Water conservation: Do the right thing!

[RobinFinderson]

What about putting the poop in recycled bags and then lighting it on fire outside of someone's house and burning it as incense, but not telling them that it is there? Then you could wait outside and watch them come out and see your organic gift. This sounds like great fun.

But, seriously in New Mexico we do great things with xeriscaping. In Northern New Mexico you won't find a ton of lawns as there is an incentive paid by the city to xeriscape.

Putting burning poo on people's doorsteps is the best possible use for poo. It is the perfect way to recycle.

[RobinFinderson]

See, now you're talking crazy. We didn't evolve to where we are so we can shit outside. It's just not going to happen, rich compost notwithstanding.

Outside is totally optional. With the buckets you can actually poop wherever you want. I'm actually sitting on one as I type.

[statman]

Except that most of us live in the Great Basin - the water we "conserve" ultimately isn't going anywhere but the Great Salt Lake...

[New Mexican Disaster]

Except that most of us live in the Great Basin - the water we "conserve" ultimately isn't going anywhere but the Great Salt Lake...

It could become groundwater maybe?

[statman]

It could become groundwater maybe?

Ground water that isn't used is pretty useless, really. And there's no real aquifers in the SLC area. The creeks & Jordan River suck out the excess ground water - and it all ends up in the GSL.

[Uncle Ted]

A little vegetable oil has a huge potential to save water... and apparently ducks:

A Tiny Bit of Vegetable Oil Could Save Texas Billions of Gallons of Water

[...]
As the historic drought drags on, water planners are scrambling to find new supplies and conserve the ones we have. But one of the biggest things affecting water supplies in a hot, dry state like Texas is evaporation. On average, the Highland Lakes lose as much water to evaporation as the city of Austin uses each year. Every year, Texas loses the equivalent of five full Lake Travises to evaporation.


So can you do anything about it? Actually, yes.


There are two approaches. First, you can pump the surface water underground. Places like San Antonio are trying that.


“Effectively, they’re using the aquifer system to do the storage and eliminating evaporation altogether,” says David Maidment, a civil engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin. But you need a bunch of space in a certain kind of aquifer to do it and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the water back once you put it down there.


The second approach is something called a monolayer.

“Monolayer is a material which is extracted from vegetable oil,” says Moshe Alamaro, a researcher at MIT. He’s done a lot of work with monolayers. The material is a liquid that “when you place it on water, [it] spreads spontaneously and creates a film, the width of which is literally one molecule.”


The monolayer acts as kind of a lid – floating on the surface – to keep the water from evaporating. At one molecule thick, it’s almost imperceptible.


“You cannot see it. You cannot smell it. You cannot taste it,” claims Alamaro.


If you drive a boat through it or swim in it, tearing the monolayer, it will repair itself. As for wildlife, Alamaro points to a study done by Texas A&M where they used two ducks. One was fed the monolayer material every day, the other was not.


“The duck which was not fed with monolayer died two months before the end of the experiment,” says Alamaro. That’s kind of inconclusive, but other studies have found minimal ecological effects, too.


But what about the real test: does it save water? Alamaro says a monolayer on a reservoir can reduce evaporation by as much as 75 percent.


“In California and Texas, the evaporation suppression on existing reservoir can add 4 million acre-feet [of] capacity per year,” says Alamaro. That’s about four times the capacity of Lake Travis.
[...]
If you drive a boat through it or swim in it, tearing the monolayer, it will repair itself. As for wildlife, Alamaro points to a study done by Texas A&M where they used two ducks. One was fed the monolayer material every day, the other was not.


“The duck which was not fed with monolayer died two months before the end of the experiment,” says Alamaro. That’s kind of inconclusive, but other studies have found minimal ecological effects, too.
[...]

http://kut.org/post/tiny-bit-vegetable-oil-could-save-texas-billions-gallons-water

[Jeff Lebowski]

A little vegetable oil has a huge potential to save water... and apparently ducks:

http://kut.org/post/tiny-bit-vegetab...-gallons-water

Very cool.

Not that anybody cares, but David Maidment is a close friend of mine.

[New Mexican Disaster]

Very cool.

Not that anybody cares, but David Maidment is a close friend of mine.

Humblebrag.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Humblebrag.

What was humble about it?

[clackamascoug]

Putting burning poo on people's doorsteps is the best possible use for poo. It is the perfect way to recycle.

When I used to do that, the people would come out and stomp out the fire with their feet, getting the poo on their shoes. I never really thought of it as recycling though.

I'm on fire today!

[Uncle Ted]

Lots of freshwater under the ocean...

SCIENTISTS have discovered vast reserves of fresh water located deep beneath the ocean that could prevent a global water crisis.


A new study published this month reveals that an estimated half a million cubic kilometres of low-salinity water are buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves around the world.


The water is located off the coast of Australia, North America, China and South Africa, reports Science Daily.

"The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we've extracted from the Earth's sub-surface in the past century since 1900," says lead author Dr Vincent Post of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) and the School of the Environment at Flinders University.
[...]

http://www.news.com.au/technology/en...-1226778644615

Drill, baby, drill.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Lots of freshwater under the ocean...


http://www.news.com.au/technology/en...-1226778644615

Drill, baby, drill.

Hey, I know that guy.

And its "potable", not "portable".

[Dwight Schr-ute]

The global water issue isn't necessarily a lack of fresh water, it's harnessing the fresh water when it comes and then dispersing it to those who need it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jeff Lebowski]

The global water issue isn't necessarily a lack of fresh water, it's harnessing the fresh water when it comes and then dispersing it to those who need it.

That's an awfully fancy way to describe stealing water.

[Uncle Ted]

What the heck, Utah county?

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