It’s Time for a New and Bold Idea to secure our current and future water needs. We are not out of water. Our earth is 70 percent water. We just need some new solutions to fix the water supply problems. Desalination of ocean water is surely one of the right solutions but we do need some fresh implementation ideas. I have an idea that I want to share with you all.
The Arizona Desert Could Provide One Perfect Solution. Let’s Think About IT!
My Idea. Build Massive really Massive Salt Water Desalination Projects in the Arizona Sonoran Desert. So, Why The Arizona Desert ?
First. Desalination needs massive amounts of low cost energy. Solar is the answer and the Desert is the best place of all to build the massive solar energy installations to satisfy that need.
Second. Massive Desalination projects will need direct access to a distribution system. The lake Havasu Reservoir and the Colorado and Cap Aqueducts are all in place just a few miles away and just waiting for more water.
Third. Desalination needs a new alternative to the disposal of the resulting brine instead of just dumping it in the ocean. The desert offers some unique and advantageous solutions. Read on.
The critics say that desalination takes to much energy so the first step for any massive desalination projects should be a decision two supply almost all of the needed power from new solar energy. The Arizona Sonoran desert is the perfect place for a new large solar energy facilities and when back up energy is required at night or when there is no sun, nuclear may be an option and Arizona already operates a nuclear plant in the Arizona desert west of Phoenix. How Perfect.
Our grand fathers and great grand fathers implemented a bold idea eighty some years ago when they initiated and built the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead back in 1935. Wow! What a Bold undertaking for that time. In today’s dollars, that would have been an investment of about 750 million dollars. The Parker Dam and Lake Havasu was completed in 1938 and the Colorado Aqueduct was delivering water from the Colorado river to California by 1941.
It’s Time To Think That Boldly Again.
Let’s bring the salt water to the best place for the desalination projects, and not bring the desalination projects to the water. Salt water is available within a hundred miles of the Arizona desert and the existing Colorado distribution systems are already in place and readily available to accept the fresh water.
Again, our earth has enormous suplies of water. We are not short of water. We are just short of fresh water. We just need massive desalination projects to create the large quantities of fresh water to supplement the Colorado river.
Desalination does produce large volumes of consequential brine waste that needs to be disposed of in some non polluting way. We can not or at least should not just dump it in the ocean. The Arizona desert again offers a good option.
We could use the desert floor to treat the brine in a positive non polluting way. We could create evaporation pads on the desert floor to first evaporate the water from the brine and then we could harvest the resulting salt for some positive use as needed and then dispose of the rest in a man made salt mountain located in some remote area of the desert.
So What’s Needed?
We already have almost everything we would need. No new technology would be required. We just need the commitment to go do it.
Think About It ByBob http://www.thinkaboutitbybob.com
Think About It Bybob 