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#376 2023-05-10 14:47:59

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

This post is about the Great Salt Lake.  We have a number of posts about the Great Salt Lake, and there may even be a topic dedicated to it, but I'll drop off the post here to get it started.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/plan-sa … 48624.html

The article at the link above is written in a breezy style.  It appears to contain updates on progress toward a pipeline to bring sea water to the Great Salt Lake from the Pacific Ocean.

I'm glad to see that a few people have taken this (to me quite reasonable idea) seriously.

Bill Gifford
Tue, May 9, 2023 at 8:00 AM EDT

This article originally appeared on Outside

Out in Utah's barren West Desert, past the hazardous-waste landfill and the military bombing range, on the far side of the Great Salt Lake, sits a silent, mysterious structure that will make a great ruin someday. Scratch that: it already is one.

The three-story industrial building was hastily erected in the late 1980s, at a cost of $60 million, to house a pumping station with an urgent task: to suck water out of the Great Salt Lake and spew it into the desert flats farther west. The lake was then at record-high levels, threatening to flood railway lines, interstate highways, and farmland. The pumps were in operation for about two years before nature took over and the lake receded on its own.

More than three decades later, the Great Salt Lake has the opposite problem--too little water. Twenty years into a once-in-a-millennium drought, exacerbated by the effects of climate change, the lake level has declined to record lows. Marinas have closed, migratory birds are struggling, and high winds whip up massive dust clouds.

In January, a group of scientists and environmentalists warned that what was once the largest lake in the West could disappear completely in as little as five years. "Examples from around the world show that saline lake loss triggers a long-term cycle of environmental, health, and economic suffering," they wrote in a report. "We are in an all-hands-on-deck emergency."

Translation: shit is getting real. How real? Even Republicans recognize that we have to do something to save the lake--that's how real.

The Great Salt Lake crisis has spurred a novel and extreme idea: Why not build a pipeline to bring in water from the ocean to revive and replenish it?

The concept sounds like something dreamed up by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, but it seems to have originated with the Utah legislature's powerful Water Development Commission, which placed the pipeline idea on its annual agenda last May. "There's a lot of water in the ocean, and we have very little in the Great Salt Lake," noted commission chair David Hinkins.

Environmentalists were urgently dismissive; the Salt Lake Tribune called it a "loony idea." But the loony idea persisted. In December, President Biden signed a bill that will provide $5 million per year in federal money to study possible ways to resurrect the Great Salt Lake and dozens of other saline lakes in the West. One option is the aforementioned ocean pipeline. "We must do whatever is necessary to save [the Great Salt Lake]," said Utah senator Mitt Romney, who sponsored the bill.

Which raises an urgent question: What is going to be necessary to enable us to survive climate change? And how much of that are we actually willing to do?

"My oil and gas friends tell me we build oil and gas pipelines all the time," Romney told me by phone, "and water is more important than that."

But the water pipeline is a much bigger deal than an oil or gas pipeline.

The problem, or set of problems, is not only relevant to the American West. Other places are preparing to spend boatloads of money to mitigate the effects of further climate change. New York State has budgeted $52 billion to armor its pricey coastal real estate against rising sea levels and ever stronger storms. Israel is exploring ways to deliver water from the Mediterranean to its own dying saline lake, the Dead Sea. Scientists in the Netherlands and elsewhere are developing salt-tolerant potatoes and other food crops that are less reliant on fresh water.

To climate scientists, Great Salt Lake and its basin, including the greater Salt Lake City area and famous ski resorts like Park City and Snowbird, offer a perfect little case study in doomsday planning, because the region is a largely self-contained water system. Snow falls on the surrounding mountains in winter, accumulating into a high-elevation snowpack that can measure 20 feet deep. When the snow melts in late spring, the runoff flows down via creeks and rivers into Great Salt Lake, raising its water level. As the summer wears on, a great deal of that water evaporates, and the lake level goes back down. (The water leaches salts and minerals from the soil as it runs down from the mountains, but none of the water flows out to other places, or to the ocean, which is why the lake is salty.)

(th)

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#377 2023-05-10 17:58:24

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

With the high levels of rain and snow the big push is slowed as a result that draught condition have waned.

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#378 2023-05-10 18:03:26

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

For SpaceNut re #377

It might be worth investigating a bit to find out where conditions have eased.  The report in #376 seems to be taking the longer view. A single episode of departure from the trend line does not change the basic problem.  There is not enough water flowing into the Great Salt Lake to keep it going.

Update:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/16/us/great … index.html

To reverse the decline, the Great Salt Lake needs an additional 1 million acre-feet of water – roughly 326 billion gallons – per year, according to the January assessment.

Bonnie Baxter, the director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College and one of the authors of the January report, said the state would “need another five years like this in order to get the system healthy again.”

“If I do the math, we got about three feet of direct precipitation that fell into the lake this year, that is fantastic,” Baxter told CNN. “But the last two years, we also lost 2.8 feet in the summer, and we expect to lose that three feet in the desiccating summer. So now, we’re pretty much even, and that’s not a good place to be.”



(th)

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#379 2023-06-10 20:37:20

Steve Stewart
Member
From: Kansas (USA)
Registered: 2019-09-21
Posts: 161
Website

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

There is a new podcast from NPR called "Thirst Gap: Learning to live with less on the Colorado River". Using the link below, I downloaded the 6 episodes as MP3 files and have been listening to them while I mow or during my commute to work. I've not listened to all of it yet, just the trailer and the first 3 episodes. It has a lot of good information as to the history of the Colorado River Compact of 1922, how the water was allocated, and how climate change has caused it to rain more and snow less, and that rain is harder for the Colorado river to capture than snow. Below is a link to all 6 episodes, which combined is about 3 hours long.

FJQnxtJ.jpg


Thirst Gap: Learning to live with less on the Colorado River


Trailer: Thirst Gap
2 min 45 sec
...the Colorado River Compact — turned 100 years old in 2022. The anniversary was a somber one. Climate change is putting the compact's most basic tenets to the ultimate test. The agreement's fantastical promises, of an arid region flush with enough water to build massive cities and sprawling farms, have left the region's key water source drained. Climate change is warming parts of the basin faster than any other reach of the U.S. If the first 100 years of river management represent an attempt to ring every drop from the river for human use, the next 100 years will bring a heavy dose of reality.


Part 1: Wishing Up A River
26 min 12 sec
The Colorado River's current crisis traces its roots back to 1922. That's when leaders from the rapidly-growing southwestern states that rely on the river traveled to a swanky Santa Fe mountain retreat to divvy up the river's water. Growing populations in some of the West's burgeoning cities and sprawling farmlands, and the anxieties tied to that growth, pushed leaders to the negotiating table. The Colorado River Compact was the result of those talks. This attempt to manage the dynamic river system was fraught from the very beginning.


Part 2: Cash Flows
26 min 09 sec
Farmers and ranchers use the vast majority of the Colorado River's water. Getting them to voluntarily use less is difficult. The West's water rights system incentivizes farmers to use all of their water to prevent their rights from losing value. Trying to balance the region's water supply and demand will require farmers to use less.


Part 3: The Big Empty
26 min 12 sec
Lake Powell is a boater's dream. The nation's second largest reservoir on the Colorado River is a maze of sandstone canyons teeming with houseboats. But climate change and unchecked demand for water sent the lake's levels to a new record low this year. In this episode we explore changes to recreation in this popular vacation hotspot.


Part 4: A Crackdown in Sin City
26 min 09 sec
Las Vegas is known as a city of excess. But not when it comes to water. The desert metropolis relies on the Colorado River to keep its iconic casinos bustling. The short supply has caused city leaders to enforce some of the tightest water conservation measures in the West.


Part 5: First in Time
26 min 13 sec
Tribes in the southwest hold significant rights to the Colorado River's water. But they've been left out of nearly every major agreement to manage the river. Leaders across the region are debating how to use less water amid the region's warming climate. Tribes say they never got the chance to use their water in the first place, and that everyone in the river basin should plan for a future where they do. This episode features interviews with Leila Help-Tulley, and her daughter, Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist with the Navajo Nation. Also, a conversation with Roland Tso, a grazing official with the community of Many Farms. We also hear oral arguments from a March 2023 Supreme Court hearing on Arizona v. the Navajo Nation.


Part 6: Where the River Ends
26 min 14 sec
The Colorado River comes to an end at the U.S.-Mexico border. The entirety of its flow, already heavily tapped upstream in the U.S., is sent into an irrigation canal to grow crops in the Mexicali Valley and to flow through faucets in Tijuana and Mexicali. The river's final hundred miles have been mostly dry for decades. Environmental groups on both sides of the border are working together to let the Colorado flow again in its historic channel.

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#380 2023-07-03 18:26:25

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

For Steve Stewart re #379

Thanks for the link to the NPR series!

***
This post is inspired by a report about research that led to a surprising discovery .... nanotechnology is still an infant field, and new discoveries are happening all the time.  In this case, the researchers appear to have found a way to snag water molecules from the air without cooling the air.  In fact, if I understand the article correctly, the process may even generate minute amounts of electricity, in a manner similar to how Nature produces lightning, but without all the drama.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-a … 21510.html

NextShark
Scientists accidentally turn humid air into clean energy

7
Carl Samson
Mon, July 3, 2023, 5:32 PM EDT
[Source]

A research team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has successfully generated energy out of thin air.

How it started: The team first discovered the possibility in 2018 while working on a sensor for air humidity.

Senior author Jun Yao told the Guardian that it all started when a student forgot to plug in the sensor’s power. Afterward, they realized that the sensor — which was made of nanowires — produced electrical signals nonetheless. They learned that each nanowire allowed for an airborne water molecule to enter, and each “bump” it made inside resulted in a small charge.

Their latest finding: The team has since worked to develop their discovery. In 2020, Yao and another co-author, Derek Lovley, reported that electricity could be continuously harvested from the air using a specialized material made of protein nanowires grown from a bacterium called Geobacter sulfurreducens.

More from NextShark: Top high school in US discriminated against Asian American applicants, judge rules

In their latest study published in the journal Advanced Materials last month, Yao and his team — including lead author Xiaomeng Liu, Hongyan Gao and Lu Sun — reported that nearly any material can be used for the same purpose as long as they are dotted with “nanopores.” These are holes with a diameter of less than 100 nanometers, or as Yao puts it, “less than a thousandth of the width of a human hair.”

How it works: The result is essentially a battery. Because the pores are so small, water molecules harvested from the air bump into their edge. The upper part of the harvester then becomes concentrated with more charged molecules than its lower part. An imbalance is created, akin to clouds capable of producing lightning.

The bigger picture: The findings present the possibility for a future that derives clean energy from anywhere — as long as there’s humidity. Harvesters can be made from almost anything and can be tailored for different environments.

More from NextShark: The Philippines wins its first World Universities Debating Championship title

“This is very exciting,” lead author Liu said in a statement. “We are opening up a wide door for harvesting clean electricity from thin air.”

Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark!

(th)

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#381 2023-07-04 15:25:06

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

For those that like rain we have had 4 basic days of intermittent heavy down fall that at this point are not soaking into the ground but rather running off causing near flood conditions to occur in some places as the water levels rise.

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#382 2023-07-30 19:06:40

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

This article has a Phoenix connection ....

https://www.yahoo.com/news/shortage-cul … 00689.html

Shortage of cult-classic kitchen staple continues amid severe droughts: ‘Unless there is rain, there won’t be a crop’

Jeremiah Budin
Sun, July 30, 2023 at 7:00 AM EDT

Huy Fong Food, the California-based maker of the beloved Sriracha hot sauce, has been forced to scale back production due to a scarcity of chili peppers — red jalapeños, in particular — due to persisting droughts in northern Mexico, the Guardian reported.

“Normally the pepper is grown by irrigation,” Paul Gepts, a crop researcher at the University of California, Davis, told the outlet. “But the supply of water has been decreasing and if you don’t have a certain minimum amount of water to irrigate your crops, unless there is rain, there won’t be a crop.”

In addition to the droughts, there is a depleted water supply in the Colorado River, which supplies water to much of the Western United States and has been drastically overused for years, leading to the river and surrounding groundwaters drying up. In response, Arizona has stopped approving building permits for new single-family homes that rely on the wells in Maricopa County.

Pollution caused by burning dirty energy sources like gas, coal, and oil to power our infrastructure has caused our planet to overheat, leading to more intense extreme weather events that wreak havoc on our communities.

Sometimes, the effects of our changing climate appear in unexpected places, as in the case of the Sriracha shortage, which has gotten dire enough that bottles of the cult-favorite hot sauce are now appearing on the secondary market. The Guardian found bottles of Sriracha listed on Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist for as much as $120, turning the product from a kitchen staple to a collector’s item.

The droughts in northern Mexico are consistent with the environmental science axiom “dry gets drier, [as the] wet gets wetter,” which means that as our climate changes, areas will experience even more extreme versions of the climates they already have.

In this case, we see a dry climate experiencing extreme drought, resulting in a shortage of a beloved food product.

Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more, waste less, and help yourself while helping the planet.

The Phoenix connection is that there is a proposal on the table to make fresh water from Sea of Cortez water.

it appears that peppers might be a candidate crop for artificial water supply.

(th)

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#383 2023-12-17 12:05:36

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

It is December of 2023 ... the most recent post in this topic was in July, and the theme was learning to live with less water.

This post is a brief summary of correspondence with our contact in Phoenix ...

it appears that farmers are moving toward using there land for solar panels.

I strikes me that this is a sensible decision for a land owner in an arid region with little or no prospect for fresh water in future.

Not long ago kbd512 commented on a quote of Elon Musk... as I remember the quote, Musk was estimating that a square of land 100 miles on a side would power the entire United States ... that would be an area of 10,000 square miles.

I asked Google for the area of Arizona:

About 57,700,000 results (0.48 seconds)
113,623.1 square miles
Arizona has a land area of 113,623.1 square miles and a water area of 331.8 square miles. It is the 6th largest state by area.

So Arizona farmers could meet that 10,000 square mile target all by themselves.

In a recent post, Void showed us a link to a video about mass production of solar panels in China.

It would appear there might be supply coming online that could meet a target of 100,000 square miles.

(th)

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#384 2024-01-15 18:33:44

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: Phoenix Arizona Fresh Water Supply vs Mars City Fresh Water Supply

Lake Mead Water Levels Change at Rate Not Seen in Years

AA1n0EGx.img?w=768&h=507&m=6

The El Niño climate pattern has caused several winter storms to dump rain on the Southwest, but typically most of Lake Mead's rise occurs in the spring as snow melts upstream and then flows down the Colorado River to supplement the lake. It's unclear if the lake's recent increase is because of water release from Lake Powell or because of the winter storms.

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