I was reading an article that spoke about the California drought.
It spoke of the problem originating from a 1000 mile wide, and 90 meters deep 'blob' of hot water. this 'blob' is located off the coast of California, apparently.
I've only been aware of the blob, and it being a problem, for about an hour, so I came up with a quick potential solution.
This blob is apparently re-directing weather from California, so it never rains. What happens is the rising heat re-directs the potential rain clouds away from California's coast.
If this indeed the issue....this is, apparently...at first blush... easily fixable for a very low cost.
To add, it is in INTERNATIONAL waters so there is no major block on such an action as I will be outlining. There is no major regulatory block, regarding dealing with the state of California, or the US government, in general.
The issue is if they will see the fixing of the drought issue as being an act against the USA or not. This is the quarter where it will come from (US federal quarters), if there is a blocking force against the idea of California fixing itself as a state and a vital part of the US economy.
What we're looking at, is a system of energy transport. One with low cost, as the system is not really moving mass, it is rolling a high inertia body, well greased, along a floor.
This means that a considerable amount of motion can be enabled, regarding energy transport, at low 'cost'. The entire effort is around energy transport, not energy generation, so the effective energetic change or energy placement/redirection.... is huge.
The initial calculations say that a barge can be made that has folding and unfolding solar panel arrangements that are in the area of 400kw, just based on a smaller barge size.
The raw cost of home installed solar power is about $1.7 per watt, so expect about $700k for the raw panel costs.(as a quick calculation)
Then the inverters and so on, and the mounting systems, steering systems and whatnot, take this to being not over $1.5M. This is inclusive of the environmental concerns (build quality and stability) of ocean borne situations, etc.
The pumps don't need to deal with what is known as 'head' or column height. They do need to deal with frictive losses and some small aspects of head, but not much.
This is due to the intake and the output of the system being in the same volume of water. The water inlet and the water outlet are never out of the water, never in the air, so the primary aspect of mass differential and gravity....is not encountered. This it is mostly an act of horizontal flow, which is primarily friction losses. This sort of pumping is called "Low Head Horizontal Axial Flow Pumping", and very high volumes of flow can be made to happen. Even though the water is moving vertically, column height is not really ever encountered. The water to be pulled up is about 100 meters down, or about 330 feet down, but the mass differential through that column height....is minor. It is similar to moving air through air, if looked at as an air column height issue. (eg, highrise building)
The preliminary 'back of a napkin' scribbles seem to indicate that in the worst case scenario, at $15million cost per barge, at 10 barges manufactured and put in place, these barges could physically move the volumetric equivalent of a medium-low depth lake, with a surface area of +3,000 square miles....in less than 15 days. (one has to look closely at pump capacities on this one....data is tricky to find, and I only spent about 30 minutes on this part--potential for error, right there)
Lets say my quick simple math is incredibly wrong... and it takes 60 days, not 15. Well, the clearance of the issue will probably not take the pumping or inversion of the full mass, and changes will take place sooner, not later. It is not a race with a finishing line. So the total time moves back toward the 15 days, from the 60 days. So call it..30 days to see effects of rainfall on the west coast.
Thus the temperature inversion blob of water.... that is holding rain away from California, could be ended rather quickly.
At an incredibly low cost. Via simple energy transport. By pulling the cold deeper water, up to the surface.
If you think this is nonsense, please look into it, I think it has merit, as being a quick, low cost, viable solution, that can be enacted right now. Not a year from now, but now.
I'd guess that the first barge could be moving out into the problem area, in about 90-120 days, at the most, if the effort was in a crash program..such a motion could get the first few barges done in 70-90 days. If all of them were done at the same time, the fix would almost be immediate and even more controllable(!)... with regard to getting this fixed before the end of the summer. In development terms, that is a blink of an eye and near zero cost.
The entire scenario depends on a a few facts which need to be properly ascertained, which is any possible column height issues, and friction losses. The rest of it lies in existing technology that is all well proven. After that, it is tied to the level of sunlight available. But that should be rather high in level as it is a 'too much sun not enough rain' issue.
So, any of you engineering guys out there, pick this apart.
Or one can go out there now, ignore the solar power side of it.... and just start pumping water, with diesel generators.
Immediately.
Why wait? Waiting.... costs untold billions. The clock is ticking.
~~~~~~~
Or, to use floating (floating top) spaced out from one another...long impellers, so a diesel generator ship can work at inverting a wider area. There are some new impeller designs, one based on the Fibonacci, which is incredibly efficient, as it works with the water's complex flow aspects, not against it. this impeller is designed specifically for tank flow, or tank agitation, specifically for water, and at levels of energy use that are a magnitude or two better than prior systems.
http://paxscientific.com/Index.html
Space the impellers out on a long rod that hangs throughout the layer...and below... and away you go.
It spoke of the problem originating from a 1000 mile wide, and 90 meters deep 'blob' of hot water. this 'blob' is located off the coast of California, apparently.
I've only been aware of the blob, and it being a problem, for about an hour, so I came up with a quick potential solution.
This blob is apparently re-directing weather from California, so it never rains. What happens is the rising heat re-directs the potential rain clouds away from California's coast.
"The blob -- measuring about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) in diameter and 300 feet (91 meters) deep -- is currently positioned against the West Coast. It is about 2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius) above normal average temperature. Climate scientist Nick Bond was first to call the warm weather anomaly "the blob" nearly a year ago.
If this indeed the issue....this is, apparently...at first blush... easily fixable for a very low cost.
To add, it is in INTERNATIONAL waters so there is no major block on such an action as I will be outlining. There is no major regulatory block, regarding dealing with the state of California, or the US government, in general.
The issue is if they will see the fixing of the drought issue as being an act against the USA or not. This is the quarter where it will come from (US federal quarters), if there is a blocking force against the idea of California fixing itself as a state and a vital part of the US economy.
What we're looking at, is a system of energy transport. One with low cost, as the system is not really moving mass, it is rolling a high inertia body, well greased, along a floor.
This means that a considerable amount of motion can be enabled, regarding energy transport, at low 'cost'. The entire effort is around energy transport, not energy generation, so the effective energetic change or energy placement/redirection.... is huge.
The initial calculations say that a barge can be made that has folding and unfolding solar panel arrangements that are in the area of 400kw, just based on a smaller barge size.
The raw cost of home installed solar power is about $1.7 per watt, so expect about $700k for the raw panel costs.(as a quick calculation)
Then the inverters and so on, and the mounting systems, steering systems and whatnot, take this to being not over $1.5M. This is inclusive of the environmental concerns (build quality and stability) of ocean borne situations, etc.
The pumps don't need to deal with what is known as 'head' or column height. They do need to deal with frictive losses and some small aspects of head, but not much.
This is due to the intake and the output of the system being in the same volume of water. The water inlet and the water outlet are never out of the water, never in the air, so the primary aspect of mass differential and gravity....is not encountered. This it is mostly an act of horizontal flow, which is primarily friction losses. This sort of pumping is called "Low Head Horizontal Axial Flow Pumping", and very high volumes of flow can be made to happen. Even though the water is moving vertically, column height is not really ever encountered. The water to be pulled up is about 100 meters down, or about 330 feet down, but the mass differential through that column height....is minor. It is similar to moving air through air, if looked at as an air column height issue. (eg, highrise building)
The preliminary 'back of a napkin' scribbles seem to indicate that in the worst case scenario, at $15million cost per barge, at 10 barges manufactured and put in place, these barges could physically move the volumetric equivalent of a medium-low depth lake, with a surface area of +3,000 square miles....in less than 15 days. (one has to look closely at pump capacities on this one....data is tricky to find, and I only spent about 30 minutes on this part--potential for error, right there)
Lets say my quick simple math is incredibly wrong... and it takes 60 days, not 15. Well, the clearance of the issue will probably not take the pumping or inversion of the full mass, and changes will take place sooner, not later. It is not a race with a finishing line. So the total time moves back toward the 15 days, from the 60 days. So call it..30 days to see effects of rainfall on the west coast.
Thus the temperature inversion blob of water.... that is holding rain away from California, could be ended rather quickly.
At an incredibly low cost. Via simple energy transport. By pulling the cold deeper water, up to the surface.
If you think this is nonsense, please look into it, I think it has merit, as being a quick, low cost, viable solution, that can be enacted right now. Not a year from now, but now.
I'd guess that the first barge could be moving out into the problem area, in about 90-120 days, at the most, if the effort was in a crash program..such a motion could get the first few barges done in 70-90 days. If all of them were done at the same time, the fix would almost be immediate and even more controllable(!)... with regard to getting this fixed before the end of the summer. In development terms, that is a blink of an eye and near zero cost.
The entire scenario depends on a a few facts which need to be properly ascertained, which is any possible column height issues, and friction losses. The rest of it lies in existing technology that is all well proven. After that, it is tied to the level of sunlight available. But that should be rather high in level as it is a 'too much sun not enough rain' issue.
So, any of you engineering guys out there, pick this apart.
Or one can go out there now, ignore the solar power side of it.... and just start pumping water, with diesel generators.
Immediately.
Why wait? Waiting.... costs untold billions. The clock is ticking.
~~~~~~~
Or, to use floating (floating top) spaced out from one another...long impellers, so a diesel generator ship can work at inverting a wider area. There are some new impeller designs, one based on the Fibonacci, which is incredibly efficient, as it works with the water's complex flow aspects, not against it. this impeller is designed specifically for tank flow, or tank agitation, specifically for water, and at levels of energy use that are a magnitude or two better than prior systems.
http://paxscientific.com/Index.html
Space the impellers out on a long rod that hangs throughout the layer...and below... and away you go.
PAX Mixer has also successfully modeled a solution for atmospheric de-stratification. Smog in mega-cities is increasingly costly to both citizens and businesses, compromising health and in some cases even halting air travel. PAX is exploring an innovative, low-carbon footprint solution through its research in atmospheric mixing.
