Re: Hydrogen is too difficult. - Page 20

 



biomass.

Agreed for the most part,but places like L.A. and Israel show that
sometimes.You can make a garden in some of mighty hostile
places with water.  You ever noticed how many acres of California farmland
is growing in the desert, from the canal system they have out there.




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Arnold Walker wrote:


One county in California, Fresno county, earns more money from
agriculture than any other county in the United States 90% of this
production is irrigated.  Some is from the San Joaquin river, some is
from the Kings river and some is pumped from the aquifer and some is
from metropolitan runoff.

The average annual rainfall in the county is only 11 inches.  This is so
little rain that it would be considered desert by most experts if it did
not benefit from many miles of irrigation canals, and wise management of
the little water it does receive.

I retired 1.5 years ago from the Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control
District one of the public agencies that is directly involved in 3 ways
with this water used in irrigation.

   1. The district collect most of the major metropolitan area storm
      runoff, holding it in ponding basins for gradual and safe release
      into the irrigation canals serving local farmers.
   2. The remainder of the runoff is held in recharge basins with the
      specific goal of maintaining the water table.  This is critical
      as  the drinking and household water for the municipalities for
      Fresno and Clovis comes from wells.
   3. The last major water function performed is the district is
      responsible as far as any ground water pollution is concerned.
      They are the local agency chartered by the federal government to
      insure that clean water is used for recharge and irrigation in all
      county areas.

There are several large holding areas and many small ones,  so many in
fact that this agency is the largest land holder in the county other
than the federal government,  A lot of these ponding basins are used as
parks when they are dry, in fact the district has more park area than
the county, and the cities of Fresno and Clovis combined.

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arce,than

biomass

farmland

Sounds like very expensive food.  Was it worth it for the investment?  It
usually isn't in a land like the USA which has so much land to grow food on
without much water management at all.

San Joaquin river - Is this the man made irrigation canal, that is messed up
more that what it gained?

 

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News wrote:


I don't understand your comment about investment, the surrounding land
values run from 3 to 8 thousand an acre, depending on several factors,
the availability of surface irrigation water being a major player.  For
information purposes, some of the major crops are cotton (not food!!),
citrus, grapes (wine, raisin, & table) tomatoes, garlic, onions, and
much more, even strawberries.


This is a major river, it even had steamboats running on it down to San
Francisco in the 1800's, but the low summer, fall and winter water flows
reduced the profitability so much as cause the disappearance of the
boats by 1910 when the railroads replaced them.

There was a selenium contaminated drainage canal, but it was not the San
Joaquin river.  I believe you are referring to was an incomplete
drainage (not irrigation) canal intended to carry selenium, salt and
asbestos contaminated runoff from the westside of the San Joaquin Valley
to San Francisco Bay.  It was ill conceived in the first place because
those same contaminates would have been just as poisonous in the bay as
they proved to be in the marshes where they destroyed so much wildlife.  
The contaminated runoff has been stopped by no longer irrigating the
contaminated farmland, ergo no runoff and yes, this "CANAL" was indeed
one of the super fund cleanups like New York state's Love canal mess.


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Arnold Walker wrote:


That's one solution - of course, then you cut your yield in half (or even
less).  


I'm sure you're right, but a windmill doesn't have to take any significant
portion of arable land.  They occupy a very small footprint, and you can
farm right up to the base of the tower if the land is actually usable, but
many of the best places for wind (ridges) are not arable.


That's because the actual footprint of a windmill is much smaller than the
total density at which you can place a large number of them.  You _can_
grow biomass & harvest wind energy at the same time.  It's much harder to
do that with solar power and biomass.


I don't think many people say that.  They say we don't have enough land to
_replace_ fossil fuels.  I'm sure biomass can (and should) make an impact.


already did that...

--
derek