Help California meet increasing demand for water
A2WH can help California continue to meet the rapidly increasing demand for power and water
California is facing many water related difficulties over the next 10 years some of which could become serious quickly in another significant drought hits
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California has several major cities that are already chronically short of water.
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Environmental concerns and associated activists make it very expensive to build new storage reservoirs.
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There are not any new easily tapped resources for fresh water.
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Population growth continues at high rates which will continue to place even higher demands for fresh water.
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Ground water in California has already been excessively tapped with some farmers already having to drill 3 times deeper. The Arizona studies have already shown the risks of contamination inherent in excess ground water usage.
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California’s economy has a substantial contribution from agriculture so if water is taken from there it will have an adverse impact on the economy.
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Desalination plants take a lot of power which California is already running in short supply and rapidly increasing in cost which will have a significant cost on produced water.
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Desalination plants have substantial environmental risks and consume premium ocean side real-estate.
- Desalination plants really only work for cities right on the coast or which can easily pipe in large amounts of salt water
California has been impacted with several droughts over the last 20 years and each one while starting subtle can end up being incredibly costly and devastating. As population density increases it places ever greater demands on environmental resources. It also makes the cities which are already chronically short of water susceptible to widespread shortages which will only get worse until a new source of large amounts of fresh water can be brought on line.
This illustrates a core weakness in the current water strategies where a single pipeline failure planned or not causes this kind of havoc. California needs to consider adding water from air harvesting to supplement at least 20% of their supply. These WAED units can be installed on less desirable land and while using only solar energy will produce over 4,000 gallons per day for every acre installed. You need a fair # of acres to meet local need but it is eminently better than allowing a single point of failure for such a critical resource serving such a large number of people. Just imagine how it would impact that area if a couple of 1 mile segments of the pipeline where destroyed. Once of the best ways to remove the temptation for terrorists to strike a target is to make sure that if they do strike a given target that it has only minimal impact.
Municipal
The 1989 drought covered 36% of the USA and cost over $39 b while in the 1950’s a 2 year drought spanned the entire USA. The 1934 – 1939 dust bowl drought lasted 8 years in some locations. The are indications from NOOA that changing climatic conditions could increase both the severity and length of drought. Droughts of severity equal to the 1950 drought occur twice a century and in the 1600’s a drought more sever than anything seen in the last 100 years lasted 6 years.
The theme of water re-use would fit really well with the portable distiller. The problem in California will be that most areas in California have adequate power and don’t really care about replacement filters and can easily get water pressure with generators or pumps as needed and simply pass any operations costs on to the consumer. In addition sewage treatment in the USA just isn’t problem like it is everywhere else because most cities have no problem funding reasonably large traditional sewage treatment plants which are incredibly cost effective per gallon. The net is that I am not confident we would see the people we need at this particular show. Let me know what you think?
Is there a show where we could attend for a similar amount of money that would give us access to decision makers from Unique, UNSAID, Queued, Red Cross, etc? If there is it may be a better way to spend the money.
I would be very interested in any very small California towns with approximately 200 people who are encountering ground water problems. If we could find them we could tap into the 190 million desalination project and to get a version of the Colonias unit funded. The California grant requires matching funds but there are federal grants available for improving water quality especially if Arsenic or lead is a problem. I don’t know that we would meet these prospects at the show but if we did it would be a really good way to fund a working production model that could go a long way when it comes time for Texas to make the Colonias decision.
One area the portable distiller could be handy in California is if there are cities that are mandated that they release water of a certain quality downstream for consumption of another city. The city of St George, Utah just lost a law suit for something like 500 million gallons per year that have to be fit for human consumption to be released to a Indian tribe. The traditional sewage ponds have no problem cleaning a large part of the water but it is fairly expensive to reach the next step to human grade so if we could take the water coming out of the last pond and use it to feed our distiller it would give us almost no residue to worry about and our output would exceed their cleanliness standards. Our costs may be a bit higher initially than a slow sand filter but the resulting water would be more trust worthy and they get huge fines if they ever release sub standard water.
Due to the extensive availability of infrastructure in California it would lead me to believe that the Air to Water unit would be a better prospect in California if we can sell it to wealthy land owners in the LA and San Diego area who are regularly impacted by insufficient water to maintain their desired landscaping. The reason I say wealthy is that we have to assume it will take about 0.2 acres of collector per acre foot (300K gallons) of water produced per year. This means a person may need to allocate 1/2 acre to get enough water to maintain a lush area over another acre. We could install these along their perimeter where they normally maintain a clear growth area anyway or on the back acre but it still takes space that most California buyers would not have.
In India there was recently a Coke plant shut down because they where placing such a heavy demand on ground water that it was contaminating the ground water for the homes and businesses in the area. I don’t know if any California cities are being impacted by insufficient water limiting industrial growth but that could be a viable market for either product depending on the availability of source water for the distiller.
- http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_alleve.html – Why we should be concerned about droughts.
- http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/ – Paleo climate time line
- http://www.uregina.ca/biology/faculty/leavitt/drought/drought1.htm – Planning for drought.
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This discussion contains forward looking statements which are based on current expectations and differences can be expected. All statements and expressions are the opinion of management of A2WH and are not meant to be either investment advice or a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold securities. Many of these statements are based on sound economic reasoning, however actual response of the economy is heavily influenced by politics and large business and so the outcome could end up substantially different.