Fracking to lead to a new golden age?

[Rain Man]

I apparently don't understand water filtering.

So I turn on my water tap. In my case, that water started out on top of a mountain, and then it flowed down and went into a reservoir. Then it flowed down a big rock tunnel to Denver, went through a bunch of pipes, and via some sort of magic it comes out of my sink.

At some point in that process, that water got treated, right? Someone had to filter the water bugs out of it and the giardia and stuff. Are there things that a filter can't get out? Or is the problem figuring out what to do with the stuff that gets filtered out?

I've seen simple filtering systems in survival kits that are basically a plastic tent. You let the water evaporate inside it, and it recondenses in the heat on the tent. Then it drips down and you drink it. The stuff that recondenses is presumably two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It contains no water bugs or giardia or fracking solutions, and the filtering costs nothing.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I apparently don't understand water filtering.

So I turn on my water tap. In my case, that water started out on top of a mountain, and then it flowed down and went into a reservoir. Then it flowed down a big rock tunnel to Denver, went through a bunch of pipes, and via some sort of magic it comes out of my sink.

At some point in that process, that water got treated, right? Someone had to filter the water bugs out of it and the giardia and stuff. Are there things that a filter can't get out? Or is the problem figuring out what to do with the stuff that gets filtered out?

I've seen simple filtering systems in survival kits that are basically a plastic tent. You let the water evaporate inside it, and it recondenses in the heat on the tent. Then it drips down and you drink it. The stuff that recondenses is presumably two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It contains no water bugs or giardia or fracking solutions, and the filtering costs nothing.

Big Water won't let cheap filtering solutions come to market because it cuts into their bottom line. They're also blocking space-age technologies that would let us "cut the pipe" and drink our own home-recycled urine.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Big Water won't let cheap filtering solutions come to market because it cuts into their bottom line. They're also blocking space-age technologies that would let us "cut the pipe" and drink our own home-recycled urine.

That would indeed be the solution. We could be a bunch of closed loops, plus it would be great research for the space program.

I do find it interesting to hear about "water shortages". Again, I suspect that I'm naive, but the earth is more or less a closed system. The water that we're drinking right now is the same water that a woolly mammoth drank 30,000 years ago, and the same water than one of those six-foot scorpions drank 500 million years ago. Based on my fifth-grade science class with Mrs. Carder at Hickory Hills Elementary School, water follows a big cycle from clouds to rain to rivers to ocean to clouds. So it seems like we would never have a water shortage the way it's portrayed. It's just being stored in another part of the cycle.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

That would indeed be the solution. We could be a bunch of closed loops, plus it would be great research for the space program.

I do find it interesting to hear about "water shortages". Again, I suspect that I'm naive, but the earth is more or less a closed system. The water that we're drinking right now is the same water that a woolly mammoth drank 30,000 years ago, and the same water than one of those six-foot scorpions drank 500 million years ago. Based on my fifth-grade science class with Mrs. Carder at Hickory Hills Elementary School, water follows a big cycle from clouds to rain to rivers to ocean to clouds. So it seems like we would never have a water shortage the way it's portrayed. It's just being stored in another part of the cycle.

Yeah, I guess it's a matter of getting it to the place you want to use it.

[penguinz]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

That would indeed be the solution. We could be a bunch of closed loops, plus it would be great research for the space program.

I do find it interesting to hear about "water shortages". Again, I suspect that I'm naive, but the earth is more or less a closed system. The water that we're drinking right now is the same water that a woolly mammoth drank 30,000 years ago, and the same water than one of those six-foot scorpions drank 500 million years ago. Based on my fifth-grade science class with Mrs. Carder at Hickory Hills Elementary School, water follows a big cycle from clouds to rain to rivers to ocean to clouds. So it seems like we would never have a water shortage the way it's portrayed. It's just being stored in another part of the cycle.

There are more people and fewer sources of safe drinking water.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

That would indeed be the solution. We could be a bunch of closed loops, plus it would be great research for the space program.

I do find it interesting to hear about "water shortages". Again, I suspect that I'm naive, but the earth is more or less a closed system. The water that we're drinking right now is the same water that a woolly mammoth drank 30,000 years ago, and the same water than one of those six-foot scorpions drank 500 million years ago. Based on my fifth-grade science class with Mrs. Carder at Hickory Hills Elementary School, water follows a big cycle from clouds to rain to rivers to ocean to clouds. So it seems like we would never have a water shortage the way it's portrayed. It's just being stored in another part of the cycle.

Reminds me of that guy in college who would bitch about guys in the dorm wing showers for not turning off the water when soaping and shampooing because they were wasting water.

He'd keep bitching no matter how many times he was asked 'where did this wasted water disappear to?'

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I apparently don't understand water filtering.

So I turn on my water tap. In my case, that water started out on top of a mountain, and then it flowed down and went into a reservoir. Then it flowed down a big rock tunnel to Denver, went through a bunch of pipes, and via some sort of magic it comes out of my sink.

At some point in that process, that water got treated, right? Someone had to filter the water bugs out of it and the giardia and stuff. Are there things that a filter can't get out? Or is the problem figuring out what to do with the stuff that gets filtered out?

I've seen simple filtering systems in survival kits that are basically a plastic tent. You let the water evaporate inside it, and it recondenses in the heat on the tent. Then it drips down and you drink it. The stuff that recondenses is presumably two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It contains no water bugs or giardia or fracking solutions, and the filtering costs nothing.

Denver has 30 MGD (millions of gallons per day) of recycled water treatment capacity (soon to be increased to 45 MGD). It treats water from one of your sewage treatment plants and dumps it into your drinking water reservoirs. Denver wouldn't resort to recycling water unless the water demand of the city did not exceed what can be provided by those mountain streams. Sounds like Denver is in a water stressed area.

Denver has three other convention drinking water treatment plants that treats river water. Each of those plants are between 250 to 300 MGD. So somewhere around 3% of Denver's water is currently recycled. You can read about the conventional treatment process here:

http://www.denverwater.org/WaterQual...atmentProcess/

This process is designed to move turbidity (particles that make the water cloudy, probably very little from those mountain streams) and microorganisms. It won't remove salts and dissolved organics that might be part of fracking fluids. The fracking fluids can be removed from water, but it might make the water 4 or more time expensive to treat.

Your tent style water purification system requires distillation. For the little amount of water that is required for a camper or two, solar energy can provide the needed energy. To distill 900 MGD or so would require a tremendous amount of energy and be prohibitively expensive.

Your statement about the earth being a closed system with respect to water is correct. But it is a matter of the amount of fresh water available at a given location. Of the total amount of water in the world only ~0.007% of it is in lakes and streams and ground water supplies that are easily accessible for human use. Growing population, the lack of water where people live, and increasing pollution levels, and changing precipitation patterns due to climate change all put additional stress on water supplies. It's a monumental problem on a global scale.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I apparently don't understand water filtering.

So I turn on my water tap. In my case, that water started out on top of a mountain, and then it flowed down and went into a reservoir. Then it flowed down a big rock tunnel to Denver, went through a bunch of pipes, and via some sort of magic it comes out of my sink.

At some point in that process, that water got treated, right? Someone had to filter the water bugs out of it and the giardia and stuff. Are there things that a filter can't get out? Or is the problem figuring out what to do with the stuff that gets filtered out?

I've seen simple filtering systems in survival kits that are basically a plastic tent. You let the water evaporate inside it, and it recondenses in the heat on the tent. Then it drips down and you drink it. The stuff that recondenses is presumably two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It contains no water bugs or giardia or fracking solutions, and the filtering costs nothing.

The treatment of the water you drink is pretty complex. In most cases, you are actually drinking your (and everyone else's) "dirty" water.

[FAX]

Which is why we need to be far more conscious and careful of our water resource ... not more daring and potentially abusive.

Have you ever drunk from a clean, clear spring, Mr. cdcox? Or a rock-bottom, mountain creek in the early spring? It tastes pretty darn good and it's good for you, too. I'm thinking that whoever had the pure, clean, natural water idea had a pretty good one.

FAX

[Rain Man]

I'm really glad that they remove the turbidity from my recycled sewer water.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'm really glad that they remove the turbidity from my recycled sewer water.

The recycled water plant has a lot more steps in the treatment process. It takes effluent from the sewer plant, treats it, an dumps it into the drinking water reservoir. I think the regular treatment plants are located between the reservoir and your faucet. So water that is flushed down the toilet is treated by three different treatment plants before you drink it again: the sewage treatment plant, the recycle plant and the drinking water plant.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by cdcox

The recycled water plant has a lot more steps in the treatment process. It takes effluent from the sewer plant, treats it, an dumps it into the drinking water reservoir. I think the regular treatment plants are located between the reservoir and your faucet. So water that is flushed down the toilet is treated by three different treatment plants before you drink it again: the sewage treatment plant, the recycle plant and the drinking water plant.

Interesting stuff.

Maybe this is normal, but I learned something odd a while back. I was at a conference in the mountains, and one of the things we did was a boat tour of a lake. (It was an outdoor recreation conference.) The local guide said that swimming isn't allowed in the lake because it's part of Denver's water supply. I guess I wouldn't have thought that a few swimmers would really make a difference next to all of the dirt and rocks and raccoons washing crayfish and stuff.

[Braincase]

I was being a bit sarcastic when I made my previous post. I have no doubt that energy companies will meet the absolute minimums when it comes to the environment. They are out to maximize profits. I'm not an idiot. If the groundwater gets contaminated, oh well... they don't live there.

[Ace Gunner]

srsly, you'd think we are in an energy shortage century. we are not. the crooks just keep a bottleneck in the process to rape folk$. If y'all think that's going to change in some peaceful way with the crooks in charge, god help ya.

[notorious]

**** Fracking.


Build a Dyson Sphere.