Innovative Discussion on Engineering Fresh Clean Water by Whisson of Subiaco-Australia in the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues

David Bradley has once again brought us an excellent "Millennium Project Issue" but "only" No.5 on the National Academy for Science, Engineering Grand Challenges for the 21st Century namely to "provide access to clean water" - "The Life Saver of Life Savers" No Clean Water, no food, no healthy food. No Drinking Water - no... brain,(80% water, roughly) no R&D remember!

David's article entitled, "Water Water Everywhere" a title coined from the Samuel Taylor Coleridge's' poem "The Ancient Mariner" ("and not a drop to drink!")- may be found on his highly rated Sciencebase web-log, . This sort of scientific journalism is the sort, I believe, will help drive some of the "Optimistic pessimism [Link] over luxurious hang-ups away from Jeff Sachs & The Dismal Science Assocs. with a little help and strong, solid material equipment and organisational input from his "Hard Science friends."

For those who don't know, Jeff is Director of the The Millennium Project - Home at the Earth Institute at Columbia Univ. NY, USA. - and Economics is widely known as The Dismal Science.

(cf. Previous hopefully constructive criticism with links and comments [Link 1] , [Technical-to-do list: Link 2], Comment for comment [Link 3 ] )

MORE FOCUS:
Focus again on the issue David reports namely that "Fresh, clean water is going to be increasingly in short supply" despite current insufficient efforts (both in direction, quality and amount).

He points-out that "Despite the recent heavy rains across Southern Europe, the building of desalination plants in such regions, and the shipping in of water supplies from elsewhere is likely to increase in coming years, while desertification will maintain its dehydrating crawl and some regions of the developing world will continue to die of thirst in hotter dry season, while squandering the precious harvest of the rainy season."

HOPE - MENACE - OPPORTUNITY ("Men-Ace"?):

In a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues (2008, 8, 224-232), M. Whisson of Subiaco, in Western Australia, discusses two serious alternatives for providing even the most parched lands with unlimited fresh water. Both approaches are reminiscent of ancient, old world technologies, but could provide a modern solution. Whisson explains the problem:

The world water crisis may be more serious than generally appreciated. One reason for this is that the main response has been to increase storage of rain rather than to increase the amount of fresh water. Another is that fossil groundwater has been widely seen as inexhaustible.

David solicits the readers attention to the "Millennium" issue with a very dramatic example involving huge numbers in terms of demography our friends in India.

"Storage and redistribution of rain water, of course requires processing plants while those suffering debilitating and ultimately fatal arsenic poisoning on the Indian sub-continent are all too familiar with the effects of the desiccation of aquifers. " There are similar recent tales involving various countries in the European Union with lessor demographic impact, Roumania comes to mind.

David rhetorically asks

"So, what’s the answer? Solar-powered desalination certainly,

or perhaps the extraction of the hydrate component of abundant desert minerals such as gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate, 20% water by weight)?

THE SCIENCE ref Whisson:

“There are two, and only two, unlimited sources of water: the sea and the air,” says Whisson. The Earth has 1.26 x 10²¹ litres of water, of which 98% is seawater. The surface is acted on by solar radiation, turbulence and wind, which liberates water into the atmosphere ensuring that the lower 1 kilometre of the atmosphere (volume of 5 x 10⁷ cubic kilometres contains 1 x 10¹⁵ kg of water, which turns over with a half life of a few days.

THE HISTORICAL BACK-GROUND:

Harvesting of water from the air on a very small but socially important scale has a long history, as does desalination of seawater but, says Whisson, in the context of current and growing world needs, these approaches will provide nothing but a short delay in the onset of global life-threatening water scarcity. This is especially so, given their small, centralised scaling as industrial units.

THE INNOVATIVE ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS:

Instead, Whisson suggests two complimentary fresh water collecting systems and argues that they have no ultimate limitations, either because of the availability of water or because of environmental constraints.

The first system is the Water Road, a macro-engineering concept, which produces fresh water from seawater without the energy and processing demands of conventional desalination. It also offers a distributed network system that precludes many of the issues facing an industrial-style desalination plant. This system uses a large surface area to allow a non-fresh water supply to be distilled by solar and wind energy and trapped as fresh clean water.

The distillation would occur during the transfer of seawater inland (essentially given a kick-start by tidal surges) to the area of need, explains Whisson. This seems counter-intuitive, but immediately provides a high surface area, while the slow flow rate through a wide pipeline under a transparent heat-insulating cover means a large surface area of water is exposed to the sun over several days, with wind turbulence on the seawater surface acting like the natural process of transfer of surface water to the air over the open sea. This system of evaporation also avoids the inhibitory effect of water vapour saturation of the evaporating air. The concentrated seawater formed as a byproduct could be used to produce common sea salt at much lower cost and efficiencies than traditional drying pools.

The second system is a Water from Air system that uses a wind turbine to extract moisture from the wind. Whisson points out that at a relative humidity of 60%, a temperature fall from 20 to 5 Celsius would only require 10 grams of water per cubic metre of air. However, once it is recognised that a wind-driven turbine with an aperture of 10 square metres facing into a moderate breeze of 10 kilometres per hour would acquire 100000 cubic metres of air containing 1000 kg water every hour. Even with an efficiency of just 20% that would be a useful system, especially given that thousands of turbines could be installed in dry regions.

The two systems are seen as complementary,” explains Whisson, the Water Road providing water to large arid geographic areas, such as Western Australia, and the Water From Air units providing dispersed multiple water collection from the air wherever it is needed, whether on high industrial buildings, farm buildings, coastal cliff-tops, remote sand hills or small isolated communities.

THE JOBS: (TD - To Do) Input from all concerned wholeheartedly encouraged.

DRUM UP ECONOMIC & FINANCIAL INTEREST IN THESE PROJECTS: as above, Echo

DIRECTLY CONCERNED GOVERNMENTS - PROJECT PLANNING

COMPANIES INVOLVED:

JOBS...

The Millennium Project - Home

Innovation : Science Business new free report, ESOF, Science Prize Awards

Information on innovation appears to be overwhelming. I pledge to do some ground work on the subject, since I chose this title and subject for this my first web-log series "Conversations" in the Theodore Zeldin sense remember. There are a number of critics from the world of literature, philosophy, human relations discipline on the wide spread belief of we scientists and engineers, including myself that the technology can fix all. Before looking at these criticisms which I trust will bring some balance and increased credibility to some of the themes defended more or less inadvertently, here are some Innovation dedicated initiatives.

1. Free report from Science Business, cf image and Link-html
2. NEWS from the European Science Organisation Forum.
3. Fraunhofer announces winners of the Science Prizes Award 2008
ref. ScienceBusiness -->
Winners of the Stifterverband Science Prize, the Joseph von Fraunhofer Prizes and the Hugo Geiger Prizes were announced at the annual Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft conference, held in Berlin on 28 May 2008. The prizes all celebrate success in applied research.

Engineering Challenges for the 21st Century

Engineering Challenges for the 21st Century

A toned down title "Technological-to-do-List" has previously been the "partial" object of the following posts:

1. Friday, February 22, 2008
"Engineering Skills" in Shorter Supply than previously Imagined!
I have just taken a visit to Dave Bradley's Sciencebase site- mostly about chemistry. It was a worthwhile visit. Of course it usually is. In this instance the added value concerned not chemistry, but engineering policy. I stumbled upon a checklist entitled " Technological To-Do List " the list of most important engineering challenges by "experts."
2. Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Comment for Comment - Open Letter to D.Bradley_Sciencebase
Comment for Comment,Indeed David,
It would be most enlightening to read your own Technological- to do List.David, you have a good start with "Solar vs. Nuclear Fusion".
Easy now vs maybe some day!
If only for the quality of the US National Academies Site it is well worth referencing this direct access to their enormous contributions "Engineering Challenges for the 21st Century" and their Press Activity (PNAS) ebook online publications most of which are entirely free for personal use. Whatever comments have been made previously concerning the "Technological-to-do List" Many thanks and acknowledgements are due.

The top ten advances in materials science-defining discoveries, moments of inspiration,shifts in understanding

The top ten advances in materials science

What are the defining discoveries, moments of inspiration, or shifts in understanding that have shaped the dynamic field of materials science we know today? Here’s what we think are the most significant.

December 19, 2007

Jonathan Wood
Editor, Materials Today


Read this article in pdf format

Comment for Comment - Open Letter to D.Bradley_Sciencebase

Comment for Comment,

Indeed David,

It would be most enlightening to read your own Technological- to do List.

David, you have a good start with "Solar vs. Nuclear Fusion".

Easy now vs maybe some day!

This does not alter the demand for very high level research in fundamental physics and materials. For scientific credibility to remain higher than just fund bickering or stealing under false pretense, whatever the lobbies, little "big" projects such as nuclear fusion-decided, I believe?- must keep the books clean and prove added value at every step, eg. by economically viable spin-offs, furthering teaching and education, energy distribution HVDC -high voltage direct , at first site favouring decentralised energy sourcing.

I am glad you reminded us of "the nitrogen cycle" -mostly air, reported as getting hotter.

Your link to Socolow allows us to get his rough skeleton of the "fertilisers -water pollution problem" (presumably in the highly intensive farming model in use over the last few decades). At current rates of population growth some consider this model to have reached it's limit and no longer a viable response to human global requirements and benefit.

It could be "amusing" to compare Socolow's 4 main categories (well presented on the whole via your link on Sciencebase with Dale Carnegie's list of Human Desires (from around the time of the great depression 1929) The first four are given here.

1 Health & the preservation of life.
2.Food
3.Sleep
4.Money & the things money can by.

"Better to be rich and in good health than poor & in ill heath!" according to the late Shultz's "Charlie Brown" in the famous Snoopy Comic Strips & Posters.

To your remark on Virtual Reality & Exploring Natural Frontiers -you made a point, alluded to in my previous post and reply to your question-comment, on real world problems. Let's add a high mark for the good use of VIRTUAL REALITY from the free magazine Scientific Computing[LINK] (commonly called computer modeling, "sexed-up?" cf. Carnegie's full hit-list of Human Desires) and a black mark for the games version of virtual reality and its influence on fragile minds (unable to differentiate the real world of common human perception from virtual-digital world. (I trust engineers "safely engineering for safety are, indeed, not in this category). It is perhaps not too much to expect that, this highly lucrative activity, contribute to objective study in these fields.

On climate change & CO2, scepticism, I repeat, as on my blog,(previous post & comment reply to David Bradley, I simply cannot follow the sceptics down this lengthy "never ending" path, at least on engineering policy. The role of global dimming (atmospheric particles-repiratory problems - not the best way to cool things down) is also recognised. Of course no single individual nor country can properly address the magnitude of GHG mitigation required estimates. CO2 is a focal point, it could be Cost too(Stern Report). There is a special free supplement to Nature on supplement to Nature on Supplements/Collections which I'm sure you know. (Coal ref. Page40-43). Faced with a local finding of the reported biggest reserve in Europe(EU), I first shuddered, wrote a poem on Coal in an previous post, then got involved in this possibly “depressing” topic, Coal, Combustion, CO2... My sceptical nature made me check rapidly what others were saying. On the whole even in company websites no major discrepancy was found to contradict Nature's German correspondent’s article. Capture & Sequestration is a must by common accord for this most abundant fossil fuel. Now speed with which "the industrial-financial system can swing into full play is shatteringly slow - Commentators at my Institute -The Institute of Material, Mining & Minerals [IOM3-link]) - often refer to the efficiency of development (Research to Market),in wartime compared with the luxurious pace enjoyed by our post WW2 generations.

PS.
It is well worth looking at Steel production growth since 2000 and its related CO2(calculated by a fixed conversion ratio 1.7 IISI,(Eurofer 1.8): T Steel Prod X 1.7=Tonnes CO2)

(MT million metric tons), CO2 factor 1.7
Period

1995 - 1950 (45y) : Increased Steel 567 MT, Increased CO2 963.9 MT.

1996-2006 (10y) :Increased Steel 489 MT, Increased CO2 831.3 MT.

cf. International Iron & Steel Institute (IISI) Steel in Figures, World Steel in Figures 2007 [link] much of it for car production whose steel is produced in coal combustion powered economies where CCS-Carbon Capture and Sequestration is embryonic not even in it’s infancy.(large scale “pilot” plant is Mega Tonnes MT (CO2)when Giga Tonnes (CO2)- CCS is required)

A Strong valuable protest:
NB. The open letter by the Royal Society in UK-GB, complaining about slur on the reputation of on perfectly respectable highly competent climate scientists such as those seconded to IPCC, worse, underhanded specific financing of certain scientists notably by Exxon-Mobile, in order to discredit the Climate-Change Science and IPCC.

My own feeling is that after 20 to 30 years of painful research and modelling, as perfectly transparent as one comes across these days, IPCC and the International Scientific Communities, not overly attracted to open political-media bickering and no-holds-barred campaigning, preferring the “comfort of study, erudite, codified, publishing and teaching” finally pluck-up enough courage to triple underscore the fears they were living with intimately under the political pressures of economic growth, GNP and the short electoral time span, and the longer human life span, for that matter. This should be praise rather than scorned.

As you pointed out, the original Tech-to-do- list you presented (for want of the original report) does appear very wishy-washy indeed.

"Engineering Skills" in Shorter Supply than previously Imagined!

I have just taken a visit to Dave Bradley's Sciencebase site- mostly about chemstry.

It was a worthwhile visit. Of course it usually is. In this instance the added value concerned not chemistry, but engineering policy.

I stumbled upon a checklist entitled " Technological To-Do List " the list of most important engineering challenges by "experts."

Quite eye opening critical comments where made by David.

In particular he points out that since we are so close to engineering solar power, economically (I am translating liberally) why invest so heavily in Nuclear Fusion?
(NB. I am based in France-but not in the favoured South East of France- where the experimental reactor ITER is to be based. Worse, I remember quite clearly the Nobel prize winner the late Pierre-Gilles de Gennes' criticism of the ITER project. In one sentence P-G. de Gennes pointed out that this project lacked not only the resolution of some fundamental physics problems, but also did not respect the basic scaling rules of sound chemical engineering! NB. P-G, another of my mentors, was until his death, the Director of The Paris School of Industrial Physics & Chemistry, (ENSPCI) and member of the Board, for R&D, of several companies, noteably Rhodia)

As for the GHG-Green House Gases-critics, since we are concerned with "safety engineering safely", the only valid question, to my mind, is what engineering can and will be done to alleviate, mitigate, alter the current predicted "unmanageable" climate changes.

I am pleased he was not to harsh with my "mentor" Rob Socolow, source of my "Wedge-a-War" web-log.

Having let-off some steam, body temperature back to normal, I promise to read Dave Bradley (FRSC) Technological To-Do List on Sciencebase as well as R Socolow's comments at Princeton Engineering & Applied Science with more care, and to accept R Socolow's invitation to visit Engineering Challenges[Link]

R Socolow's invitation

Comments suggestions questions on my interpretation welcome.

CAE, Computer Assisted Engineering & Smart Welds

Innovations: CAE, Computer Assisted Engineering for improved weld performance and durability assessment.

It is claimed that:
* New CAE tool will help OEM’s optimise component design
* Integrated approach will help reduce new model development time and costs.

A major international steel company, has developed a new computer aided engineering (CAE) approach to weld durability and performance assessment, which they believe will help auto-makers optimise component design and weld performance in vehicle structures.

The manufacturer[Link] html has developed a technique that could automate the complex task of generating an optimum weld pattern for a given vehicle component at the lowest welding cost whilst still meeting all manufacturing and performance targets. The CAE tool is reported to manage, assess and analyse multiple variables of weld patterns all in one single routine, thereby allowing engineers to quickly optimise the design for durability.

Auto makers today are under growing pressure to bring new cars to market faster and are increasingly using Computer-Aided Engineering in almost all areas of the development process and car design. However, until now, CAE has not been widely used in the area of weld performance and durability assessment.

The new CAE tools were developed by the company's Automotive Engineering, based at Warwick University, Director, Jon King and the company’s Research, Development and Technology (RD&T) operation based in IJmuiden, Holland synergising the company’s extensive materials expertise with a core knowledge in vehicle structural performance.”

This approach is felt to be unique and coupled with the company's continued investment in the latest IT systems that are required to power state-of-the-art CAE tools, has resulted in a new automated process that will significantly speed up weld design modification and optimisation leading to improved component performance and ultimately offering our OEM customers the ability to reduce vehicle development time and cost


Identificateurs Technorati : CAE, Computer Assited Engineering, Smart Welding

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Dust-up your act, From Coal to Flour, And All things Small & Beautiful.

First Check out your Material:

Comparitive sizes of airborne particles such as dust, pollen, bacteria, virus and many more have been compiled by Engineeringtoolbox. Industrial examples found are coal, carbohydrates, tobacco smoke and many more. Among the numerous natural substances are pollen, virus and carbohydrates, etc. Why mention carbohydrates? Read-on.

Clean Rooms-High Standards - :
Tough Acts to Meet - particulate standards!

Some Back-ground to Dust Control:[Link]

One small thing leads to another, not just a neurological fact, a synapse.

In fact, I had recently been working on a problem entitled "Dust Control," carbohydrates actually.

However as I delved into the subject, I found that a much more appropriate term, is "dust confinement". The latter, not only satisfies both the difference in interpretation between french and english (anglo-saxon) of the word “control”, but also specifies, in this particular case, the client's aim to increase yield by putting all the material into the product or at least into the packaging.

I had given, myself an excruciating delay, and my industrial past appeared to be catching up with me. "Déja vu".

“Déja Vu!” from metallurgical dust and fumes during my 12years at the local factory here, “Les Acieries d'Imphy”; part of the Euro-Group of special alloys and stainless steel melting and refining plants”, supplemented more recently by car exhaust beneath my window from the local bypass. Now to crown things, a coal reserve found locally, 250MT no less, has come up for exploitation!

Carbohydrate powder confinement?: I had submitted a pretty off-focus (poor) piece of work to a pretty poorly defined question (i.e. one for insider specialists rather than for a general process engineer & scientist) but had the satisfaction of having made a contribution, on time and had learned in the process, although not enough to my liking.

Motivated by calm resolution after the intellectual storm, the brainstorm, to which I had subjected myself, motivated by residual dissatisfaction, by perception, a glimpse of some growing need, like an ominously dark cloud gathering, I set out to put some value on my initial effort to ramp –up, from scratch may I add.

I headed off to the local library, equipped with my hand calculator intending to get some orders of magnitude straightened out: surfaces, volumes, ratios of surface to volume for heat and chemical kinetics; aerodynamic (aerosol) particle terminal velocities etc.

We have the Berkeley 1970's lecture series; mechanics, physics, waves & optics, statistical thermodynamics and quantum mechanics in 5 Volumes, great stuff, and a competitor to Feynman’s famous series. For my purposes, the micron particle range 10-500 microns were to be “confined”. This took me back to my high school and early university mechanics.

In the back of my mind I felt this could also be a useful prelude to the more fashionable nano-family. Laziness or intelligence whichever one prefers, led me to head for the Internet terminal section of the library. Eureka, I was rewarded far beyond my expectations, ashes to ashes; let me share this lucky strike with you:

Micron Particles.

-Volumes, surface areas table, orders of magnitude, Surf./Vol. etc.
:[Link]
-The Aerodynamic particle:[Link] Solved Problems :[Link]
-Terminal Settling Velocity:[Link] Solved Problems :[Link]

Particle Formation:
(Grinding, Fossil-Fuel-Fired Boilers, Municiple and Medical Waste Incinerators):[Link]

Environmental Science Main Reference, more?:[Link]


(Acknowledgement to the US Environment Protection Agency (US-EPA) for the clear simplicity of their contribution to some basics of Environmental Science, thanking them for their continuing interest and wishing them all sucess in their efforts in practice and practise, in essence, Innovation )


((CARBOHYDRATES:I have opened this parenthesis due to my chance (serendipidous) reminder of an interesting link to my previous entry on photosynthesis. Carbohydrates are the main energy source for the human body. Chemically, carbohydrates are organic molecules in which carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen bond together in the ratio: Cx(H2O)y, where x and y are whole numbers that differ depending on the specific carbohydrate to which we are referring.

The chemical metabolism of the sugar glucose is shown below:
C6H12O6 + 6O2 --> 6CO2 + 6H2O + energy
which is the opposite reaction to that of photosynthesis refered to in my previous post. "Photosynthesis is an endothermic reaction very roughly:

6CO2 + 6H20 + energy --> C6H12O6 (glucose) + 6O2

Energy is supplied in daylight from the Sun with the further help of a catalyst, namely, chlorophyll.

Acknowledgement and link is visionlearning )) Close the carbohydrate/photosynthesis parenthesis.