Toowoomba, water recycleing

[goat]

years ago i watched a program on tv about desalination plants in saudi arabia they where like huge glass houses they pumped in salt water in to these glass houses and the sun did it's thing and out poured fresh drinkin water now the 2 things that australia isn't short of is (1) sun and (2) salt water we,re surrounded by the stuff it has got to be better than drinkin other peoples piddle, here's some info i found on the net

Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of desalinated water from the sea. In 1992, there were 18 desalination on the western coast, with a total capacity of over 0.7 million m³/day of water , and four plants on in the east coast, with a total capacity of over 1.1 million m³/day of water In 1992, actual desalinated water production. was about 675 million. m³.

[echnidna]

Solar desalination plants are simple even on a small scale.

[ozwinner]

Saudi

Al

[goat]

seems if australia did this it would also solve any electricity supply problems (for a while any way)

The Kingdom is now the world's largest producer of desalinated water. The 27 desalination plants provide drinking water to major urban and industrial centers through a network of water pipes running for more than 2,300 miles. Desalination meets 70% of the Kingdom's drinking water requirement. Several new desalination plants are under construction. Once completed, the Kingdom's network of desalination plants will have a capacity of 800 million gallons a day.
Desalination plants also generate electricity. In 2000, the Kingdom's desalination plants generated a total of 28 million Megawatt Hours

[Bushmiller]

water is H2O that is;

• - except the additives liek flouride etc that we want and other naturally occuring trace elements.
• Shoot me down like a dog - please - I want to be corrected if any of the abovce is wrong.

Are you absolutely sure you want to add flouride? Did those nice aluminium companies faced with ever increasing piles of useless flouride suddenly find out it was good for us, by chance or did they fund studies to prove it was good for us.

Shame they kept running out of money. It was probably only coincidence that the studies were going the wrong way.

Regards
Paul

[Bob Willson]

Hi Bushmiller,
They were adding fluoride to water when I was a baby and that was BEFORE they invented (discovered?) aluminium. I still have all but two of my own teeth, all in good nick and I hardly ever go to the dentists. (About once every ten years)

[Bushmiller]

Bob

There was a huge push by the aluminium companies in the early sixties to include flouride in toothpaste as well as water. (I wasn't aware that flouride was introduced artificially to water befor this time>)Their sponsored studies/trials conducted were very questionable to put it euphemistically.

Are your teeth in good nick because of flouride or despite flouride? I think I have had two fillings in the last 25 years or is it 30 years and I have deliberately avoided flouride both in toothpaste and water.

In making statements such as these we are both guilty of making exceptions fit the rule. The aluminium companies tended to use the same techniques to make the claims fit the agenda.

Comparison tests from similar socio economic regions, control measures and representative numbers should all have been unquestionable but probably were not.

Apologies though. This post is on recycling water. My fault.

Regards
Paul

[Rocker]

Bushmiller,

You might like to consider this story from today's Australian: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...5-2702,00.html

Rocker

[silkwood]

The idea that water is not still be made naturally is similar to the argument creationists use to negate evolution: if evolution is true, how come we don't see monkeys (or apes) partially evolved into Homo Sapiens? The answer is-opportunity. Evolution is still happenning, the opportunity for the same evolution to happen again is not available, the niches have been filled (apart from the fact(?) we didn't evolve from apes, we both evolved from a common ancestor).

Same with water (it didn't evolve from apes either ), all the conditions for abundant production of water are not now avaiable. Apparently water is still being produced, but in such small quantities in such rare conditions that it has no effect upon current water volume.

Does anyone know what effect production of water as a by-product of hydrogen engines would be (that is, if they can ever produce them effectively to be common)?

Cheers,

Mark

[silentC]

The idea that water is not still be made naturally is similar to the argument creationists use to negate evolution

I take extreme exception to that remark! Comparing me to a creationist :mad:

If water was created during some event during the creation of the solar system, then I can quite easily believe that all that we have now was created then and no more is being created today. I'm not saying that it isn't, you are saying that it might be, is there anyone here who can say that it is? Sources please!!

BTW your analogy falls down because the processes that cause evolution ARE still present today, as are the processes which shape the Earth, and at the same rate that they were hundreds, thousands and millions of years ago. The same might not be said for the creation of water.

[Rocker]

There is plenty of info on the origin of water available if you search for Origin of water on Google. The consensus among experts seems to be that water was brought to the Earth by comets during a period of intense bombardment that occurred during the early part of the evolution of the Solar System. The fact that sea-level remains constant, apart from changes that are reasonably attributable to the state of the polar ice-caps, indicates that water is not being continuously created. If it were, coastal cities would be in even more strife than they are already, when sea-level is rising due to melting of polar ice.

Rocker

[silentC]

Here is the Wikipedia article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth

Note that this is not an authoritative source.

[ozwinner]

Rain and sandstorms may have pooled..

I like that bit the best.

So its true, all water comes from rain.

Al

[silkwood]

BTW your analogy falls down because the processes that cause evolution ARE still present today, as are the processes which shape the Earth, and at the same rate that they were hundreds, thousands and millions of years ago. The same might not be said for the creation of water.

Firstly I said "similar to" not a direct comparison. Actually the part of the comparison I was trying to get across holds pretty well as an analogy- I DID state evolution still goes on, it's just not the same as it was. The ecological conditions and niches available are different, so we don't see ape-like beings developing into human-like beings. One of my favourite writers on this subject is Steven J Gould. Well worth looking up.

My comment on water being still made is the result of one of those wierd coincidences. I bumped into an old climbing buddy and he's now working as.. a hydrologist! I mentioned this thread and he's the one who made the "water still being created" comment.Unfortunately it was a brief meeting or I would have grilled him to gather info to blind you all with facts! Unfortunately I'm still a neophyte! On the other hand the creation of water is a given, chemical reactions occur all the time producing water as a by product. You probably created some today- why do you think your car exhaust rusts!:confused:

The concept that it was all water to begin with doesn't quite hold up, we have some chemical interactions that result in water which MAY not have existed before. Point is, it's irrellevant, even amongst those who believe there can be new water, it's accepted it is a meaningless amount in the overall picture.

I did a quick search and this is the first site I hit; http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc.../chem00147.htm

The point is chemical reactions aren't going to supply us with the water we need, the vast, vast majority (heck, for all intents & purposes-all) quantities of water are already with us.

I certainly wasn't aming at you being a creationist! I hope I didn't give that impression!

Cheers,

Mark

[silentC]

You probably created some today- why do you think your car exhaust rusts!

Are you saying my car engine creates water as a by product? I'd say that the water comes from the surrounding air or from the fuel.

Well the deal is that pretty much all the water that is created from these reactions was water once upon a time. For example photosynthesis makes glucose from water and carbon dioxide, and vaporization of saltwater (e.g. from lava flowing into the sea) makes hydrochloric acid gas. These are natural processes that consume water and make other chemicals, which can then recombine to create water again.

and

SO even though water is created in one process, it is used up again in the opposite process, so there is no net gain.

So what they seem to be saying is that the water is changing state into some other chemical and then back again. Yes, I selected these quotes from the link when others seem to be supporting the idea that "new" water is created all the time.

I'm not railing against the idea that it is, remember. I'm objecting to the point of view that "The idea that water is not still [being] made naturally is similar to the argument creationists use to negate evolution". If there were natural processes that created "new" water, then there's no reason why we shouldn't see them as abundantly today as we might have millions of years ago. On the other hand, if it was all created during one event, then I can easily accept that we wont see it happening again. Water is created as a byproduct of chemical processes but what some of the posters in your link are saying is that the water existed as water at some time in the past and it was converted into something else (like acid) as part of an earlier chemical process. So round and round we go.

I also believe that evolution proceeds at the same rate as it always has (if it can be said to have a 'rate'). In other words, the processes which bring about evolution are happening every day. You're never going to see apes turn into humans because it is a process that happens gradually over thousands or millions of years. To assume that it is no longer occuring at the same rate is to miss the whole point, in my opinion.

Have you ever been to England and walked inside one of the old houses?