[Eclipse Now]

hey, he lets the grass grow high, cows eat grass, pooh, then 4 days later the chickens come through and eat the larvae growing out of the pooh, getting 15% of their energy requirements from cow-pooh larvae for free.

This also creates soil.

If we can think of more integrated systems of 'crop and cow' rotation like this, combined with a little biochar and sewerage nutrient recycling, there may just be hope to survive peak oil and peak phosphorus, let alone peak water!

Below is a Polyface farm mobile chook house moved to a fresh field.

[Knothead]

maikeru said:

You're ahead of the curve. Until this year, it was technically illegal for people like me in my desert state to harvest rainwater.

I've always felt that I have a moral obligation to ignore stupid laws.

[Michaelangelica]

IN NUMBERS: Middle East water facts
10.7% Food-price inflation in Egypt during 2010.

25% Expected increase in Saudi water demand up to 2020.

2.9% Yemen population growth each year.

14 cubic kilometres of water loss from Dead Sea in the past 30 years (1980-2010).

240 cubic metres per person annual water use in Israel.

75 cubic metres per person annual water use in Palestinian West Bank.

Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional watercrisis.

http://www.guardian....MP=NECNETTXT766

$0.53 Cost per cubic metre of desalinated water.

120 Desalination plants throughout UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

[dduckwessel]

TheBigDog, on 31 December 2006 - 07:59 PM, said:

I hope water becomes as valuable as oil. Seeing how I live on Lake Erie, one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world, I will be rolling in dough! Woo Hoo!

Bill

I thought I heard that Lake Erie is seriously polluted?

[dduckwessel]

Question: Did marine-life slowly adapt to ever-increasing salt washing into the oceans or did marine-life develop solely as a result of the saltiness?

[belovelife]

Michaelangelica, on 20 February 2011 - 05:30 AM, said:

IN NUMBERS: Middle East water facts
10.7% Food-price inflation in Egypt during 2010.

25% Expected increase in Saudi water demand up to 2020.

2.9% Yemen population growth each year.

14 cubic kilometres of water loss from Dead Sea in the past 30 years (1980-2010).

240 cubic metres per person annual water use in Israel.

75 cubic metres per person annual water use in Palestinian West Bank.

Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional watercrisis.

http://www.guardian....MP=NECNETTXT766

$0.53 Cost per cubic metre of desalinated water.

120 Desalination plants throughout UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

doesn't verticle farms make more sense?

[Rexy]

It would be worth while assessing groundwater for use.
Google 'Great ManMade River'. this is ideal! -if it is sustainable.

man_made_river_libya

[Moontanman]

dduckwessel, on 25 February 2011 - 08:24 PM, said:

Question: Did marine-life slowly adapt to ever-increasing salt washing into the oceans or did marine-life develop solely as a result of the saltiness?

Most of the evidence we have points to the oceans being more or less the same salinity as they are now from the very beginning. Salt was washed from the land with the first rains and continues to do so today. The mechanism for recycling the salts, principally sodium chloride, is not well understood, many of the dissolved minerals do recycle in known ways.

[JMJones0424]

I ran across this desalination method while looking up water recycling techniques used in this space station. Absolutely brilliant. Rather than high-pressure reverse osmosis with expensive, rapidly fouled filters and high energy costs due to pumping, enter "forward osmosis".

http://en.wikipedia....Forward_osmosis

Essentially, sea water is run through at low pressure and water is drawn from the seawater to a draw solution with higher ion concentration through a semi-permeable membrane. The twist is that the salts in the draw solution are made from dissolving ammonia and carbon dioxide into water, and can be driven off by heating the draw solution to temperatures far lower than is required for water distillation, captured, and re-used in a portion of the now de-ionized water to be used as another batch of draw solution.

Quote

One area of current research in FO involves the direct removal of draw solutes by thermal means. This process is typically referred to as the "ammonia - carbon dioxide" FO process, as the draw solutes are salts formed from the mixing of ammonia and carbon dioxide gases in water. These salts can reach high concentrations, particularly as the ratio of ammonia to carbon dioxide is increased. An especially convenient property of these salts is that they readily dissociate into ammonia and carbon dioxide gases again, if a solution containing them is heated (to approx. 60°C, at 1 atm pressure). Once the concentrated draw solution is used to effect separation of water from the FO feed solution, the diluted draw solution is directed to a reboiled stripper (distillation column) and the solutes are completely removed and recycled for reuse in the FO system. An FO system of this type thereby effects membrane separation of water from the FO feed, using heat as its primary energy source. The quality of heat used by this process can be very low, at temperatures as low as 40°C. If FO of this type is used in a cogeneration environment (waste heat from a power plant, for example), its energy cost can be greatly reduced compared to RO.

_________________________

belovelife, on 25 February 2011 - 10:55 PM, said:

doesn't verticle farms make more sense?

Not at all, at least not to anyone that has any clue about the expense of artificial lighting. Verticle farming is a fad passed around by people that have absolutely no clue about light requirements for plants. Whatever economic problems verticle farming is supposed to solve can be more economically addressed by either improved conventional farming practices or conventional "horizontal" greenhouses outside of the city.

[Deepwater6]

I work for a major water utility. I can attest to fact that not alot of water is wasted on our end at the plant. Out in the sytem there be more or less depending on the weather and main breaks. My opertors can tell me exactly when half time of the superbowl is because so many people get up to go to the bathroom, and our pressure drops off. We purify roughly 100 mgd. Every bit of that is metered to make sure we aren't losing it in the process. The company wants to make sure that they aren't paying to purify water that doesn't go out the door. Chemicals presently can be very exspensive a load Carbon used for taste and odor control runs about $30,000. We also use Cl2, Ammonia, Lime, assorted phosphates and polymers, all but the lime are very costly. Another thing people don't realize is the amount of power we need to pump the water out to the systems elevated areas. After 9/11 we started putting in generators. The one at the plant I run has the capability to generate 10 megs of power. We use a good bit of that power during a electrical outage.

There is also the cost of rebuilding filters, cleaning settling basins, and equipment upkeep, new motors and chemical feeder systems for all the products above. As of late the DEP is making us walk a fine line anymore. Turbiidty limits are at the lowest they have ever been and minimum Cl2 rates are higher than ever.

I honestly don't see how small municiple water treatment plants are making it. As the restrictions tighten you have more incidences of boil water notices. The pendulum has swung so far that the smaller companies can't be making any money to stay up with the restrictions. As a result small municipalities either raise taxes or sell to a large company. Neither of which communities want to do. This plays right into my companies hands because as they realize they can't make it on tax revenue they get bought out by us for a one time large sum of money. Of course the company has Political action commitee to help the process along.

The seawater membranes and Ozone purifiers mentioned are even more exspensive and all the bugs haven't been worked out yet for large suppliers to use. we use conventional treatment for our amount. The importance of supply can't be over stated. Everyday we produce 100 mgd to nursing homes, fire hydrants and mothers filling their baby's bottle formula. We take it very seriously as we should. We are running out and seawater is going to have to be purified by 2050 in my opinion if not sooner. Just so everybody understands that it can be done, but it will cost more than oil does today.

[dduckwessel]

Moontanman, on 11 March 2011 - 06:04 AM, said:

Most of the evidence we have points to the oceans being more or less the same salinity as they are now from the very beginning. Salt was washed from the land with the first rains and continues to do so today.

If the ocean is salty because salts washed into it then there must have been a time when it wasn't salty?

[Alpine]

If I'm not wrong, there were news reports of scientists discovering a huge water vapour cloud in space which they say can fill all the oceans 7 times. Hopefully the technology would be advanced enough to get to that cloud.

[The Polymath]

dduckwessel, on 21 April 2011 - 05:32 PM, said:

If the ocean is salty because salts washed into it then there must have been a time when it wasn't salty?

Or perhaps salt is being removed from the oceans as well.

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting
http://www.npr.org/b...ould-be-shocked

[sigurdV]

There is enough water but will there be energy enough to desalinate it?

Todays Nuclear Waste is a Nuclear Fuel of tomorrow, why bury it when we will dig it up later?

Education, education... and education!