Help “save” the Murray River: Harvest water by condensation
June 23, 2009I was thinking that maybe a good topic for brainstorming here in SOuth Australia would be to dream up alternate ways of conserving water. The Murray River is already so depleted that even if we manage to “save” it, we will need other sources of water. Desalination of sea water seems a good interim step to me, but what else can we do that is maybe a bit “off-the-wall” and might have some chance of working?
My first brainstorm about how to retrieve useful moisture was to somehow catch water in the soil before it evaporated again. This posting has a headstart on the idea.
Now- has someone else done something similar in Australia? Is there a project along the same lines already in place? Have we invented other ways of retrieving moisture in the soil? How could this be integrated with some sort of agricultural activity, eg. mushroom farming?
Let’s have some more ideas- any engineers out there?
I did find some references myself and some Australian contributions:
http://www.scizerinm.org/coldproject.html
http://www.epa.gov/oaintrnt/water/rtp_projects.htm
There are some studies on the use of organic mulches which sound fairly conventional. I’d like an analysis of the energy input/output per litre of water conserved by mulching, so we could cost it. I have also seen a few of those condensation/energy/greenhouse production buildings/devices on the web and would like to read more about them. All clues on what I should read and where to get it gratefully received!