Water!

[imnothere]

learn to treasure... life

you know alot of problems can be solved by that statement right there.

[Rodri]

you know alot of problems can be solved by that statement right there.

This is truth.
We need to remember that all life is connected and the elemental forces that sustain life are within all life. Earth, air, fire and water. These are the basic and vital forces that sustain and infuse all life.

If we learn to treasure these, we learn to treasure Life.

[Gnerphk]

OK - I can grant that.

But - as stated above - there is no water shortage.

For a fist-full of coin, I can build a tiny electrolysis machine, recombust the component molecules, condense the steam, recover 75% of the power used, and generate reasonably pure water. Give me more than a few bucks and I can improve the efficiency to over 80%. Give me a nice sunny day and we can go virtually powerless.

A simple evaporation plant can be combined with a standard heat pump system used for home heating and cooling in temperate climes. Put one of these on every house in the midwest and there's no clean-water shortage through the summer and very little hardship in winter.

Of course, eliminating chemical fertilizers and recreating the midwest ditch-and-dike system of water retention would be far more effective, but it wouldn't stimulate the economy so much.

Next post: Personal gas masks for everyone! Simple, inexpensive, and improves the economy!

[jorbaud]

I think that a lot of money will have to be invested in converting salt water because

This seems to be the best way. Eventually we will run out of fresh water and we will need to either take water from the North and South poles or convert salt water. I am not really sure which way would be cheaper or more efficient.

[Moghedien]

Global warming is the solution!!! Speed up the proccess so the polar ice caps can melt sooner....

[Rodri]

When I say treasure water, I don't mean stick a dollar value on it. I mean treasure it as you would your own life.

Water is vital to all life and as such we need to stop thinking of how we can exploit more and more of it solely for human gain. If we look at the inefficiencies in our water management systems now, there is plenty of room for improvement because at the moment we manage to pollute the very resource that we need by allowing 'waste' water to escape into natural water systems instead of cleaning the water for re-use. How many suburban houses have rainwater capture systems of any significance? Without one, your potential fresh water supply just runs down a drain or down the street, collecting pollution as it goes, until it joins a river or is expelled into the sea.

That catchment area of the average house roof combined with large enough storage tanks could supply all household water needs for up to a family of 5 in even moderate to low rainfall areas. If the same household also treats and re-uses it's waste water then you also have water for the garden. If you produce food in that garden and use best practice water management skills in doing so, you then reduce the amount of water coming into your household from outside sources in the form of foods. If every household was encouraged to do the same thing and local governments were to capture and clean storm water for re-use there would be very little need for extra water for a long time to come.

As responsible members of the community we would all be responsible for conserving water and because we are tracking our consumption and 'waste water' production, it would just become second nature anyway. If we rely on "someone else" to deliver clean fresh water to our homes then we are prone to forget the real value of water and become more and more wasteful. "I can afford it" is not a good attitude to take in regard to water usage.

[imnothere]

the problem with that plan is that by the time rain gets to the roof or catch system in a massively urban area is that it has already done its job cleaning pollutants out of the air. "acid rain" is what its called. but really what it is is rain that has gathered pollutants and allergens on its way through the are. without filtering even at a rooftop catch it would not be potable.

[Rodri]

There is a simple mechanical system to divert the first flush of rainwater away from the storage and into the drains or onto your garden. Usually, unless air pollution is extreme, it only takes a few minutes for rainwater to cleanse the air of particulate matter and wash all the pollutants from your roof. These are quite simple and even the home handy-man could make one for minimal cost.



There is also a system in Place in Salisbury, South Australia to capture storm water, cleanse it through wet lands and pump the clean water into underground aquifers for later use on parks and gardens. The estimated water collection was an average of 6 billion litres a year. Have a look at it and learn more here if you like.


Storwater storage and filtration wetland. Salisbury, SA.

In many cases, we built our cities on the best available land and we cleared the trees and groundcovers and leveled the land to make our cities, so runoff from urban areas is not a natural event anyway. In a natural system the water would be mostly kept and held in the landscape until flooding occurs and runoff would be minimal over an extended period of time. Urban wastelands and urban design encourage rainwater to escape the urban enviroment as quickly as possible and that just washes all the problems downstream. There are solutions to all problems if we can think in the right way.

[imnothere]

i hadnt thought that it would wash the air so quickly. but that is a great idea to divert the first flush off and then capture the rest. i've noticed here in the states that the worst places fro urban drainage are the deserty places. where water would normally be snatched up right away, and in staid it is channeled through town and out to the local canals. in these places the streets have to be curved to prevent flooding on them when it does rain

[Rodri]

South Australia is the driest state in the driest continent in the world. Letting 6 billion litres of potential water just drain into a sensitive marine enviroment was just wasteful. If you can read the article I linked, you can see that the water is also ensuring and creating jobs in the area as well.

Here's another link to an article about a Sydney terrace house that was designed to be as self-sufficient as possible (regarding water and electricity) on a very small block.