Via Raw Story, we have news that William Shatner is trying to "crowdsource" a project that would bring water from the Seattle area down to California:
The “Star Trek” star has told Yahoo! Tech journalist David Pogue he intends to start a crowdsource campaign on Kickstarter.com to raise $30 billion for a pipeline to bring water from the Seattle area for use by thirsty California.
Well, the big problem with this idea is that Washington state is experiencing a drought, and the residents would take it ill if their water were stolen. A better solution would be to expand efforts to build ocean desalination plants along the California coast.
At the risk of igniting a "Star Trek vs Star Wars" fight, I have to opine that Mark Hamill should counter William Shatner by proposing a moisture vaporator project throughout California. There are moisture laden breezes wafting off the coastal waters, how about harnessing that moisture?
On a serious note, George Lucas is a socially responsible guy, maybe he can fund a feasibility study... why not be SoCal-ly responsible as well?
There's still the Battlestar Galactica solution. We're going to need a bigger spaceship...
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Ultimately, ocean de-sal is the only solution. It's expensive, but expensive water is far superior to no water.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, de-sal is incredibly power intensive, at least in it's current reverse osmosis iterations. The only way it makes sense is to do something utterly unthinkable - build each desalination plant with its own local small nuclear reactor. In the decades since we built the last nuclear power generation, there have been huge technological advances (such as pebble bed reactors), and small dedicated plants can be build safer and cheaper than huge municipal or regional plants.
It would be grossly irresponsible to put that much more power demand on a grid largely supplied by fossil fuels...
Surely Bill Mumy can get involved as well.
ReplyDeleteA massive build out of solar and (offshore?) wind farms could do it. The wiring would be trickier, but desalination actually works well with renewable energy, because there's no reason they couldn't desal all they can while the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and store the fresh water until needed.
ReplyDeleteWhat about collecting all that NE snow instead of just melting it into the Atlantic?
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, I think you want a wave powered generator for this. Where is salt water? In the waves. There is a o project going live in Australia. Betty Fokker wrote up a post about an Australian project here: https://bettyfokker.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/power-and-potable-water/
I love these shoot from the hip morons. Thought? Who needs thought. Charge!!!!
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