Drought in CA

Closed loop hydroponics and aquaponics solve a lot of drought problems, that's why it's so popular in Australia.  I know there are probably a lot of Californians already doing it but I wonder why it isn't being recommended on a larger scale in your state...or everywhere for that matter.  I know people in Virginia are taking notice of it...mostly because of more awareness about aquaculture and agriculture runoff into the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  I'm only 29 years old but I have watched the bay get sick over the course of my lifetime.  I was a kid and we could go out to the Bay and literally hop in and pull out oysters, no such luck now.  Agricultural runoff is a pretty serious concern anywhere you go though, the algae blooms it causes deplete oxygen from water and decimate sea life in entire stretches of ocean, often the only thing able to survive being jellyfish...I'm pretty sure jellyfish aren't very nutritious.
 
 
Texas has taken a firm liking to it, as well as large Northern urban areas, there are entire warehouses in NYC that have been converted to Aquaponics farms so they can provide fresh/local produce and seafood to the restaurants in the city.
 
 
Aquaculture wastewater is a serious concern in the PacNW like Oregon and Washington, aquaponics eliminates the need to dump fish waste water into creeks and streams, it causes more pollution than fields saturated with nitrogen salts from farmers in that area.
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
True. We have perfect weather for the things we grow. But without enough water its not of much use.
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thats true, but unlike most agricultural lands... alot of californias farmland CANNOT be allowed to fallow for a few years... owing to the fact that much of Californians farmland is orchards... nut trees... vinyards etc.

all of these represent HUGE investments... and cannot be allowed to die without a gigantic ball aching loss.

whats it take... 4 years to turn around grapes for wine... just to see if they are any good or not?
going forward however... i would not be spurised if farming takes a substantially different approach... more field crops less almonds and pistachios etc.
 
Phil said:
 I don't have the answers, I just know if I have to choose between my kids and fishing for trout, I'd just have to find a new hobby.
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     Bein' a little melodramatic there, aren't you Phil?  :violin:  ;)
 
 
     Humans (like Helvete and queequeg, for example) are pretty sharp. I'm sure we will be able to figure a way out of this that avoids both of your very emotionally charged extremes.
 
queequeg152 said:
molten salt thorium reactors are far far far from being commercially deployed. the problems associated with reprossing insitu are myriad, and the material science is not there yet.

idk why the whole nuclear renaissance thing has been hijacked by thorium enthusiasts... its confusing.

should have been building ap1000 type reactors for the last 20 years. if you plan and engineer properly, the decomissioning and or radical retrofitting of these plants can be accomplished at reasonable costs.
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Yea, the Th advocates usually start waving their hands when the topic of fuel cleaning / on-site reprocessing is mentioned.  Much remains to be learned. OTOH, there's no overriding need to cleanse all the fission fragments.  If acceptably simple and reliable techniques could be developed to separate the most significant nasties, that might be 'good enough' for practical use.   Having a hot radiochemical lab at each reactor facility is worrisome, but the cost and safety advantages of Th-Salt do seem compelling.  The tech as a whole seems worth a chucking a few billion at, just to see where it will go.
 
Hybrid Mode 01 said:
 
     Bein' a little melodramatic there, aren't you Phil?  :violin:  ;)
 
 
     Humans (like Helvete and queequeg, for example) are pretty sharp. I'm sure we will be able to figure a way out of this that avoids both of your very emotionally charged extremes.
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Lol... yeah, a tad.... but does it really have to come to that? I guess my point is that there has got to be a serious conversation about solutions, and no matter the solutions discussed, somebody is going to get their feelings hurt. Enviro groups already want to sue and stop desalination.
 
Geonerd said:
Yea, the Th advocates usually start waving their hands when the topic of fuel cleaning / on-site reprocessing is mentioned.  Much remains to be learned. OTOH, there's no overriding need to cleanse all the fission fragments.  If acceptably simple and reliable techniques could be developed to separate the most significant nasties, that might be 'good enough' for practical use.   Having a hot radiochemical lab at each reactor facility is worrisome, but the cost and safety advantages of Th-Salt do seem compelling.  The tech as a whole seems worth a chucking a few billion at, just to see where it will go.
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i think you misunderstand.

the use of molten salts makes the fuel impossible to reprocess conventionally.

you loose ALL ACCESS to the inner workings of the reactor when it goes critical.

if you read about the origional molten salt reactor, you will see where they ran into a number of issues and had to actually invent tools and procedures to correct them.

to get all of the lovely rewards promised by the pro thorium folks, you need insitu or online fuel reprocessing.

from what i recall, its suggested that one could bubble gaseous flourine through a column of some sort to isolate various neutron absorbing elements. im not clear on how all that would work.

the big thing though is just how much neutron flux these reactors produce, and how reactive hot molten flourine salt it...
from what i recall, hastelloy was used in the origional oak ridge even so, towards the end of the reactors life, they had huge embrittlement issues with the piping.

this embitterment would have to be solved prior to moving forward in amy meaningful fashion. its been suggested that some of the new ceramic coated piping systems might be adapted for this use, but its not clear to me if any actual works been done with this.

once these things go critical, you just cant do anything to them at all. they are insanely radioactive...fast neutrons.. which is why they are able to eat up so much of the longer lived actinides.
 
Phil said:
 
Lol... yeah, a tad.... but does it really have to come to that? I guess my point is that there has got to be a serious conversation about solutions, and no matter the solutions discussed, somebody is going to get their feelings hurt. Enviro groups already want to sue and stop desalination.
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I was once a Sierra Club member - way back when I was young and dumb. ;)  To this day, I support conservation of most sorts, but feel that the SC completely lost touch with reality.  These people view the laying of a single brick as an unparalleled ecological disaster.  There is no compromise of common sense to be found in this organization.  Not a shred!
 
You'd think the California S.C. might go for a trade - multiple desalination plants would allow the decommissioning of O'Shaughnessy Dam and the restoration of the magnificent Hetch Hetchy valley.  That seems like a mutually beneficial solution, but I'm 100% certain the smug Greenie Weenies would never go for it.  Fuckers!
 
Ditto. I'm all for conservation and smart use of resources. By no means is any of this my field of expertise (obviously!), but I just can't understand the compulsion that these folks have. It's like they would cut off their nose to spite their face. Reminds me of a time, when I worked at an oil refinery... Greenpeace came chugging up the Mississippi river in a diesel sucking tugboat to protest the refineries..... did I mention the diesel sucking tugboat?
 
I'm  a firm believer that we should be good stewards of our environment, but it's become a cult, to some. There are plenty of folks much smarter than I am that will figure it out. In the mean time, do what you have to do to sustain.
 
Do they have a spillway system in the west? Temporary diversions? I suppose not. They don't get the rainfall we get. We use spillway systems to drain the river when it swells with winter melt and spring rains. Thousands upon thousands of foot acres of water, flooding the land to ease the river swell, from Missouri to Louisiana
 
queequeg152 said:
i think you misunderstand.

the use of molten salts makes the fuel impossible to reprocess conventionally.

you loose ALL ACCESS to the inner workings of the reactor when it goes critical.

if you read about the origional molten salt reactor, you will see where they ran into a number of issues and had to actually invent tools and procedures to correct them.

to get all of the lovely rewards promised by the pro thorium folks, you need insitu or online fuel reprocessing.

from what i recall, its suggested that one could bubble gaseous flourine through a column of some sort to isolate various neutron absorbing elements. im not clear on how all that would work.

the big thing though is just how much neutron flux these reactors produce, and how reactive hot molten flourine salt it...
from what i recall, hastelloy was used in the origional oak ridge even so, towards the end of the reactors life, they had huge embrittlement issues with the piping.

this embitterment would have to be solved prior to moving forward in amy meaningful fashion. its been suggested that some of the new ceramic coated piping systems might be adapted for this use, but its not clear to me if any actual works been done with this.

once these things go critical, you just cant do anything to them at all. they are insanely radioactive...fast neutrons.. which is why they are able to eat up so much of the longer lived actinides.
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Thanks, but I do understand how and where the fuel is located.  I'm assuming the operators will want to clean the fuel as they go.  The alternative, letting all the fission fragments accumulate would make for a stupidly hot facility.  I don't think the public will go for the idea of trucks carrying frozen-yet-hot salts from reactors to-and-from a regional cleaning/reprocessing facility.  That means you have a screamingly hot lab at each reactor site, and that does make me nervous!  IMO making this process safe and reliable is the most critical aspect of the tech as a whole.
 
If you need to access the reactor core, or any other part of the system, you just drain the salt/fuel.  If the stuff is kept relatively clean of fission fragments, the residual radioactivity might(?) be low enough to allow meaningful maintenance.  I don't know, and that is an important question.  (It would certainly be substantially less hot that a PWR core or PWR spent fuel assemblies.)
 
Sure, there is development work to be done. Thus the billions in R/D. 
 
The FLiBe salts are supposedly rather non-reactive, even at high temps.  I am a bit skeptical about this and want to see what happens when you 'splatter' hot FLIBe fuel into various substances. (A worst-case accident?)  Does the resultant steam or smoke carry off significant nasties?  If so, you'll need a light containment vessel.  AFAIK, there is not a huge issue with the fuel eating the plumbing.
 
I don't know where all the excess fast neutrons are coming from.  The reactor core has a graphite matrix that moderates the N for better fission and capture performance.  The Th-U breeding cycle produces barely enough neutrons to be self sustaining; thermal N fission of U233 produces just over 2 N.  You need one to breed and one to chain react.  Since high N utilization is mandatory, there will not be huge fluxes of fast neutrons lost to the pipes and structure.  Given the low operating pressure, the core structure, plumbing, heat exchangers, etc., should be very cheap compared to the massive steel bottles and Godzilla piping required in a PWR.  Cores might(?) be modular and bolt-on.  If there is N induced damage, just swap it out.
 
At any rate, this seems the most promising energy tech currently on the radar.  (A 7 Pot in the eye to anyone who mentions the atrocious Solar Roadways scam! :( )  I'd really like to see our wonderful Gubment throw a few $B at R/D, just to explore the problems that do exist.  For the price of an aircraft carrier, ~15 BIG ones, we could hopefully overcome all the major issues, and design and build a few GW-class pilot plants.  "Energy independence - priceless!"
 
California should talk to Las Vegas and figure out how they are able to recycle ~95% (I know it's high) of their water. I realize that it would take a lot of money to use the methods, but maybe make big businesses pay for some of through taxes. I know it's more complicated than that, but conservation has to come into play. The water can't just come from somewhere else. Because wherever it comes from will eventually be in the same situation.
 
I present: moisture farming.
 
LukeMoistureVaporator-MOSW.png
 
Geonerd said:
If you need to access the reactor core, or any other part of the system, you just drain the salt/fuel.  If the stuff is kept relatively clean of fission fragments, the residual radioactivity might(?) be low enough to allow meaningful maintenance.  I don't know, and that is an important question.  (It would certainly be substantially less hot that a PWR core or PWR spent fuel assemblies.)
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much of the equipment servicing the main reactor assembly is hopelessly contaminated. these piping assemblies, pumps, casings etc are all unacceptably radioactive even after the reactor is shut down, and the fuel removed.

equipment is usually rated for something like 30 - 60 years, with the idea being that no serious maintenance of the hopelessly contaminated systems will be necessary. in PWR and boiling water reactors, its my understanding that maintenance is possible, however it requires many months of work.

and this is with reactors using solid fuel contained in some sort of robust manner. the water cooling the fuel gets contaminated never the less.

when fuel is dissolved in salt, it simply gets every where, contaminating all of the piping servicing the main vessle. its also been suggested that various metals could 'plate' themselves onto various components within the reactor.

if you read about the original experiment, it was suggested that autonomous equipment would need to be developed to service various components. i believe it was suggested that orbital welding and pipe cutting and manipulating equipment needed to be developed. i mention this not because its a terribly difficult task to address, but because it supports my assertion that human intervention is impossible.

i went back and read about the salt corrosion, and apparently its a minor almost non issue, and one that can be controlled by maintaining the redox potential of the molten salt. i was under the impression that there would be a suitable amount of floric acid present at high temps, i dont think this is the case.

i also recall reading about issues involving the steel alloy used in the above 60's experiment. its not clear to me if this was with respect to neutron embrittlement or if it was regarding high temperature creep.

hastalloy is not cheap what so ever. its extreemly expensive and difficult to machine and weld. I dont know if this is still the case, but at one point hastelloy was the alloy used in aircraft turbocharger impellers etc. its mostly nickle, which if you price at its commodity value, is like 10x more expensive than aluminum.

the OCR in the MSRE document i have is very poor, otherwise i would copy paste the bit about embrittlement.

yes i understand your point about the moderation in the core, however you are ignoring U233. that is the whole point of the thing afterall.

u233 from what i read long ago, decays releasing high energy gamma radiation. This is in contract to conventional natural uranium isotopes which decay down more or less... innocuous chains.

because u233 is relasing gamma rays, it cannot be handled directly like natural u235-238. this is one of the big reasons why thorium is said to be proliferation resistant.

im sure this whole ball of wax can be made to work well enough, but it all seems to be more or less over blown.
Imo the biggest advantage these things can offer is cool shit like light weight high specific energy reactors the likes of which we might be able to launch into space.

you can 'burn' waste in a number of different reactor designs, not just the thorium.

it still needs like 20+ of serious development before it could even conceivably be deployed commercially.
look how long it took to go from 1940's to the first gigawatt + nuclear reactor. the shit it not like developing a car or airplane or what ever. it takes an insane amount of time to develop, and in the meantime, IMO PWR reactors should be built in spades.
 
half of fruits and vegetables.

California continued as the leading fresh market vegetable producing state in 2013, accounting for 47 percent of the U.S. harvested vegetable acres, 51 percent of the national production, and 54 percent of the value, for the 24 selected vegetables and melons estimated.
California also led the nation in processing vegetable production during 2013, with 27 percent of the U.S. harvested acreage, 71 percent of the national production and 54 percent of the total value, for the eight processed vegetables estimated.
The total value of California's 2013 fresh and processing vegetable and melon production was $7.3 billion, up from 2012’s revised total of $6.1 billion. Lettuce remained the leading vegetable crop in value of production, at $1.8 billion, followed by tomatoes with $1.4 billion.
Vegetable crops that had value increases were asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, sweet corn, head lettuce, romaine lettuce, cantaloupe melons, honeydew melons, spring onions, summer non-storage onions, bell peppers, chile peppers, pumpkins, squash, fresh market tomatoes and processing tomatoes. Crops that had decreased value included snap beans, cucumbers, watermelons, summer storage onions, and processing onions.
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http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/California_Ag_Statistics/CAVegetablesandMelons.pdf
In 2013, California accounted for 62 percent of the U.S. non-citrus fruit and nut production and 74 percent of the national value. Of the citrus crops, California accounts for 33 percent of the U.S. citrus production and 46 percent of the national value. In total, the state produced 17.4 million tons of fruit and nuts, 52 percent of the national total, unchanged from 2012. The state’s total value of all fruits and nuts in 2013 was $21.1 billion, up 13 percent from 2012.
After losing the number one spot in 2011 to almonds, grapes came back in 2012 and reclaimed their number one position, topping $5 billion in production value. Almonds were a close second at over $4.8 billion. However, the jockeying continued in 2013, with almonds pushing ahead of grapes as the number one valued fruit or nut crop in California, coming in at $6.4 billion in production value for 2013. Grapes were a close second this year at $5.6 billion. California is the number one producer of almonds in the world, with 67% of 2013 almond shipments exported. California grapes accounted for over 90 percent of the United States utilized grape production in 2013 and California is the top raisin producer in the world. Crops with record California production in 2013 were blueberries, mandarins, table grapes, and wine grapes. California accounted for all or nearly all the national production of almonds, dates, figs, kiwifruit, olives, Clingstone peaches, pistachios, dried plums, raisins, and walnuts.
The nation’s largest fruit producing states are California, Florida and Washington. California accounts for over half of the harvested fruit acreage in the country.
The value of U.S. tree nut production in 2013 was over $9 billion in value, with almonds, walnuts, and pistachios accounting for 93 percent of the sales. California is the nation’s only producer of those three nut crops. For almonds and pistachios, California is the number one producer in the world, producing over 80 percent of the world’s almonds and around 40 percent of the world’s pistachios. For walnuts, California is the second largest producer in the world and the largest exporter. Almonds were over $6 billion in value in 2013, walnuts were nearly $2 billion, and pistachios were over $1.5 billion.
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http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/California_Ag_Statistics/CAFruitsandNuts.pdf
 
The dairy industry, California’s leading commodity in cash receipts, generated $7.62 billion for milk production in 2012, up 10 percent from 2012 but below the record year of 2011. Milk production decreased by more than 1 percent, but a rise in prices resulted in an overall increase in cash receipts for the crop year. Milk prices received by producers rose from $16.52 per hundred pounds of milk sold in 2012 to $18.48 in 2013. As the leading dairy producing state in the country, California produced nearly 21 percent of the nation’s supply in 2013.
California remained the leading state in cash farm receipts in 2013 with combined commodities representing nearly 12 percent of the U.S. total. California’s leading crops remained fruits, nuts and vegetables. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts were produced in California.
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http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/California_Ag_Statistics/CA_Ag_Overview.pdf
 
iran produces twice as many lbs of pistachios as we do!
 
we should trade them a shit load of old f14 parts for a shit load of pistachios.
 
Or trade them turkey meat, turkey meat is freakishly popular in the Middle East.  I think Israel and Turkey (ironically) are some of the biggest importers of it in the world, much of it originating in the US.
 
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