[extropy-chat] Terraforming Earth [WAS: FWD (SK) The ComingClimateCollapse]

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Please Kevin, explain to me what is crazy or mad about
> > that idea.  What is the downside?  There is all that
> > empty useless land out there that doesn't even support
> > much wildlife, never mind human life, simply because it is
> > too dry, and we do nothing to fix it.  The doing nothing
> > seems mad and crazy to me.
> 
> The "mad" and "crazy" was meant more tongue-in-cheek. People who want
> to do anything drastic, no matter how good the idea are often "mad"
or
> "crazy".

Depends on what you mean by "drastic". If "drastic" simply means doing
something that needs doing that others are too
lazy/poor/antagonistic/unmotivated to venture toward, that means they
are simply more entrepreneurial than others, it certainly isn't 'crazy'
or 'mad'.

> >
> > We wouldn't even *need* to pipe water down from the
> > Nile, the Congo or Lake Victoria necessarily, altho those
> > might prove to be excellent options.  We could dig an
> > enormous north-south canal somewhere along the western
> > seaboard of Africa, then pump water from the sea into it,
> > perhaps even by harnessing the tides.  Then we could
> > arrange for some of it to evaporate, use the fresh water
> > and drain the saltier water back out to sea.
> 
> OK. This is what I am wanting to know. I guess what I am after are
> some actual plans that are realistic and not too expensive. Plans
that
> could be accomplished with teh same money that we currently spend on
> foreign aid tot he same areas of the world.

There is an interesting technique using vacuum desalination that is
extremely energy efficient comparted to conventional sea level
evaporative distillaion. It essentially involves building a pipe
arrangement which is configured as an upside down U. One end of the U
is in salt water, the other end is in fresh water. The bow end of the U
is a hundred or more feet in the air, and the air inside the U is
pumped out until the water level rises high enough and the remaining
pressure inside is low enough that water will vacuum evaporate from the
salt water, travel up to the peak of the U, be condensed, and flow down
the fresh water side.

Using passive solar heating, this could be made entirely automatic and
provide a significant flow of fresh water.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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