 100 years. They ain’t seen nuthin yet.
I love asking this question and waiting a piece to reply
Why is the ocean salty ?
Question: Why does the ocean roar?
Answer - you’d roar too if you had crabs on your bottom.
I love asking this question and waiting a piece to reply
Why is the ocean salty ?
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why do you ask.
better
you would be surprised what some reason as to why.
doesn’t sound like I’m going to generate much interest in the topic at hand. But I can see what the NAU guys are thinking vis a vis water. If they can just incorporate the canadians in a larger union then they won’t have to pay the canadians for their water.
As well, water may play some fearful symetry in Bush’s thinking on allowing illegals to flow north. ie all will be well if he can just get water to flow south.
Seems like a lot of trouble to go through to get water. It would be cheaper to do the research to cut the cost water desalination.
Something needs to be done... Lake Meade hasn’t been full in years and the Colorado river near flows into the Gulf of Baha... SoCal sucks the whole system dry.
I’d guess the transfer to be into the Colorado River System as it feeds Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angles areas
near=never
I think likely the first thing that would happen in a major way would be that vegas would pay for the construction of a desalination plant for LA and in exchange for LA’s water alotment.
As I mentioned, I believe that the long term solution is to kill the cost of water desalination in the same way that the cost of photovoltaics is going to be killed. The cost of photovoltaics is going to absolutely go through the floor in the next couple of years.
oh and dirt cheap deslinised water & water transport would make it economically possible to increase the habitable size of the USA by one third. However, it would triple the habitable size of Mexico.
Why is that?
. “Tomorrow’s solar panels may not need to be produced in high-vacuum conditions in billion-dollar fabrication facilities. If California-based Nanosolar has its way, plants will use a nanostructured “ink” to form semiconductors, which would be printed on flexible sheets. Nanosolar is currently building a plant that will print 430 megawatts’ worth of solar cells annually—more than triple the current solar output of the entire country.” And prices will fall substantially. According to Wikipedia.
Estimates by Nanosolar of the cost of these cells, fall roughly between 1/10th and 1/5th [3] the industry standard per kilowatt. A significant cost reduction which, if true, is expected to drastically affect, if not revolutionize the modern energy market.
Current costs for photovoltaics are +-.18@kilowatt hr vs +-.03@kilowat hr for coal generated electricity. So 1/10 of .18 would be .018 cents@kilowatt hour. Operating & maintenance costs add another .01 cent@kilowatt hour
That 1/10th number is not a fluke either. Another company called Innovalight with similiar technology — claims it will be able to do the same thing.
Innovalight has developed a silicon nanocrystalline ink that holds the promise to bring flexible solar panels to cost that could be as much as ten times cheaper than current solar cell solutions.
In fact according The Energy Blog:
Their [Inovalight]technology is similar in some respects to others that are developing thin-film silicon photovoltaics. Kyocera, Unaxis , Ovonics, Sanyo, Energy Photovoltaics , Konarka, Nanosys and Nanosolar are companies in this field that I have written posts about. It seems with all these companies and all the companies developing non-silicon thin-film products, a few should emerge as leaders with low cost solar products.
I think that its safe to say the costs of producing photovoltaics are going to come down substantially in the near future. Basically, we’re talking about electrical generation going through a paradigm shift.
Since Death Valley is below sea level, you could “drain” sea water in it and use solar evaporation to desalinate the water. Solar power to pump it back to the LA basin...
Sea salt minerals would be a bonus...
Lake Meade is doing it job then as holding tank for water... Define full... is overflowing full?
Since Death Valley is below sea level, you could “drain” sea water in it and use solar evaporation to desalinate the water. Solar power to pump it back to the LA basin...
Sea salt minerals would be a bonus...
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yeah that’s another good possibility. Certainly its do able. However, typically the cost of desalination using reverse osmosis is less than the cost of distillation processes.
The way to get a grip on the problem at hand is to compare desalination to say, computers or automobiles or tvs . At first they were the toys of the rich.
But when the price of them came down — they changed the world. Currently desalination is a toy of the rich.
Must have filled back up... The last time I saw it a few years ago it was like 60 or 70 feet down... Local talk in Las Vegasd was that SoCal was pullin more out than the Colorado wsputting in it....
Must have filled back up... The last time I saw it a few years ago it was like 60 or 70 feet down... Local talk in Las Vegasd was that SoCal was pullin more out than the Colorado wsputting in it....
ping
My thoughts were tangential to yours. Why in the world would we be encouraging massive immigration when we know they our filling the areas of our country least capable of sustaining large populations. If they were filling up Aroostook County and the UP at least there would be plenty of room for them.
Just think how much the habitable size of Mexico would increase if they could establish Rule of Law.
If this is true it might be time to unload some of my DUK and AEP stock.
I recall readinf somewhere that a Welsh company is doing somthing similar. If so, then what you predict will come true. Multiple discoveries of the same processes. Sort of like the many versions of the personal computer in the early ‘80s. When it gets down to simple engineering, then it really takes off.
Georgia is not incapable of sustaining a popular equal to that of Pennsylvania.
the terrible thing is that the lawlessness is creeping north from the border as the narco trafficers take over small towns
Georgia is not incapable of sustaining a popular equal to that of Pennsylvania.
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Can you work on that sentence a bit.
nothing subtantial will happen for the next five years in desalination. the best idea right now is to look around for interesting solar stocks. the costs of solar power generation are simply going to collapse beginning in the fall of this year.
You don’t think that George cauld hold as many people as Pennsylvania? Beaises. there are plenty of Mexicans in the Carolinas as well. Soon they will be found in large numbers in all the lower-48, except maybe Desseret.
You don’t think that George cauld hold as many people as Pennsylvania? Beaises. there are plenty of Mexicans in the Carolinas as well. Soon they will be found in large numbers in all the lower-48, except maybe Desseret.
You are probably correct. I guess your point is that they are flooding in illegally, and you are correct. Meanwhile, millions of young capable adults who are well educated in useful vocations and fluent in english are waiting to win the lottery and be allowed legally into this country. Most will not make it.
That was my point. If solar power is going to become that common I can see many folks dropping off the grid and/or becoming net power producers. Duke and American Electric Power may be hurt in the long term because of this. I imagine coal will take a hit as well.
Enough of this horsing around. Just tell Canada they will supply us with water or we’ll just take what we want. There has to be some benefit from being Rome.
the problem is that it will cost a lot more to haul the water from canada than to just do the research to collapse the cost of water desalination
I always thought they should just build two pipelines, one for the gas, one for the water.
First, the depletion of coalbed aquifers in order to cause the desorbtion process to start and release the methane from the coal seams. and
Second: the dumping of the water into the existing watersheds. Although the water was commonly as fresh or fresher than surface water and the water in aquifers closer to the surface, there was concern about mineral content. I believe (although I may be wrong) that the issue was settled on a case-by-case basis.
Why? well just compare the cost of a gallon of gas to the cost of a gallon of water.
I have: Gasoline: $2.89/ gallon, Evian: 1.25/liter. Gasoline is cheaper, depending on which brand of water you buy. (you can still get the 'cheap' water at the grocery store for under a buck a gallon).
I think there must be other concerns involved, namely, water supply in the event of terrorism, establishing pipeline rights of way for long distances across the continent, etc. It is perhaps also part of the North American Union/Order which seems to keep happening even as we are told it is not.
If it is water SoCal needs, I know of a source in Nevada where the water resistivity indicates 200 ppm chlorides or less, coming out of caves (paleo Karst) at about 5000 ft. depth. A few wells in that should provide, if the Fedgov could be convinced to let the resource be developed. (Like most of Nevada, the Feds have the mineral rights, the water rights, and own the land.)
It would make for a far shorter pipeline.
I looked around the particular desert valley we were drilling the well in, where there were a few stringy mustangs roaming about living off the occasional clump of grass and realized we had found the means of turning it into a veritable eden.
But we found no producible oil, and plugged and abandoned the well.
When you consider the Colorado River passes through a half-dozen kidneys before it finally peters out, (no pun intended), potable water could someday be as valuable as oil, depending on where you are.
If it is water SoCal needs, I know of a source in Nevada where the water resistivity indicates 200 ppm chlorides or less, coming out of caves (paleo Karst) at about 5000 ft. depth. A few wells in that should provide, if the Fedgov could be convinced to let the resource be developed. (Like most of Nevada, the Feds have the mineral rights, the water rights, and own the land.)
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I have been reading in the last year that Las Vegas is looking to get water rights to huge swatches of land north of Vegas. The refer to the water grab as somthing like LA did to surrounding areas at the turn of the 20th century. So Vegas may already know about the ice age aquifers you’re referring to—if its north of vegas & If I heard right that it was “North of vegas” & not west east or south.
I’m not real fond of the idea of merging countries so you can bring water south and mexicans north.
Gasoline: $2.89/ gallon, Evian: 1.25/liter...most people in the east get water out of the faucet for a couple pennies or less a gallon. Water sells in bulk for less than $50 an acre foot. LA pays $450 an acre foot for water in bulk.
The states closest to Canada don’t need water.
I don't doubt that, I was citing the extreme I am fond of pointing out to the SUV set when they gripe about gas prices while holding a bottle of designer water...
I am not fond of obliterating national borders either.
Despite the idea getting shouted down at every turn, there certainly seems to be a concerted effort to reduce the governments of the West to some socialist standard for the purpose of eliminating the current nations in favor of a regional government mega-State, and that is close enough to world government (and possibly a precursor thereto) for me to oppose it.
It is the differences in our countries which have lent greatness to them (or not, as the case may be), but I prefer to keep the national boundaries and differences.
L.A.'s problem is simple--too many people in too little space. Most cities' populations far exceed their natural resource base, and as such must become examples of efficiency in acquisition, transportation and distribution of resources in order to survive as a viable entity. The more that involves, the more it costs.
The water resources I referred to are in older rock, and not ice-age aquifers.
The water resources I referred to are in older rock, and not ice-age aquifers.
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You mean they’re older than ice age or younger water in older rock.
How did the water taste?
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