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Assuming that hydrogen gas behaves as an ideal gas, that conservation of mass (nothing is lost) is achieved, and that sufficient oxygen is available for complete combustion, 2 moles of hydrogen gas, when combined with 1 mole of oxygen (O2) will produce 2 moles of water. A mole of hydrogen gas weighs 2 grams and occupies 22.4 liters (volume) at standard temperature and pressure (1 atmosphere and 0 degrees C, or 760 torr and 273 Kelvin). Therefore, assuming complete combustion, 22.4 L of hydrogen gas weighing 2 grams would yield, upon condensation, approximately 18 grams of rather cold, pure water (the exact amount would vary according to the atmospheric pressure and temperature). In simple terms, 1 mole of water (18 grams) is 9 times heavier than 1 mole of hydrogen (2 grams).
The importance of these facts cannot be overstated, for they may well be the key to simultaneously halt –and perhaps eventually reverse- global warming, conquer drought, and introduce a new economic platform geared specifically to reduce the yawning gap in the distribution of income and wealth, all of which have been identified as clear and present threats to the security of the world by legions of prominent scientists and economists, the United States government, and the World Bank. Here’s why.
Hydrogen and Gravity
Elemental hydrogen does not occur naturally on Earth. Long ago it combined with other elements to form many compounds, including fossil fuels and water. The law of conservation of energy states that it takes more energy to free the hydrogen in the ocean than would be released by oxidizing it. As a result, the process is considered inefficient and uneconomical. But that law does not consider the possibility of using solar in combination with gravity –both of which are constant and free- to take advantage of the weight differential between water and hydrogen to recover the energy loss or, depending on a number of variables, generate a large surplus of electricity. In fact, even though the three raw materials (gravity, solar and seawater) are free, fully renewable, abundant and readily accessible, no nation is known to be presently considering utilizing them exclusively to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of seawater on a scale sufficiently large to generate all their electricity, or alternatively, export hydrogen to others that are either unable or unwilling to produce it. One reason is the misplaced belief that it is far more efficient, and therefore less costly, to use solar to generate electricity directly; another is the disproportionate effect that special interests have on electoral processes, and by extension, on elected decision makers.
The Water Cycle
The world’s true source of fresh water is the ocean; without it our planet would look like Mars. But, as with fossil fuels, surface fresh water is not uniformly distributed throughout the world. Some areas, such as the Great Lakes in the United States and the Amazon Basin have it in great abundance; others, including the great deserts of the world, have little to none.
Impending Threat
Global warming is exacerbating this uneven distribution, threatening the production of food in many regions of the world, including California –which produces more than ½ of the nation’s fruits and vegetables- and the Great Plains, where the Ogallala Aquifer is drying up. If this is not decisively addressed, the U.S., currently a major exporter, may eventually be forced to import much, if not most, of its food. That would increase its dependence on foreign suppliers, the trade deficit, and unemployment; by extension, it would also reduce the tax base and increase the federal deficit. More importantly, since other food-exporting nations may also experience similar problems, who exactly would have the spare capacity to fill the shortfall, and for how long? But there’s more. Natural population growth will create the need for new jobs and still more water. Clearly, humanity is at the edge of a precipice.
A Potential Game Changer
With the exception of desalination plants in some coastal areas, which consume enormous amounts of energy, humanity relies on the natural water cycle to quench its thirst and grow its food. The ancients did it thousands of years ago, and despite our technological advances, basically we’re still doing it the same way. The time has come to bypass the cycle, which no longer meets our needs. We must learn to manufacture our own fresh water far from coastal areas, where desalination is impossible or impractical, so we can irrigate the deserts, conquer drought, and spur economic growth regardless of climate change. Nuclear and fossil fuels cannot do that; hydrogen can. Plan A describes in broad detail a way to do so; therefore, given the glaring absence of other viable alternatives on a scale comparable to it, national governments and the United Nations should consider, at a minimum, assembling teams of prominent engineers, scientists and economists to confirm its feasibility. Time is of the essence.
1) Create an entirely new and permanenteconomic frontier, initially with thousands of well-paying middle class jobs that cannot be outsourced or relocated, followed by millions more when it becomes fully operational.
2) Transform the U.S. into the world’s largest green energy exporter, potentially capable of meeting the lion’s share of global current and future demand -without adding any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
3) Transform the trade deficit into a surplus.
4) Create a new drought-proof source of unpolluted water -unrelated to acquifers, rivers and lakes- to meet current and future demand.
5) Begin the process to reverse global warming without harming any economy.
BONUS: Public funds would not be required to build and operate it.
A Precedent
In 1998 Iceland announced its intention to eliminate its dependence on fossil fuels by creating a hydrogen energy economy. Endowed with abundant geothermal resources, the local price of electricity was lower than the price of the hydrocarbons that could be used to produce it. Accordingly, Iceland decided to export its surplus electricity by converting it into an exportable commodity, and in 2002 it produced 2,000 tons of hydrogen gas by electrolysis, primarily for the production of ammonia, at a local fertilizer plant. Due to reasons unrelated to the price of hydrogen, in 2004 the plant went out of business, and by 2006, deprived of its main customer, hydrogen production fell to negligible levels. However, these events proved that under certain conditions it is possible to produce hydrogen at prices below fossil fuels.
Purpose
The purpose of this plan is to use solar energy to produce hydrogen and chlorine from the electrolysis of seawater (brine) in the U.S. and export it to China to: (a) replace coal as its primary fuel to generate electricity; (b) produce pure water together with the necessary chlorine to maintain its purity, and (c) eliminate the main culprit of air pollution in Beijing. The system would be both profitable for the U.S. and cost-effective for China.
Hydrogen From Natural Gas
With present know how more energy is required to produce hydrogen from water than can be obtained by oxidizing it. As a result, a self-sustaining chain reaction is not possible and an external source of energy, usually natural gas, is required. Since it is more efficient and less costly to use gas directly to make electricity, global hydrogen production from water electrolysis, which requires electricity itself, is currently negligible, about 4%.
The Solar Exception
Fossil fuels and nuclear fission require extraordinarily costly and risky exploratory, mining, processing, and delivery operations. The incessant, ever-increasing burning of oil and coal has caused global warming and polluted the environment, and the need for a guaranteed supply of oil threatens to catalyze a cataclysmic war that will benefit no one and solve nothing. As for nuclear waste, its radioactive emissions last for hundreds of thousands of years, and current technology does not have a cost-effective way to stop them. In contrast, solar energy –the mainstay of most life on our planet- is delivered to us free, constantly, universally, and in great abundance.
Free elemental hydrogen gas does not occur naturally on Earth. Instead, most of it has combined with oxygen to form the oceans, lakes and rivers that cover three fourths of the surface of our planet. The process of producing elemental hydrogen from water using electricity is known as electrolysis. Due to its salt content, which is a natural electrocatalyst, seawater (brine) is about one million times more conductive than pure water, therefore it is far more energy-efficient to use brine to produce elemental hydrogen. One of the main obstacles to do so is that seawater and uninterrupted sunlight do not naturally coexist in high-yield locations -defined as exceedingly long coastlines naturally sheltered from precipitation such as hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, snow, rain, quasi-permanent cloud cover or fog or sandstorms- safe from the incessant threat of all-out war. Consequently it behooves us to find a way to combine the sun’s energy, gravity and brine, which are free, abundant and virtually inexhaustible, to export hydrogen and freshwater at a lower cost overall to countries who would need to build enormously expensive irrigation projects and either fossil or nuclear plants to develop their arid regions. This article describes a way to do precisely that.
Why produce hydrogen when the same solar energy could be used to produce electricity directly? Electricity cannot currently be exported from one non-contiguous landmass to another, and no country is currently exporting its surplus solar energy. A perfect example is the State of Hawaii; the islands cannot connect their grids, and its surplus solar energy is not being exported. Since an efficient, low-cost medium has not yet been discovered to do so, hydrogen -nature’s battery- is the way to go. The first country that does it may well become the world’s largest and preferred energy supplier and the recipient of unimaginable wealth.
Why should other countries want to buy American-produced hydrogen? Because only the U.S. has the potential to export both hydrogen and unpolluted water to the same destination at a price below what they would have to pay for the sum of coal, gas or nuclear fuel and a new water supply system to meet urban and agricultural demand, assuming it is available. Should hydrogen replace coal as the principal fuel to generate electricity, one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and other pollutants would be eliminated, and natural gas could be diverted to power automobiles. In addition, for countries that rely on nuclear power or have announced plans to increase their reliance on it such as France, Japan, and China, the ever-present danger of contamination due to natural catastrophes, terrorism or war would disappear.
Storage And Transportation Of Hydrogen
Hydrogen is corrosive, therefore pipelines and storage tanks require expensive internal coatings. However, underground caverns, salt domes and depleted oil and gas fields, which do not corrode, are currently used to store hydrogen. Similar facilities could be dug near electric power plants at a relatively low cost. While initially expensive, the additional cost of coating the pipelines used to distribute it –which would be borne by the users- would be offset by low-cost raw materials, reliable supplies, and a cleaner environment.
Death Valley
Death Valley
Formerly part of a Pleistocene-era inland sea, Death Valley’s physical characteristics are unique. Four consecutive mountain ranges shield it from precipitation and sandstorms, and at 282 ft below sea level, it is the lowest point in North America. As a result, solar exposure is virtually constant, the average daily wind speed is 10.4 to 12.5 miles per hour, the average annual precipitation varies between 1.58 and 2.2 inches per year, and the evaporation rate is an astonishingly high 143 inches per year. These statistics are important because they indicate that were it to be permanently filled with water, the high evaporation rate alone would promote and support an entirely new ecosystem.
Death Valley occupies approximately 3,000 square miles of sparsely-populated territory about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles and 100 miles west of Las Vegas. A proposed high-speed train between Los Angeles and Sacramento, about 125 miles southwest, could be extended to Death Valley, Las Vegas and beyond. Because of its characteristics and location, it is the ideal hub of a potential interconnected network of shallow seawater lakes in portions of California, Nevada, Arizona and possibly even New Mexico and Texas that could be used to mass-produce hydrogen by electrolysis of seawater using solar energy exclusively.
Unlike fossil fuels, which require extensive labor costs, the price of this hydrogen would reflect the cost of three free, inexhaustible resources: gravity, seawater and solar energy. Furthermore, once fully operational, the resulting economy of scale could be expected to reduce its cost even more. The main challenge would be to meet the demand rather than amassing the required capital, engineering, or construction technology and equipment.
Requirements
1. Immediate government approval, non-financial assistance, and regulation.
2. Swift construction of a sea-level canal from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley. Water would flow by gravity, and its cost would be amortized from the income derived from the hydrogen and other on-site secondary industries.
3. Adequate safeguards against catastrophic earthquakes, ecological consequences, invasive species, and terrorism.
4. An adequate supply of rare-earth minerals to make the solar panels.
5. Infrastructure for waste disposal and recycling back to the ocean
6. Hydrogen pipelines to the ocean, to export the hydrogen. This step would be unnecessary if the canal is deep enough to allow tankers into Death Valley.
7. An entirely new financial/ownership design to attract investors and distribute future wealth in an equitable fashion.
8. Top-notch personnel to organize and operate the enterprise.
9. Support from the Federal Reserve, as needed.
10. Investors to fund the project.
Specific Benefits
Ecology
Requires only seawater, sun and gravity; no greenhouse gasses are released.
Creates a new ecosystem to help reduce global warming.
Relies on natural topographic characteristics unavailable elsewhere to create a virtual monopoly on exportable renewable energy.
Employment
Creates a new low-cost energy source thus facilitating production and job creation in heavy users of electricity such as aluminum and rare earth minerals.
Creates secondary businesses such fish farming, tourism, salt harvesting, construction, agriculture, with all its supporting services.
Creates jobs that cannot be relocated or outsourced; low energy, and transportation costs would help to offset competing lower labor and medical costs in developing nations.
Energy
Energy independence. Natural gas from domestic and friendly sources currently used to generate electricity could be used to power automobiles.
Produces low-cost hydrogen commercially, the first step toward an eventual full hydrogen economy. Creates a massive hydrogen-producing industry to replace coal, gas and nuclear as the preferred fuel source.
Creates a reliable supply to support future widespread applications such as fuel cells.
Envisions that all new buildings in the new frontier, including homes, would generate a surplus of electricity. High-tension transmission lines would thus be reduced or eliminated, increasing efficiency and security in case of natural or man-made catastrophes.
Fiscal/Economic
Privately financed –no cost to any government.
Improves the credit rating of federal and state governments and reduces borrowing costs.
Reduces unemployment if the unemployed are hired.
Attracts domestic and foreign capital wishing to lock in future profits.
Stimulates the stock market because the size and scope of the new economic frontier would stimulate and expand the economy.
Expands the tax base, increases revenue, and decreases unemployment expenditures.
Extends the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.
Legal
Currently, riparian laws may not specifically regulate the creation of large bodies of inland seawater because there are none. The Great Salt Lake is saltwater but not seawater, and it is not man-made.
The initial phase would begin in California, therefore immediate interstate agreements and/or congressional intervention might not be necessary.
Political
Promotes national unity, incorporates Republican & Democratic principles and ideology.
Showcases American resolve to unite for the common good using domestic resources.
Promotes peace by promoting global reliance on low-cost American-produced hydrogen while reducing the over-dependence on fossil fuels.
Real Estate
Income from the energy produced by each building –residential, commercial or industrial- might be appurtenant to the land to reduce risk to lenders.
Creates desirable waterfront properties with views, increases value.
Creates a construction and lending boom -in many cases on fallow federally-owned land- supported by permanent incomes, to accommodate the workers in the new economic zone.
Water
Creates cost-effective, reliable, permanent sources of water for the U.S. and China impervious to drought or global warming.
Trade
Creates a new income stream large enough to eventually transform the trade deficit into a surplus.
Cost
New York City’s Water Tunnel #3 is 60 miles long through solid rock, scheduled to be completed in 2020 at a cost of $6 billion, or approximately $100 million per mile. Assuming similar per mile costs, a comparable 200-mile waterway from the west coast to Death Valley with 5 times its volume, works out to about $100 billion, to be disbursed over the construction period. The rate of disbursement would be influenced by the number of assets doing simultaneous work. The additional cost of the plants would depend on their size and number.
Financing
Given the importance of a project of this nature and magnitude to countries that are net importers of energy, which are the majority, there should be no shortage of investors who would be willing to cash in on virtually guaranteed, long-term returns. Among these would be wealthy individuals, banks and sovereign funds who are constantly searching for a low-risk, high return investment. In addition, the Federal Reserve has stated that it would do whatever it can to support growth and reduce our compromising fiscal condition. Here is an opportunity to create an amalgam of these interests to ensure that future wealth is more equitably distributed. If made appurtenant to the land, the income from the sale of surplus energy would promote home ownership by assisting first-time buyers with their mortgage payments. Such variants might include tools such as bonds insured by the Federal Reserve and other novel financial instruments leading to the same result.
A Monopoly
No other sites, including the Dead Sea, the Qattara Depression Depression in Egypt, Sebkha paki Tah, Morocco, Sabkhat Ghuzayyil, Libya, Chott Melrhir, Algeria, and Shatt Al Gharsah, Tunisia have all of Death Valley’s unique characteristics and advantages, described above, to achieve and maintain profitability. As a result, it is highly unlikely that any of these or any other potential sites could ever successfully compete.
What The Federal Government Could Do
As noted, the project need not be financed with public funds. However, the government still needs to approve, regulate and organize it. Finally, non-existent technologies are not required, only competent engineering, earth-moving equipment and a relatively small investment compared to its potential short and long-term benefits.
Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location (36° 15′ N 116° 49.5′ W) of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet (86.0 m) below sea level. This point is only 84.6 miles (136.2 km) ESE of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). Death Valley holds the record for the highest reliably reported temperature in the Western hemisphere, 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913—just short of the world record, 136 °F (57.8 °C) in Al ‘Aziziyah, Libya, on September 13, 1922.
Located near the border of California and Nevada, in the Great Basin, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Death Valley constitutes much of Death Valley National Park and is the principal feature of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve. It is located mostly in Inyo County, California. It runs from north to south between the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west; the Sylvania Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 km2). Death Valley shares many characteristics with other places below sea level.
Geology
Death Valley is one of the best geological examples of a basin and range configuration. It lies at the southern end of a geological trough known as Walker Lane, which runs north into Oregon. The valley is bisected by a right lateral strike slip fault system, represented by the Death Valley Fault and the Furnace Creek Fault. The eastern end of the left lateral Garlock Fault intersects the Death Valley Fault. Furnace Creek and the Amargosa River flow through the valley but eventually disappear into the sands of the valley floor.
Death Valley also contains salt pans. According to current geological consensus, during the middle of the Pleistocene era there was a succession of inland seas (collectively referred to as Lake Manly) located where Death Valley is today. As the area turned to desert the water evaporated, leaving behind the abundance of evaporitic salts such as common sodium salts and borax, which were subsequently exploited during the modern history of the region, primarily 1883 to 1907.
As a general rule, lower altitudes tend to have higher temperatures where the sun heats the ground and that heat is then radiated upward, but as the air begins to rise it is trapped by the surrounding elevation and the weight of the air (essentially the atmospheric pressure) above it. The atmospheric pressure is higher at very low altitudes than it is under the same conditions at sea level because there is more air (more distance) between the ground and the top of the atmosphere. This pressure traps the heat near the ground, and also creates wind currents that circulate very hot air, thereby distributing the heat to all areas, regardless of shade and other factors.
This process is especially important in Death Valley as it provides its specific climate and geography. The valley is surrounded by mountains, while its surface is mostly flat and devoid of plants, and of which a high percentage of the sun’s heat is able to reach the ground, absorbed by soil and rock. When air at ground level is heated, it begins to rise, moving up past steep high mountain ranges, which then cools slightly, sinking back down towards the valley more compressed. This air is then reheated by the sun to a higher temperature, moving up the mountain again, whereby the air moves up and down in a circular motion in cycles, similar to how a convection oven works, albeit a natural one. This superheated air increases ground temperature markedly, forming the hot wind currents that are trapped by atmospheric pressure and mountains, thus stays mostly within the valley. Such hot wind currents contribute to perpetual drought-like conditions in Death Valley and prevent much cloud formation to pass through the confines of the valley, where precipitation is often in the form of a virga (rain that evaporates in mid-air before hitting the ground). Death Valley holds temperature records because it has an unusually high number of factors that lead to high atmospheric temperatures.
Climate
The depth and shape of Death Valley influence its summer temperatures. The valley is a long, narrow basin 282 feet (86 m) below sea level, yet is walled by high, steep mountain ranges. The clear, dry air and sparse plant cover allow sunlight to heat the desert surface. Summer nights provide little relief as overnight lows may only dip into the 86 to 95 °F (30 to 35 °C) range. Moving masses of super-heated air blow through the valley creating extremely high temperatures.
The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley (Furnace Creek) was 134 °F (57 °C) on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129 °F (54 °C) or above. The greatest number of consecutive days with a maximum temperature of 100 °F (38 °C) or above was 154 days in the summer of 2001. The summer of 1996 had 40 days over 120 °F (49 °C), and 105 days over 110 °F (43 °C). The summer of 1917 had 52 days where temperatures reached 120 °F (49 °C) or above with 43 of them consecutive. Four major mountain ranges lie between Death Valley and the ocean, each one adding to an increasingly drier rainshadow effect, and in 1929 and 1953 no rain was recorded for the whole year. The period from 1931 to 1934 was the driest stretch on record with only 0.64 inches (16 mm) of rain over a 40-month period.
From 1961-2008 the weather station at Death Valley (Furnace Creek) recorded an average yearly temperature of 76.7 °F (24.8 °C) with an average high in January of around 66 °F (19 °C) and 116 °F (47 °C) in July. From 1934-1961 the weather station at Cow Creek recorded a Mean Annual Temperature of 77.2 °F (25.1 °C)°F.
The period from July 17–19, 1959 was the longest string of consecutive days where nighttime low temperatures did not drop below 100 °F (38 °C). The highest ever night time low temperature in Death Valley was 103 °F (39 °C) recorded on July 5, 1970 and July 24, 2003.
The longest stretch of consecutive days where temperatures reached 90 °F (32 °C) or more was 205 during Apr-Oct 1992. On average there are 192 days per year in Death Valley where temperatures reach 90°F (32°C) or more.
The lowest temperature recorded at Greenland Ranch was 15 °F (−9 °C) in January 1913.
The average annual precipitation in Death Valley (Greenland Ranch Station) is 1.58 inches (40 mm). The wettest month on record is January 1995 when 2.59 inches (66 mm) fell on Death Valley.[18] The wettest period on record was mid 2004 to mid 2005, in which nearly 6 inches (150 mm) of rain fell in total, leading to ephemeral lakes in the valley and the region and tremendous wildflower blooms. Snow with accumulation has only been recorded in January 1922, while scattered flakes have been recorded in other occasions.
In 2005, Death Valley received four times its average annual rainfall of 1.5 inches (38 mm). As it has done before for hundreds of years, the lowest spot in the valley filled with a wide, shallow lake, but the extreme heat and aridity immediately began sucking the ephemeral lake dry.
In 2005, a big pool of greenish water stretched most of the way across the valley floor. By May 2005 the valley floor had resumed its more familiar role as Badwater Basin, a salt-coated salt flats. In time, this freshly dissolved and recrystallized salt will darken.
The western margin of Death Valley is traced by alluvial fans. During flash floods, rainfall from the steep mountains to the west pours through narrow canyons, picking up everything from fine clay to large rocks. When these torrents reach the mouths of the canyons, they widen and slow, branching out into braided streams. The paler the fans, the younger they are.
During the Pleistocene ice age, which ended roughly 10,000–12,000 years ago, the Sierra Nevada ranges were much wetter. During that time, Death Valley was filled with a huge lake, called Glacial Lake Manly, that was nearly 100 miles long and 600 feet deep.[23] Remnants of this wetter period can still be seen in the region today, including the presence of several isolated populations of pupfish that still call the region home.
As one would imagine, the humidity levels in Death Valley are generally low, and during the summer, the relative humidity can remain below 30% for weeks at a time. This coupled with the high air and surface temperatures and windy conditions rapidly evaporates any standing fresh water. From standard evaporation pans, the typical summer daily evaporation is determined to be 0.75 inches/day (1.9 cm/day) from May through August with maximum rates at 1.50 inches/day (3.8 cm/day) during the summer. Over the long term (1961-2002), the annual total potential evaporation is 143 inches per year (363 cm/yr). This rate of moisture loss greatly exceeds the average annual precipitation of 1.9–2.2 inches (4.8–5.6 cm) per annum, making the region arid. Standing water and damp mud, however, can exist on the surface on the salt flats in Death Valley because evaporation is hindered by high salt content of the water.
Wind also plays a significant role in the dryness of Death Valley since it is a major component in evaporation. While there have been no long-term direct measurements of wind speed, the climate record does include daily wind movement data. This measure determines the wind movement per day by counting the total distance of wind moving past the anemometer during the measurement period. (Each rotation of the anemometer corresponds to a given “distance” of wind movement, and the meter’s counter clicks off the distance of “wind travel” in much the same way our car odometer counts miles travelled.) Average daily wind movement at Death Valley is lowest during the winter and peaks in early spring. From March to May the average daily wind movement is 250 to 300 miles (200-480 km) per day. Dividing that number by 24 hours gives a rough estimate of average daily wind speed: 10-4 to 12.5 mph.
Solar heating of dark, sparsely vegetated surfaces by radiation through clear, dry air. Since the vegetation cover is sparse, little solar radiation is used for evapotranspiration and instead heats the ground and surface air.
Meteorologists know that the hottest days usually occur in Death Valley when a high pressure ridge centers over western Nevada. The ridge thus blocks cooler maritime air from pushing east while a thermal low located in southern California directs hot air from the deserts of southern Arizona and Mexico into the valley.
The highest ground temperature ever recorded was 201oF (93.9oC) on 15 July 1972. The air temperature at standard thermometer height that day peaked at 128oF (53.3 oC). The hottest month ever was July 1917 averaging 107.2oF (41.8oC); the second hottest, and the hottest of modern record, was July 2005 averaging 106.5oF (41.4 oC).
The coldest month on record was December 1990 at 44.9oF (7.2 oC). The coldest recorded daily temperature was 15oF (-9.4oC) on 18 January 1913 (the same year as the record high). During the winter 1928/29, 72 consecutive days recorded temperatures at or below freezing. The lowest summer temperature since 1961 is 54oF (12.2oC) on 6 June 1996.
The wettest calendar year in Death Valley climate history was 1941 which saw 4.63 inches (118 mm) accumulate. The most precipitation over a 12-month period fell between 1 October 1977 and 30 September 1978: 6.40 inches (162 mm). Second was the period July 1977 to June 1978: 5.09 inches (129 mm). The wettest month was January 1995 when 2.59 inches (66 mm) accumulated. The wettest day was 15 April 1988 when 1.47 inches of rain fell. The only other day on record to exceed an inch of rain was 26 September 1997.
Death Valley precipitation records include calendar years with no precipitation: 1929 and 1953. A string of 40 months from 1 March 1931 to 30 June 1934, recorded a total of only 0.64 inches (16 mm).
Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, either underground by shaft mining, or at ground level by open pit mining, and its extraction and use are directly related to a number of adverse health and environmental consequences, including:
• 2,800 deaths from lung cancer and black lung disease in the United States alone;
• Millions of tons of waste products such as dust, fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals;
• Contamination of land, groundwater and waterways due to mining and spills such as the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill;
• Subsidence above tunnels;
• Uncontrollable coal seam fires which may burn for decades, centuries or millennia, as in Australia;
• Coal-fired power plants without effective fly ash capture systems are one of the largest sources of anthropogenic background radiation exposure.
Coal is the largest anthropogenic emitter of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming and climate change. A coal-fired power plant emits around 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide for every megawatt-hour generated, almost double the carbon dioxide released by a natural gas-fired electric plant.
Today China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal in the world, and accounts for almost half of the world’s coal consumption. Coal supplied 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption of 90 quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTUs), but the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects coal’s share of the total energy mix to fall to 59 percent by 2035 due to anticipated higher energy efficiencies and China’s stated goal to reduce its carbon intensity (carbon emissions per unit of GDP). Even so, absolute coal consumption is expected to double over this period, reflecting the large growth in total energy consumption. But coal-producing nations are equally responsible because they supply China with much of the coal it uses.
In 2011 a study determined that world proved reserves of coal would last 112 years at that year’s rate of production. However, according to the World Resources Institute, nearly 1,200 new coal-fired power plants are planned across the globe with a total proposed capacity of 1.4 million megawatts. China and India account for 76% of the proposed plants, but as pressure mounts to phase out nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japanese coal imports are likely to continue to grow as well.
In sum, despite great technological advances, mankind continues to depend on fossil fuels for most of its energy needs, unchanged from thousands of years ago. No nation has yet announced, much less committed, to a realistic, feasible plan to phase out their use. On the contrary, the world’s population will to grow to 9 billion by 2050; inevitably, that will cause an increase in the respective rates of contamination of the environment and depletion of fossil fuel reserves.
Our planet has a fever. It’s getting worse, and the trend will continue unless we do whatever it takes to redress it. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “by usufruct, the earth belongs to the living.” There is no one but us to collectively implement the drastic but feasible steps that will be required to do so.
This is a concrete, cost-effective proposal to substitute hydrogen for coal to simultaneously generate electricity, create an otherwise unobtainable new source of pure water, regardless of location and impervious to drought and climate change, and eliminate the number one source of air pollution in China. The United States would produce the hydrogen exclusively and profitably by electrolysis of seawater using solar power only, with zero carbon dioxide emissions.
On February 17, 2012, an article in the Shanghai Daily reported that 40 percent of China’s rivers are seriously polluted, two thirds of Chinese cities are “water needy,” 300 million people in rural areas lack access to drinking water, and 20 percent of rivers are too toxic to even touch. In response, it continued, the State Council unveiled a guideline to cap the maximum volume of water use at 700 billion cubic meters by the end of 2030 and tighten its supervision over exploitation of underground water and other sources of drinking water.
Rationale
As the consequences to the environment of anthropomorphic climate change continue to worsen, it behooves us all to do what we can to mitigate their effect. The solution is well known: cease and desist using nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity and run motor vehicles. One obvious way to do so is to replace them with hydrogen from the ocean. At issue is whether existing electrolysis technology can use seawater directly without first desalinizing it to produce hydrogen profitably. Here’s an analysis written in 2010 describing the electrochemical intricacies of three types of water used in electrolysis, including seawater. At least one water splitter able to produce hydrogen up to 99% pure from seawater exists (details here). The latter of course is of paramount importance since three fourths of our planet’s surface is covered with it. The analysis shows that chlorine, not oxygen, is the default byproduct of electrolysis of seawater. As it happens, this is fortuitous because that same chlorine could be used to treat the freshwater produced when the hydrogen is recombined with oxygen to generate electricity.
Figure 1 shows that freshwater created as a byproduct of the oxidation of hydrogen can be used and reused over and over to generate additional electricity as it flows down the mountain by gravity and turns as many turbines as the mountain can accommodate. Their combined output should recover and exceed the energy used to produce the hydrogen. Thus, not only is the system (several systems could be connected in series) self-sustaining in terms of energy, it actually should generate a surplus of it. No other method of generating electricity has the ability to create water –not even hydro, which uses existing freshwater to turn its turbines and requires costly dams that disrupt the local ecosystem.
The system’s components need not be contiguous. For example, the electrolysis could take place anywhere –at cities on sun-drenched islands such as Honolulu, San Juan, Havana or Las Palmas- in which case the hydrogen and chlorine would be exported by ship, or in (currently idle) inland potential powerhouses like Death Valley. At any port elsewhere both would be unloaded and distributed by pipeline (in the case of hydrogen, the cost would be minimal because it is the lightest element in the periodic table) to remote, suitable mountains towering over bone-dry valleys and plateaus such as the vast arid and semi-arid regions in central Asia north of the Himalayas, north-central Mexico, the Sahara Desert, the west coast of South America, the Kalahari Desert, the Middle East, and the American Southwest. That way the hydrogen systems and their associated mountaintop hydro plants could irrigate the valleys below to grow food (and other vegetation, to help recycle the carbon dioxide already in the air and reverse desertification) and support a local population where it was previously impossible to do so. Some of the electricity could be used locally; the rest could be transmitted, over long distances if necessary, to distant thirsty mega-cities like Beijing, New Delhi, Amman, Teheran, Lima, Madrid, and Phoenix.
Of particular interest is that –in effect- these systems would redistribute “frozen” (in the hydrogen) sunlight and water from sun-drenched tropical and sub-tropical shores to areas with minimal precipitation or with cold winters (mostly in the northern hemisphere) that use vast amounts of fossil fuels to power their heating systems.
Conclusion
The mass production of hydrogen in the Southwest of the United States and elsewhere with abundant sun and seawater would eventually eliminate the need for nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity. As a result, the diminished need for oil and gas in particular would greatly reduce the probability of terminal wars over them among the great powers. The manufacture of water in areas where there isn’t any would support irrigation to grow food and other plant life with the capacity to recycle excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Finally, additional food and water would be most welcome in a world expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, and the gradual reduction in the distribution of wealth without resorting to new taxes, confiscations or other drastic measures would reduce the likelihood of civil strife.
Figure 2 describes one way (alternatives exist) to finance new construction of an infrastructure (Figure 1) intended for persons with a projected minimum 30-year labor participation life. It assumes a political consensus has been reached that:
1. New infrastructure is needed to rejuvenate the ability of the United States to successfully and peacefully compete with economies with much larger populations in the 21st century and beyond.
2. Today’s heavily indebted, cash-poor government does not have the resources to finance a massive infrastructure effort without the participation of private capital.
3. New taxes are out of the question. The vast majority of people are hard pressed as it is, and taxing the rich only would not yield the magnitude of capital needed to ensure success. Instead, a new Infrastructure Investment Bank backed by the Federal Reserve that offers a steady, safe and competitive return might encourage wealthy individuals, pension funds, insurance companies and other institutions with idle surplus cash to invest in it.
4. One of the reasons why the gap in the distribution of wealth exists is because a very small percentage of the population owns the bulk of the means of production while the rest essentially work for them. Accordingly, the remedy is to create a separate path for participating workers to accumulate enough wealth to see them through a comfortable retirement without social security.
5. The Death Valley canal is a necessity, not an extravagant pipe dream; it would be wide and deep enough to allow at least two shipping lanes between the ocean and a new deep-water inland port roughly 200 miles east of Los Angeles, complete with new railroads and freeways connecting it to corresponding existing networks.
6. The Infrastructure Investment Bank would finance it all, including the transition to exclusive solar generation in existing sun-drenched cities throughout the Southwest to support expansion of Plan A to a network of dry lakebeds and canals adjacent or in close proximity to Death Valley.
7. Existing power utilities would be gradually and incrementally relieved of the responsibility to generate electricity. Instead, for a grandfathered limited time and a reasonable fee, they would continue to monitor, service and expand the existing grid as needed. After that they would compete with other independent contractors.
Pundits have been comparing the “fall” of Kabul to Saigon. The pandemonium is certainly similar. But today the Vietnamese work very hard for their living, just as they did during the war. About three-quarters of them live in country areas and villages growing rice and fruit trees or raising livestock. More importantly –as far as is publicly known- there are no mass executions. Perhaps 50 years from now –if humanity is still around- the current animosity in Afghanistan will have subsided and people will be living their lives out more or less normally.
The Vietnam fiasco did not have consequences in terms of the propagation of communism; in fact, the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1989, and China subsequently adopted many capitalist reforms that propelled it to the growing powerhouse it is today. These events were unthinkable as American helicopters lifted desperate people out of Saigon’s embassy rooftop in 1975.
The similarities between Saigon and Kabul are misleading, coincidental and superficial. Nixon ended the Vietnam war primarily because the American people did not support it and Congress refused to continue paying for it. Today the geopolitical reality stemming from the unprecedented, meteoric rise of China’s economic and military might is an entirely different matter. The quality, quantity, efficiency, and technological sophistication of its navy and air force continue to grow in leaps and bounds, and so is their nuclear arsenal.
Viewed in that context America’s departure from Afghanistan is reminiscent of Rome’s futile withdrawal from Britannia around 410, to help fend off the barbarians who had crossed the Rhine in the winter of 406-407. It still didn’t prevent the Empire’s demise 66 years later, in 476. From a military perspective Afghanistan, a landlocked country, is a dead-end mousetrap consuming lives and vast economic resources that could be advantageously redeployed elsewhere. It is surrounded by nations hostile to the U.S. –Iran to the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (former Soviet Republics) to the north, China to the east, and Pakistan (a dubious American ally) to the south and southwest.
In short, the preemptive but ominous withdrawal from Afghanistan, a course of action on which former President Trump and President Biden agree, makes sense. The U.S. and China are squaring off, among other things, over the South China Sea and Taiwan, and no one knows how that’s going to play out.
