California has abundant water
An open letter to Arnold Schwartzennager, honorable Governor of California
Did you know that the #1 occupation on Earth is carrying water! If it was the gold rush 168 years ago that popularized Calfornia as a coastal paradise, it will be the green rush that will save it from running short of water..
A while back I rode the Pacific Coast Bike Trail past Crescent City, California, through the redwood mountains in a driving rainstorm. From an overlook I watched millions of gallons of fresh water plunging into the Pacific below.
600 miles south, tens of million of Southern Californian's are huddled along the coast and they have nearly perfect climatic conditions, exept they have a ravenous appetite for fresh water. So here's the deal. California designs and implements a pilot project to collect (using gravity) the water falling and stores it in giant water balloons.
These balloons, once full, would be towed (by tugs or by a self contained solar engine) south along California coastal waters. With substantial help from the prevailing currents, these giant water containers could be nested at high tide in position for solar powered pumps to drain them into waiting reservoirs. This is an elegant but by no means a new idea. The Sierra Club has already staked out a position on the matter:
Sometimes the greatest good must be considered and we believe that re-distribution of water that is currently lost to the Pacific is a small price to pay for a renewable source of water for Southern California.
The Otay Lakes and Sweetwater Reservoir in San Diego would be one example of a place to put California's water. Obviously we are talking big water balloons and they can be designed to be hydrodynamic and even to be saddled by their own solar powered engines.
Using gravity and solar power we can create a true "aqueduct" along California's coast and decrease dependence on the Colorado River. Call me a vidiot!
Did you know that the #1 occupation on Earth is carrying water! If it was the gold rush 168 years ago that popularized Calfornia as a coastal paradise, it will be the green rush that will save it from running short of water..
A while back I rode the Pacific Coast Bike Trail past Crescent City, California, through the redwood mountains in a driving rainstorm. From an overlook I watched millions of gallons of fresh water plunging into the Pacific below.
600 miles south, tens of million of Southern Californian's are huddled along the coast and they have nearly perfect climatic conditions, exept they have a ravenous appetite for fresh water. So here's the deal. California designs and implements a pilot project to collect (using gravity) the water falling and stores it in giant water balloons.
These balloons, once full, would be towed (by tugs or by a self contained solar engine) south along California coastal waters. With substantial help from the prevailing currents, these giant water containers could be nested at high tide in position for solar powered pumps to drain them into waiting reservoirs. This is an elegant but by no means a new idea. The Sierra Club has already staked out a position on the matter:
Sometimes the greatest good must be considered and we believe that re-distribution of water that is currently lost to the Pacific is a small price to pay for a renewable source of water for Southern California.
The Otay Lakes and Sweetwater Reservoir in San Diego would be one example of a place to put California's water. Obviously we are talking big water balloons and they can be designed to be hydrodynamic and even to be saddled by their own solar powered engines.
Using gravity and solar power we can create a true "aqueduct" along California's coast and decrease dependence on the Colorado River. Call me a vidiot!
Labels: hydro engineering California water supply imagineering
posted by Vid Opiná at
12:54
1 Comments:
Assuming: (1) 450 miles of coastline along which you could collect the water, (2) balloons the size of football fields with a capacity of 27,000 cubic feet, (3) a need for .75 Acre-Feet of water per capita for all uses for each new person added to the Southern Cal population, (4) 10 million more people by 2030, (5)a rainy season of six months,etc. Then 7,920 balloons could be filled simultaneously if the rain fall was adequate and at a fill rate of 10 cubic per minute it would take about two days to fill the balloons. But to provide the needed water for 10 million would require 67,204 balloons per day. With the balloons only half full at the end of a day, the result would be a small fraction of the actual water needed. Many other factors are involved: Pacific storms, cycle time for balloons, offloading time, availability of sunshine for solar applications, evaporation rate in reservoirs, trucks to return the balloons north, etc.
Why would one want to do this when more people creates a host of other problems more traffic congestion,climate change, more extinction of species, crowded bicycle paths, rapid depletion of natural resources especially arable land destroyed or developed to accommodate more people, petroleum needed but not available except from Middle East despots, etc.
The Sierra Club as usual is avoiding the basic problem of too many people. Until it takes this problem to heart we can't take the Club seriously. Two hundred million more people in this country by mid century will produce 4 billion more metric tons of carbon pollutants in the atmosphere at the rate of 4 metric tons per capita.
The Sierra Club and all environmental organizations and nature lovers should insist on a national goal of a stable population within 20 years. This requires reducing legal immigration of all kinds to 200,000 per year, secure borders and the deportation of most of the illegal aliens. Strong medicine? You bet! Is it needed? Absolutely!
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