Small Scale Geoengineering

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Comment by mike fallwell on July 30, 2008 at 2:34pm

Regional_Scale_Rain_Making[2].ppt
here's the link

Comment by mike fallwell on July 30, 2008 at 2:31pm

Hello Walter,
Did you know that electric utilitys use nearly as much water as farmers.
For most people rain is the only economic source.

Comment by WALTER REED on July 29, 2008 at 10:23pm

Water Conservation; the spins, myths and realities.

Of all the captured fresh water, here in the USA, only approximately 5% is actually utilized for domestic households. This includes watering your lawn, showers, flushes, laundry, dishwashers and potable consumption. So where goes the other 95%?

Industry and Agriculture consumes the balance. The 'spin' is for you to put another brick in your toilet or a 'water-pistol nozzle' on your shower head. Industry lobby and influence on our 'leaders' will usually make this the focus of conservation. The first step is to throw all the bums out of office at the next election, donkeys and elephants.

The real conservation need is for:
1. Recapture and recycle spent water within industry, agriculture - and from our cities.
2. Expanded water capture (dams, basins and underground storage) and expanded distrubution systems across the nation, leading to some level of a pipe-line matrix, distantly similar to electrical distribution.
3. Denial of new building permits in drought prone areas.
4. Denial of new building permits in flood prone areas - with those properties then re-dedicated as 'catch basins' of fresh water.
5. Cover critical reservoirs with ping-pong balls or covers to limit evaporation - which can be an enormous loss of water.

Notably, those companies that have take those steps of capture and recycle have shown that effort to have great savings. Those cities, such as Phoenix, have also shown great benefits and water savings.

Then, coincidentally to this effort, aggressive steps need now to be taken, such as Mike's proposed H20 vapor seeding process at sea. This must be tried and studied so as not to be creating disaster storms, but that said, the concept appears quite feasible. I see this trial as relatively inexpensive to do. Such boundary barrier penetration of fogging spays would easily be accomplished from a HARTH vessel platform, as the house by design is 40-80 feet above the calm water line to begin with. The speed of the ships can out-run any storm front, or find it and locate in front of it quickly. Sea water is an infinite supply, and only adding some large pumps and plumbing will put this experiment in action.

Salt water conversions to fresh water. This has been viewed as the 'holy grail' to accomplish, but we are doing this in a number of place with co-generation.

For example, nuclear submarines distill sea-water with the waste heat of the reactor and provide several thousand gallons of fresh water daily for internal use. Southern California provides electricity to Catalina Island by diesel engine driven alternators. They also use the waste heat of those engines to distill water pumped up to a resivoir. Even solar distillation has been accomplished on smaller scales, but workable.

All of these type of efforts are, of course, has been and is met with viral opposition from the extreme 'nutzo' environment groups. They always can find a frog or lizard that may want to relocate it's habitat a few hundred feet, or the structure will cast a shadow on the ground that was not there before. My gosh, that might provide some relief for a rabbit or coyote. These groups will first have to have the bolts in their head shook and re-arranged.

Comment by Luane Todd on July 29, 2008 at 10:46am

JONES-BuildingNewTopsoil.pdf
I almost missed this group because the name didn't register as a way to describe what my real love is, namely using a land management approach that address es CO2 sequestration and reduction, drought management and modification, soil building, water table recharging and a host of additional benefits while feeding the population really high quality, affordable food.
I don't have time to delve deeply into the discussion right now but I included a file that I love which will start the thinking. I attached it from my library but it doesn't look like they usually do when I do this so I'm not sure it worked. Let me know. If it didn't I'll try a different approach when I have time.

I'm so glad to find others thinking along these lines in this unbelievable gathering of people with so many interests and skills.

Luane Todd
luanetodd@yahoo.com

Comment by Ron Alexander on July 28, 2008 at 3:42pm

I don't know much about this, except that my Aunt's dock on a lake is on the bottom, of what is normally a 25 to 30 foot deep cove. I have a dock permit next to hers, so this really depresses me, and hope that something can be done to increase rainfall! I will research further to be more knowledgable. Mike, I think you have started a very worthwhile dialogue. Good Luck and thanks, Ron

Comment by WALTER REED on July 26, 2008 at 10:33pm

I believe this should be tried on a controlled basis and then analysed and studied. I have some concerns, of course.

Drought plagued areas often do not get any assembly of a storm front for years, such as has been seen in western Africa. Even back in the 'dust bowl' of our central U.S. in the 1940's, there were attempts to seed what few clouds seen, with dry ice. Breaking the boundary layer just above the ocean when a storm front manifest itself could indeed, work. Where this happens is dicey, as might be in the gulf of Mexico. We would not want to be seeding a hurricane or other flooding type storms.

As such, we see 'Rain Rain everywhere, and not a drop to drink'. Accordingly, I see a more urgent need to learn how to capture and treat flood waters with the then establishment of a far reaching distribution system. Those are of course, huge projects to be initiated and funded.

More immediate to such repeating draught or flooding problems would be to deny new building permits in such areas. Our natural resources must be protected in the light of reality, and controlling new building permits would force a demographic movement. Of course there are the impacts of economic growth of those area, unless the inventor and communities bring about real answers and solutions.

If we all can actually get a national movement to support the many inventive solutions that do exists, I think that momentum will bring security and prosperity to this country and others.

Comment by mike fallwell on July 26, 2008 at 5:15pm

Drought kills more people, causes wars, destroys the environment.

If water goes up as fast as oil would you survive.

Many Americans in the southwest will soon face these issues.

Comment by Charles A. Laster a.k.a. Little Feather on July 22, 2008 at 3:27pm

I have always been an organic gardener. Though this is a small thing, it is something many can do to reduce our dependance on oil.

As for water, one of the concepts I am promoting here is micro hydropower generation. Although small dams are not needed for many locations, some would benifit from small scale dams. These small dams would provide a supply of water for local farmers in times of drought also.

Energy in wet times, crop protection in dry times, and some flood protection in very wet times. A win, win, deal.

Comment by mike fallwell on July 21, 2008 at 1:29pm

Regional_Scale_Rain_Making[2].ppt