Severe Drought in the West Will Greatly Reduce Electrical Production from Hydroelectric Turbines.

[RichieRich216 + 454]

14 hours ago, turbguy said:

Politics have a direct impact on precipitation?

Conservatives against conservation?

What do you propose?

[RichieRich216 + 454]

14 hours ago, turbguy said:

Politics have a direct impact on precipitation?

Conservatives against conservation?

What do you propose?

 

Look back on the numerous times private group’s impacted the politicians, they should have turned it over to a non political group like Army Engineers. They totally brought this upon themselves! 

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

38 minutes ago, RichieRich216 said:

%1. It has not been maintained, 2. They totally ignored thinning out the Forrest. 3. The allowed illegal pot grows to draw from the water supply. 4. On water projects they delayed because of liberal policies. Don’t blame it on the snow, that’s the pussies way out! The fact is they have clearly mis managed the water program for decades! 

Dont worry its not just Californians that mismanage land use, we have been doing it for centuries!

At least now we are starting to redress the balance.

https://news.sky.com/story/conservationists-create-giant-sponge-in-lancashire-hills-to-stop-water-flooding-lowland-towns-12372787

Its the opposite to California's problem though, flooding!

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

13 hours ago, turbguy said:

Here's some news about oil facility fires in or near the US for the last month or so.  Could be duplicates of the same event...

I wonder what happens worldwide??

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-dakota/articles/2021-07-28/oil-well-pad-fire-burning-for-6-days-in-mckenzie-county

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/oil_and_energy/one-well-fire-out-2-more-to-go-in-oil-pad-fire-near-lake-sakakawea/article_1b88b186-f55f-11eb-b05a-f3574cbb108a.html

https://www.jamestownsun.com/business/energy-and-mining/7137654-Western-North-Dakota-oil-well-fire-burns-into-12th-consecutive-day

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/06/05/oil-well-bennet-smoke-fire/

https://www.kfyrtv.com/2021/07/25/active-oil-well-fire-mckenzie-county/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pemex-oil-pipeline-fire-gulf-of-mexico_n_60df8ab8e4b0ad1785dbb85e

 

 

 

Thanks, I thought of another way to ask my question: roughly what percentage of wells eventually catch fire? ( one on a hundred? one in a thousand?) We can measure this against the percentage of Megapacks that eventually catch fire, Which appears to be running (rough order of magnitude) at one in a thousand. With Megapacks we won't really know until a lot of them have been running for 30 years.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

41 minutes ago, RichieRich216 said:

Look back on the numerous times private group’s impacted the politicians, they should have turned it over to a non political group like Army Engineers. They totally brought this upon themselves! 

In California, the really major groups that "impact" the politicians are farming interests. The farming interests (farmers and agribusinesses) are staunchly "conservative" even though they get very large government subsidies in addition to far-below-cost water.

Any arm of government, most specifically including the Corps of Engineers, is subject to political influence. What would you do instead? don't you believe in representative government? IN California we have the CWA, which is a lot better insulated from the politicians than many other government organizations.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

1 hour ago, RichieRich216 said:

%1. It has not been maintained, 2. They totally ignored thinning out the Forrest. 3. The allowed illegal pot grows to draw from the water supply. 4. On water projects they delayed because of liberal policies. Don’t blame it on the snow, that’s the pussies way out! The fact is they have clearly mis managed the water program for decades! 

1) It's been maintained and expanded for 150 years. Yes, there have been failures during that time.

2)Thinning out the forest will not make up for a lack of snow and rain: the reservoirs would still be empty. If we had gotten too much water, then the fire scars would have caused floods, but that did not happen this year.

3)Illegal pot grows take trivial amount of water. Almonds and hay take water.

4)the delayed water projects were designed to move water from the northern reservoirs to the southern farmer's fields. This year, there is not water to move.

The mis-management, if any, over those decades would include the periods when Reagan and Schwarzenegger were governors. The only retrospective change we could have made would be to reduce the amount of water allocated for irrigation. Water rights in California are a legal nightmare going back to the original Spanish land grants.

[turbguy + 1,544]

2 hours ago, RichieRich216 said:

Look back on the numerous times private group’s impacted the politicians, they should have turned it over to a non political group like Army Engineers. They totally brought this upon themselves! 

Groups do indeed influence politicians.   EVERYTHING effects politicians.

Politics influences precipitation??

[RichieRich216 + 454]

1 hour ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

1) It's been maintained and expanded for 150 years. Yes, there have been failures during that time.

2)Thinning out the forest will not make up for a lack of snow and rain: the reservoirs would still be empty. If we had gotten too much water, then the fire scars would have caused floods, but that did not happen this year.

3)Illegal pot grows take trivial amount of water. Almonds and hay take water.

4)the delayed water projects were designed to move water from the northern reservoirs to the southern farmer's fields. This year, there is not water to move.

The mis-management, if any, over those decades would include the periods when Reagan and Schwarzenegger were governors. The only retrospective change we could have made would be to reduce the amount of water allocated for irrigation. Water rights in California are a legal nightmare going back to the original Spanish land grants.

So it’s the Spanish fault?

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

34 minutes ago, RichieRich216 said:

So it’s the Spanish fault?

No, it's the "fault" of an extremely complex set of laws that is based on common law, being gleefully abetted by existing "owners" of "water rights". Those water rights go back in some cases to Spanish land grants. California water wars (actual armed resistance) go back to 1902:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 7/14/2021 at 9:33 AM, Dan Clemmensen said:

Yup, reality intrudes. My numbers gave an absolute lower bound on the amount of energy needed for desal, based on the amount of energy needed to raise water to a height (i.e., to increase the gravitational potential energy of the mass of the water). No pump can ever be better than this.  A big desal installation in real life might be able to get 90% efficiency, but I think 80% would be a better conservative planning number. This does not change the fundamental economics, because the energy cost remains a small part of the overall cost of tap water. Non-agricultural users won't see much of an increase at the tap, and desal for agriculture is not cost-effective.

I think that desal would be cost effective for hydroponic operations. Very little water would be wasted by comparison to even drip irrigation with plastic "mulch covering". 

[RichieRich216 + 454]

7 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

No, it's the "fault" of an extremely complex set of laws that is based on common law, being gleefully abetted by existing "owners" of "water rights". Those water rights go back in some cases to Spanish land grants. California water wars (actual armed resistance) go back to 1902:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars

 

Water is going to be in the top 3 of nation’s going to military conflicts. Huge multi national corporations are buying up water right globally!

[ronwagn + 6,290]

10 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

In California, the really major groups that "impact" the politicians are farming interests. The farming interests (farmers and agribusinesses) are staunchly "conservative" even though they get very large government subsidies in addition to far-below-cost water.

Any arm of government, most specifically including the Corps of Engineers, is subject to political influence. What would you do instead? don't you believe in representative government? IN California we have the CWA, which is a lot better insulated from the politicians than many other government organizations.

We all depend on the availability of food. It is very important to support farming. It is the most basic need of our population. Farmers do not get most of the profit, that goes to food processers, packagers, middlement, retailers etc. Farmers get very little by comparison. People could figure out how to use basic farming products using traditional cooking if they needed too. Food prices would plummet! Of course the other way would be for many of us to quit overeating. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

8 minutes ago, RichieRich216 said:

Water is going to be in the top 3 of nation’s going to military conflicts. Huge multi national corporations are buying up water right globally!

Dams in China have diverted water from many other countries and they continue to build them even though the dams seem to cause a lot of extreme flooding lately. China may have more dams than the rest of the world put together. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/world/asia/china-flooding-deaths.html

https://worldcrunch.com/world-affairs/river-of-tears-how-chinese-dams-are-devastating-the-mekong

Edited August 6, 2021 by ronwagn
reference

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

On 8/4/2021 at 5:28 PM, Dan Clemmensen said:

@RichieRich216, how would a "conservative" government have improved matters? The California water system is the largest single engineering work on the planet, and it has been built and maintained by all of the administrations of the last 60 years. This year's snowfall and rainfall were it smallest in the last 1000 years. the "Liberal Green Group" did not cause the lack of rain.

Lets see, California population has nearly doubled in last 30 years... The rational camps have all called for more dams to be built holding back more water for when drought happens and which the envirowackos have all blocked for going on 3 decades now.  You know, holding back all that flood water from the last 5 years which just merrily gushed down to the sea which was enough water for 2 entire years of irrigation even without a single drop of rain. 

Can't play the reservoirs will displace logging as the envirowackos will not let them log, but rather watches the forests burn with glee instead. 

Its not a Conservative/Liberal thing.  It is rationality verses irrational envirowacknuts. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

Dams in China have diverted water from many other countries and they continue to build them even though the dams seem to cause a lot of extreme flooding lately. China may have more dams than the rest of the world put together. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/world/asia/china-flooding-deaths.html

https://worldcrunch.com/world-affairs/river-of-tears-how-chinese-dams-are-devastating-the-mekong

Yes... the Mekong/Selewan and China is building tunnels to divert a large portion of said water as well. China is just starting building dams on those rivers for hydropower down off Tibet.  There is no way in this world they give them up either.  I sure as Hell would not.  We are talking about another 100GW of hydropower.  Then throw in the Brahaumptura?? River out of Tibet going to India... Yea another 100GW of free power and the ability to completely wipe out northern India if India gets frisky?  IF I were India... I would seriously be looking to attack and take that rivers headwaters.  To Hell with Nuclear weapons.  After all China took said region very recently anyways. 

China barely has more dams than the USA does.  Difference? Quality of the dams and their management.  And USA loses about 10-->20 dams a year, China 70+.  Though the failure rate for the USA is going down as all the ancient no emergency spillway dams are being removed/replaced yet China still has 10's of thousands of such dams. 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

17 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Thanks, I thought of another way to ask my question: roughly what percentage of wells eventually catch fire? ( one on a hundred? one in a thousand?) We can measure this against the percentage of Megapacks that eventually catch fire, Which appears to be running (rough order of magnitude) at one in a thousand. With Megapacks we won't really know until a lot of them have been running for 30 years.

Just like mega packs oil wells come with different sizes/potential.  Wells in one area might make 10 barrels a day, in another area 10,000 barrels a day.  If the 10,000 barrel a day well gets involved in a fire it’s going to be 1,000 times bigger and harder to put out than the 10 barrel a day well.

 

oil well fires - roughly the odds are 1 in 10,000 of a blowout (the oil coming out of the ground is on fire and cannot be shut off by turning a valve) , and 1 in 1,000 of a fire of some sort which is less serious (any fire which burns oil stored at surface temporarily during separation or before getting shipped out. 
 

Oil refineries on the other hand catch fire routinely.  Every oil refinery has caught fire multiple times.  They are experts at putting them out however and usually very little damage is done. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

5 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

Just like mega packs oil wells come with different sizes/potential.  Wells in one area might make 10 barrels a day, in another area 10,000 barrels a day.  If the 10,000 barrel a day well gets involved in a fire it’s going to be 1,000 times bigger and harder to put out than the 10 barrel a day well.

 

oil well fires - roughly the odds are 1 in 10,000 of a blowout (the oil coming out of the ground is on fire and cannot be shut off by turning a valve) , and 1 in 1,000 of a fire of some sort which is less serious (any fire which burns oil stored at surface temporarily during separation or before getting shipped out. 
 

Oil refineries on the other hand catch fire routinely.  Every oil refinery has caught fire multiple times.  They are experts at putting them out however and usually very little damage is done. 

There is only one size of a Megapack(tm). There are other types of battery of course. For oil wells, we would need to normalize by the total MWh delivered in the course of the well's lifetime.  As to consequences of a fire, I guess we normalize by the cost. For a Megapack, I suspect that any non-trivial fire will be a total loss of the Megapack, so replacement cost of the Megapack itself plus cleanup and installation of the replacement. 

Just as a Megapack is only one small component in the overall electrical delivery system, an oil well is one small component in the fuel delivery system. As you say, a refinery is another, and there are many others. I just thought we could focus on wells versus Megapacks as a way to look at the relative damage. There will be many thousands of Megapacks, mostly dispersed in isolated "fields"where most of the damage is usually confined to a single unit. I think this generally applies to oil wells, so I thought the comparison would be useful.

[Eric Gagen + 713]

1 hour ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

There is only one size of a Megapack(tm). There are other types of battery of course. For oil wells, we would need to normalize by the total MWh delivered in the course of the well's lifetime.  As to consequences of a fire, I guess we normalize by the cost. For a Megapack, I suspect that any non-trivial fire will be a total loss of the Megapack, so replacement cost of the Megapack itself plus cleanup and installation of the replacement. 

Just as a Megapack is only one small component in the overall electrical delivery system, an oil well is one small component in the fuel delivery system. As you say, a refinery is another, and there are many others. I just thought we could focus on wells versus Megapacks as a way to look at the relative damage. There will be many thousands of Megapacks, mostly dispersed in isolated "fields"where most of the damage is usually confined to a single unit. I think this generally applies to oil wells, so I thought the comparison would be useful.

All oil wells will survive a fire unless they are abandoned for other reasons. I have no idea how you could do a valid comparison like this.  The costs of putting out an oil well fire range from trivial (literally putting one out with a fire extinguisher or a hose in a few minutes which I have seen done before) to colossal ($50 billion for the  BP Macondo incident)  I think I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader how to ‘average’ events so different.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Eric Gagen

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

And don't forget to count all the associated fires, even water burns in oil country:

“I roll in, and I see that tank on fire,” Novak said. He knew there were more than a dozen other tanks on the site, each holding as much as 16,000 gallons. Lightning had apparently hit a rod installed to keep strikes away from the tanks. But the force of the strike was so strong the current apparently jumped a grounding wire and hit the first tank, igniting gases inside. Novak watched a second tank, then a third, explode, and soon the prairie night was awash in orange.

The tanks burned near Novak’s prized pasture, home to fresh-water springs and, at that moment, roughly 60 head of cattle. A shallow gully running through the pasture continues to Camp Creek, which joins Timber Creek, which flows into Lake Sakakawea, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River. By 9 am, the sun was high and the storm was long gone, but Novak could see saltwater flowing from the tanks down the gully and toward his spring.

“It went right to that open water,” Novak said. “And I knew things weren’t good.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/06/north-dakota-republicans-oil-fracking-environment-502308

Edited August 6, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[NickW + 2,714]

On 8/6/2021 at 5:21 AM, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Yes... the Mekong/Selewan and China is building tunnels to divert a large portion of said water as well. China is just starting building dams on those rivers for hydropower down off Tibet.  There is no way in this world they give them up either.  I sure as Hell would not.  We are talking about another 100GW of hydropower.  Then throw in the Brahaumptura?? River out of Tibet going to India... Yea another 100GW of free power and the ability to completely wipe out northern India if India gets frisky?  IF I were India... I would seriously be looking to attack and take that rivers headwaters.  To Hell with Nuclear weapons.  After all China took said region very recently anyways. 

China barely has more dams than the USA does.  Difference? Quality of the dams and their management.  And USA loses about 10-->20 dams a year, China 70+.  Though the failure rate for the USA is going down as all the ancient no emergency spillway dams are being removed/replaced yet China still has 10's of thousands of such dams. 

I wonder what the modern equivalent of this would be to take out those dams

(45) The Dambusters - Gibsons attack - YouTube

Problem is unlike in the case of the Ruhr dams India is  downstream of those dams so they are, excuse the pun, dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

I wonder what the modern equivalent of this would be to take out those dams

(45) The Dambusters - Gibsons attack - YouTube

Problem is unlike in the case of the Ruhr dams India is  downstream of those dams so they are, excuse the pun, dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. 

India is building their own dams below said dams on the upper river. 

[nsdp + 449]

On 8/5/2021 at 10:39 AM, RichieRich216 said:

Look back on the numerous times private group’s impacted the politicians, they should have turned it over to a non political group like Army Engineers. They totally brought this upon themselves! 

There is a large pile of BS here, but add it all up and you still have piled more than the rest combined.  The levee system in the New Orleans area has so many reports the Army IG and criminal investigations  it is amazing.

[RichieRich216 + 454]

Never said nobody would not be fucked!

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 8/5/2021 at 10:39 AM, RichieRich216 said:

Look back on the numerous times private group’s impacted the politicians, they should have turned it over to a non political group like Army Engineers. They totally brought this upon themselves! 

The Army Engineers do what they are told to by the government in power at the time. They also depend on how much money is allocated to them. Ideally it would be a non political group but there is no such thing in reality. The same is true of the Forest Service etc. We hire government hunters to kill another species of owl to protect the original one that predominted. That is all due to political pressure. The Forest Service stopped protecting from forest fires to satisfy "environmentalists." 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 7/15/2021 at 5:10 PM, KeyboardWarrior said:

You talking about tiling? I like tiling. But I would also like it if we could keep the water around. This is rather impossible though.

An acre dugout 13 feet deep all around is only an inch of rain for 160 acres. Guy I know who runs 10,000 acres is giving it a try. Dug out a huge pit to collect tile water for the irrigators. 

It is done the Midwest to avoid flooding the fields in low lying spots. Arid areas need drip irrigation and plastic covering or hydroponics in large greenhouses.