Silhouette
Gold Member
- Jul 15, 2013
- 25,815
- 1,938
- 265
Alternate title for this thread is "How Long Will This Political Thread Last In "Politics" Before It's Shoved Into A Dungeon Forum"
For a background on California's water crisis and its origins: Possible Causes and Solutions to the California Drought US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
It's been a long time coming but...eventually a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass had to become a technology.. (ie: they've known about it forever but BigOil simply cannot compete economically with free fuel forever...so it had to be "too expensive, ludicrous....etc. etc.")
Reverse Osmosis is a joke and my money is on that some oil company convinced California politicians that "you need to burn a lot of oil to turn seawater into fresh water by using high pressure through tiny filters". Or, you could just load a receptacle with seawater, boil it and extract the condensed steam as fresh water. It's called "distilled water"... you may have seen it for sale at your grocery store. Using just mirrors and the sun. No oil.
Wow those simple sheet metal parabolic mirrors look HORRIBLY complicated to set up shining at that centrally-located tube just feet away from the concave concentrating line along the array! Such TRICKY AND EXPENSIVE technology to shine a magnifying reflector at a pipe and run 300 degree c high temp fluid to heat exchangers to run a steam turbine too! (I wonder if they can figure out to use the same hot water that way?? Or oil that can be superheated?)
Good for you California! You figured out that sunshine is free and makes things really really hot if you use a magnifying glass. No mining, no fuel, no refining, no pollution, no waste...just free fresh water (& heat to drive steam turbines) every single day the sun shines.. Using the proper fluid in the tube instead of water, this extremely simple, cheap and efficient design can rapidly heat up to 300 degrees celsius, go through heat exchangers and run the same type of steam turbines that nuclear, coal, oil and other fossil fuels heat up to run. Exactly the same end technology to produce electricity, only the fuel is free forever.
Now if we can just convince Greece that their sunshine behaves exactly like California's does..they might pull themselves out of an economic slump! Germany hates nuclear, and well they should. France should hate nuclear. Greece sells power to both and pulls herself out of a slump using what she has and they don't: Sunshine (and geothermal volcanic heat underground)..
Here's how you make electricity using the exact same cheap technology:
As a friend of mine recently put it, "Greece is the sweaty nut-sack of Europe. So why aren't they taking advantage of that?".. Well put my friend....well put!
For a background on California's water crisis and its origins: Possible Causes and Solutions to the California Drought US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
It's been a long time coming but...eventually a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass had to become a technology.. (ie: they've known about it forever but BigOil simply cannot compete economically with free fuel forever...so it had to be "too expensive, ludicrous....etc. etc.")
Reverse Osmosis is a joke and my money is on that some oil company convinced California politicians that "you need to burn a lot of oil to turn seawater into fresh water by using high pressure through tiny filters". Or, you could just load a receptacle with seawater, boil it and extract the condensed steam as fresh water. It's called "distilled water"... you may have seen it for sale at your grocery store. Using just mirrors and the sun. No oil.
California's First Commercial Solar Desalination Plant to Bring Freshwater to the Central Valley July 15, 2015
.."Using a sustainable source of energy to recycle or desalinate water will become a mainstay in regions with water scarcity," added Mandell....The new plant will be built on 35 acres of land currently farmed with salt-tolerant crops, with the potential of growing to a 70-acre site. This land that will house the solar desalination facility is a small fraction of the total 6,000 acres currently used to manage and reuse irrigation drainage water for the Panoche Water California s First Commercial Solar Desalination Plant to Bring Freshwater to the Central Valley Reuters
Wow those simple sheet metal parabolic mirrors look HORRIBLY complicated to set up shining at that centrally-located tube just feet away from the concave concentrating line along the array! Such TRICKY AND EXPENSIVE technology to shine a magnifying reflector at a pipe and run 300 degree c high temp fluid to heat exchangers to run a steam turbine too! (I wonder if they can figure out to use the same hot water that way?? Or oil that can be superheated?)
Good for you California! You figured out that sunshine is free and makes things really really hot if you use a magnifying glass. No mining, no fuel, no refining, no pollution, no waste...just free fresh water (& heat to drive steam turbines) every single day the sun shines.. Using the proper fluid in the tube instead of water, this extremely simple, cheap and efficient design can rapidly heat up to 300 degrees celsius, go through heat exchangers and run the same type of steam turbines that nuclear, coal, oil and other fossil fuels heat up to run. Exactly the same end technology to produce electricity, only the fuel is free forever.
Now if we can just convince Greece that their sunshine behaves exactly like California's does..they might pull themselves out of an economic slump! Germany hates nuclear, and well they should. France should hate nuclear. Greece sells power to both and pulls herself out of a slump using what she has and they don't: Sunshine (and geothermal volcanic heat underground)..
Here's how you make electricity using the exact same cheap technology:
As a friend of mine recently put it, "Greece is the sweaty nut-sack of Europe. So why aren't they taking advantage of that?".. Well put my friend....well put!
Last edited: