Last week, I proposed bubbles to create world peace. It was fun, and everybody agreed bubbles were fun.
This one is more based in reality.
Can you produce clean drinking water from the ocean with 0 carbon footprint?
Here is the proposition. Create a desalination plant that is powered by a combination of tidal and solar energy to create clean drinking water.
Right now, these two separate ideas are running in parallel. There are people creating tidal energy and there are people creating clean drinking water.
The knock on desalination is the price, about double what it costs to just put another dam in or put another pipe down to the groundwater. The reason is the energy it takes to run this.
A plant in San Diego will take 38.6 megawatts to create water for 217,000 homes and it is going to do it the old fashioned way by burning coal or fossil fuels from the nearby energy plant.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near
Meanwhile in Norway, they are starting to produce electricity through slow moving tidal energy. The plant going in can power 1,000 homes (1.2 megawatts).
Source: http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/hydro/tidal-power/
If we set a target of 100,000 homes, could you efficiently create enough energy through a combination of solar and tidal to bring the desalination costs in line with regular water and do so with a limited impact to the environment?
A nuclear power plant takes up about 100 acres of real estate. Let's assume that we have that same amount of land for our use and 40% of that is used for the desalination facility, administrative and parking. Basically not usable for solar.
Use your power of debate and engineering for good not evil.
This one is more based in reality.
Can you produce clean drinking water from the ocean with 0 carbon footprint?
Here is the proposition. Create a desalination plant that is powered by a combination of tidal and solar energy to create clean drinking water.
Right now, these two separate ideas are running in parallel. There are people creating tidal energy and there are people creating clean drinking water.
The knock on desalination is the price, about double what it costs to just put another dam in or put another pipe down to the groundwater. The reason is the energy it takes to run this.
A plant in San Diego will take 38.6 megawatts to create water for 217,000 homes and it is going to do it the old fashioned way by burning coal or fossil fuels from the nearby energy plant.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near
Meanwhile in Norway, they are starting to produce electricity through slow moving tidal energy. The plant going in can power 1,000 homes (1.2 megawatts).
Source: http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/hydro/tidal-power/
If we set a target of 100,000 homes, could you efficiently create enough energy through a combination of solar and tidal to bring the desalination costs in line with regular water and do so with a limited impact to the environment?
A nuclear power plant takes up about 100 acres of real estate. Let's assume that we have that same amount of land for our use and 40% of that is used for the desalination facility, administrative and parking. Basically not usable for solar.
Use your power of debate and engineering for good not evil.
ing on my car, so I vote for more windmills, when a windmill kills a bird it no longer has a carbon footprint, and no longer 
