Saturday Learning Series - Engineering (Water Towers)

Engineering, not social engineering is essential for civilization.  Saturday Learning Series is going to delve into some engineering with a look at how water towers work, via Practical Engineering on YouTube.

Water is leaving us behind

I was watching National Geographic channel yesterday.  I don't know why - ultimately every show on that channel seems to end up talking about man-made global warming.  There was a show on talking about the droughts of 2012-2013 being worse than the dust bowl of the 1930's.  Imagine that. It must have been all over the news as a national existential crisis right?  Did I miss that?

I'm no climate scientist, but isn't the earth a relatively closed system? If water evaporates it doesn't leave earth's gravitational pull. It doesn't magically teleport to Mars. It becomes water vapor. Ultimately, only so much of the planet's ice can become water and so much of the water can become vapor before the atmosphere is so humid that it has to rain. So-called man-made global warming is not costing us water.  Water does not leave the system.

Desert regions can change. Ice levels can rise and drop.  This is all normal change.  The opposite of climate change would be climate stagnation. I imagine that and picture fetid swamps and permanent deserts. No wind, no rain, no seasons.  That would be a natural disaster.

Curing the common cold

I have a wicked cold that I picked up a few days ago.  While this post is mostly off topic, I can't really think about much else today unfortunately.  I had thought I might make the whole winter this year without getting one but no such luck.  A few years ago (okay, more like 18 or 19) I discovered a way that seems to work wonders in getting rid of a cold very quickly.  The problem is that it isn't very practical.

The logic is simple and based on the common sense idea that lots of liquids will help fight a cold.  I figured that more liquid would work even better.  What I did was take a 12 ounce glass of apple juice and I drank it.  Then, for the next eight hours I refilled it with water and drank the 12 ounces every ten minutes.  It worked.  I tried it the day I started feeling the symptoms of the cold and the next day the cold was apparently gone and the symptoms never reappeared.  I've tried it again since with the same results.  My guess is that it flushes out the viruses, or much of them, somehow.

Now the down sides.  First of all, every time I've tried it my kidneys felt sore the next day - it's a lot of work for them. I'm not a doctor so I don't know but I suspect it's a bit hard on them and not a good idea to try too often.  Damaging one's kidneys is not worth the cure if that is the side effect of doing it.  But that leads to the other down side - you can't try it very often because you end up spending the whole day in the washroom.  It's not practical to use on a work day or if you have company over or are going out.  It's truly a home remedy.

My guess is that the volume of water flowing through the system flushes out a lot of the virus but again, I'm not a doctor and I have no scientific proof that this works, just anecdotal evidence.  I'd be curious to hear what others think and if anyone else has found anything else that works with a cold.

As an aside, I'm sure there's some sort of obvious way to link flushing the system to politics but being sick, I haven't got the energy today to work on that.  Feel free to comment on that too, maybe it'll inspire a post for tomorrow...

Privatizing Water

The campaign against bottled water, brought to you by the eco-fascist green folks of Al Gore's ilk, continues unabated. This morning on the subway I saw one of those backpacks that students wear, where it is festooned with buttons. I see these all the time. If you live or commute near an institute of higher learning you probably do too. The typical stuff was on display, education is a right, drop fees - end poverty, unlearn sexism. All are standard fare for the backpack. But so is the green agenda - sustainability, climate change and "unbottle it - keep water public". 

I'm not sure these students are fully aware of the consequences of their positions. Some perhaps are, but others just absorb what the environment provides. But the campaign to keep water public, based on the idea that plastic bottles are a danger to the earth misses the mark on so many levels.

Finally - A Green Idea I Can Get Behind

In light of the current cold snap around the world and the Global Warming hoax being exposed by scandal, it would seem that putting effort into alternative energy sources like wind and solar are an expensive option that the U.S. can not afford. This is especially true given not just the expense but the unknown payoff window being anywhere from 10 to 50 years out (or even more based on this timeline). Then there's the fact that the main reason behind it - man made global warming - is unproven and becoming increasingly dubious.

That is not to say that taking care of our environment is a bad thing. For example managing our waste is a good idea - recycling is good, polluting is bad. Common sense cuts both ways though.

Environmentalists have argued that a contributing factor to global warming is deforestation. Of course it doesn't exist on the level they claim. Nevertheless, I think there's a possible symmetry between science, business and environmentalists in at least one area. Water.

The world's most coveted commodity (besides gold) is oil. But there is something more valuable to human life and it's water. Vast areas of Africa, Australia and even North America are inhospitable deserts. Just think if they could be turned into irrigated farmland or forests. They could be used to feed the hungry, and suck up all that carbon dioxide evil humans (and cars) breath out. Never mind the fact that it would be meddling with the planet's environment on a scale that cars never have.

For the rest of us capitalists, think of the possible financial boon - extra crops to sell, new sources of lumber to sell and water and water technology to sell. Water technology?

That's where I believe our environmental efforts should be focused - on devising a technology that can remove salt from sea water. Desalination. The potential is staggering. The economic and societal benefits would be - well big at least. Perhaps even vast.

Of course cheap, economical desalination is not a new idea. But it hasn't been achieved yet. Then again neither has cheap, efficient solar or wind power. In either case it could take another 50 years to achieve. That's a lot of expensive effort and no guaranteed payout in either choice of effort.

In 50 years, global warming or not - what will be more important, solar power or water? No one knows. But what is known is that efforts at clean technology already have started. They have already been primed with government money. They should be allowed to stand or fall on their own merits. In any case there are alternatives to coal and oil already - natural gas and nuclear power are proven technologies that could be leveraged if solar and wind power take 100 years to become a real option. There are ways to get by without solar power. As an aside, the global warming hoax is a meaningless factor in this argument. The only reason I would support any alternative to oil is the dependence on foreign, especially hostile, suppliers. But I would only support reasonable options - not fanciful unproven ones.

Water on the other hand, I can get behind. Water has always been a fundamental human need, and frequently in human history a scarce resource. Desalination would prove a boon for the burgeoning southwest, and it's already pressed water supply. It would all for crops where non have existed. It could feed the growing domestic and international population - for a profit. It addresses a real world and domestic need, not an immeasurable and fictitious one. The science is simpler and based on more knowns than unknowns. At this point it is more about reducing cost (innovation) than about net new invention. There are indications we're already making headway.  It's not going to take 50 years. And the payoff, will be real.