[ExI] East African Rift Valley again

[Jeff Davis]

Bit of trivia here.  Some years ago, I encountered the notion of a
canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea.  The idea was -- or so I
remember it -- that the water flowing down hill would generate
hydroelectric power, and that the increased surface area of the Dead
Sea. with the less dense sea water on top would increase the rate of
evaporation such that the evaporative loss would match the rate of
inflow.  Almost a perpetual motion machine, kind of.

There are at least a couple of other spots on the planet where the
ground elevation is below sea level.  Somewhere in the Mojave and a
spot in Libya.  The fact that all these depressions are in desert
areas also makes one wonder about the possible benefit of more water
vapor in the desert air, and, of course the possibility of more rain.

Best, Jeff Davis

         "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                                        Ray Charles

2011/7/14 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>:
> It's been a while since I raised the topic of flooding the East African Rift
> Valley as a sort of poor person's macro-engineering project. Given that many
> believe global warming will cause sea levels to rise, doesn't this seem like
> something to discuss as one way to ameliorate on the cheap that potential
> problem?
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>