Hey there, desalinization is something that has been high on my public priority list for quite some time, so I just thought I'd mention it, and post a link to this article for myself and any other interested parties.

Also, during a read of the first chapter, I'm noting that if it takes ~7000kWh/AF (acre-feet*) of energy to desalinate sea water, that means if 7,500 AF/yr is about 7.16 million gallons/day, another approximation yields 1AF/yr ~~ 1000 gallons/day. This means that to make 1000 gallons per day would take 7000kWh. To make 1 gallon per day would take 7kWh, or the equivalent of 70 100 watt lightbulbs going for an hour. That's not as good as I'd hoped. I'm wondering if my figures are correct. This blurb from the article pretty much affirms my estimates:

For example, an estimated 50 million kWh/yr would be required for full-time operation of the City of Santa Barbara's desalination plant to produce 7,500 AF/yr of water. In contrast, the energy needed to pump 7,500 AF/yr of water from the Colorado River Aqueduct or the State Water Project to the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California is 15 to 26 million kWh/yr. These energy requirements may be compared to the energy use of a small- to medium-sized industrial facility (such as a large refinery, small steel mill, or large computer center) which uses 75,000 to 100,000 kWh/yr.

In any case, since lots of the places where desalinization could happen are on the ocean coastlines, and many have volcanos and hotsprings, the power for these operations could come from harnessing the tides, and from geothermal....
*Also after more research on acronymfinder and comparing measures, 1 acre-foot is approximately 325,000 gallons of water, and that's why one acre-foot/year is close to 1000 gallons/day.

Also, I updated my mediareformlinks blog the other day with some good info. Check it if you want to have some good talking points on why media reform is important, or if you want to find out which major corporations own which of the mass media vehicles.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: desalinization, media