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Laurie Ashley

Mar 21, 2016
02:27

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This is a very interesting idea.  Given the still relatively high costs of desalination and the rapidly evolving desalination technologies, it would be helpful to provide more detail on cost per unit of water and who might be responsible for these costs.  Also, are there any risks associated with injecting water and linking aquifers A, B, and C in terms of contamination or altering the hydrology?


Laurie Ashley

Mar 21, 2016
02:54

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Also-- what desalination technologies or systems would be most appropriate?


Thomas Manaugh

Mar 25, 2016
08:27

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Laurie,

You ask very good questions. I will need to carefully consider my answers before committing to any given technology because of the environmental and cost effects to which you allude. Desalination by RO and/or distillation are possibilities I will consider. Which do you think might be better, and why is that?

Thank you.

Tom Manaugh


Natalie Unterstell

Apr 3, 2016
10:19

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Thank you for this proposal.

Can you provide information on how you would ensure a high quality desalinated water ?

 


Neil Lizotte

Apr 6, 2016
11:50

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New industrial grade graphene filters are said to be 100 times more efficient then any other desalination process.

I can give you links for information on this.

I never though of using aquifers to distribute water, do they flow the right way?

Good luck Take Care


Thomas Manaugh

Apr 8, 2016
08:29

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Neil,

Thank you for your question and offer of helpful information.

Our belief is the water in an aquifer will flow in the direction of a well that pumps the water to the surface.

Yes, please send us information about the more efficient industrial grade graphene filters. We can possibly use that information when we present talks on desalination at a conference in Las Vegas in a couple weeks. Most of what we present will come from the CoLab entries listed below.

https://www.climatecolab.org/contests/2014/adaptation-to-climate-change/c/proposal/1309211

https://www.climatecolab.org/contests/2014/adaptation-to-climate-change/c/proposal/1309211


Thomas Manaugh

Apr 12, 2016
04:30

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Neil,


Thank you for your question and offer of helpful information.


Our belief is the water in an aquifer will flow in the direction of a well that pumps the water to the surface.


Yes, please send us information about the more efficient industrial grade graphene filters. We can possibly use that information when we present talks on desalination at a conference in Las Vegas in a couple weeks. Most of what we present will come from the CoLab entries listed below.


https://www.climatecolab.org/contests/2014/adaptation-to-climate-change/c/proposal/1309211

https://www.climatecolab.org/contests/2015/energy-water-nexus/c/proposal/1319613


James Lau

Apr 12, 2016
08:09

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The dominant natural process for fresh water supply is evaporation and condensation. Even at off the California coast, with surface temperature of around 15 C the water vapor pressure (over salty ocean water) is still much higher than fresh water at 10 C. Ocean thermal energy can therefore desalinate sea water. What is required is to let sea water flow through hot (13 to 15 C) heat exchanger so that some sea water (in thermal contact but not mixed) can sustain evaporation. The vapor transported to the condenser cooled by flowing cold ocean bottom (1000 meter depth) water at 5 C can condense the water vapor at 10 to 11 C. The energy requirement may be ten or more times the theoretical limit of 1 kilo-watt-hour (equivalent to 3.6 Mega-Joules, MJ) for each cubic meter of fresh water, but the flowing ocean water already has enough energy in the thermal form to cause desalination. The mechanical energy to cause the ocean water flow cab ne less than 1 MJ for each cubic meter of fresh water. Locating the desalination in deep water can also eliminate the concern for high salt content discharge from the desalination to kill off marine life.

Reverse osmosis (RO) is more energy efficient than the proposed ocean thermal desalination because RO has demonstrated capability to get cubic meter of fresh water using about 10 MJ of electrical or other mechanical form of energy. However, the cost of RO membrane and other plant construction/maintenance is still high.

I am sure ocean thermal desalination can beat RO. 


Rita Marteleira

May 17, 2016
02:49

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Dear proposal author(s)

Thank you again for submitting your proposal to the adaptation contest.

Just a friendly reminder: you only have 6 days left to update and improve your proposal before the contest closure on May 23rd! 

Keep up the good work and let us know if you have any queries!

Best wishes,

Rita Marteleira

Adaptation Contest Fellow


Patrick Ray

May 23, 2016
07:55

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Hello Hopscotch team,

Last day to make refinements to the proposal. Looking forward to reviewing the final version.

One question from me - help me understand better the benefit of the intermediary aquifer. Why use is? What benefit does it offer. Supplemental treatment? If so, how do we know that the level of supplemental treatment would outweigh the additional cost of pumping there? Why not skip Aquifer A and just pump to Aquifer B? It seems to me that we need to know a bit more about Aquifer A.

Good luck!


Thomas Manaugh

May 27, 2016
07:19

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Patrick,

Thanks for your question. Yes, it would be best under some circumstances to build a pipeline directly from a coastal area to an Aquifer B. However, if the pipeline needed to be 100 miles long, that might be too expensive and too environmentally destructive. In that case, it would possibly be better to inject desalinated water into Aquifer A near the coast if that deposit of water to Aquifer A could be used to reimburse a transfer of water from Aquifer A to Aquifer B that would take place 90 plus miles inland from the coast. That "hopscotch" approach would probably be an improvement over the direct transfer approach, given the water transferred to Aquifer B from Aquifer A were of acceptable quality -- or could be made so at not-too-great cost for treatment.