The length of a canal from the Pacific to Death Valley would be about 200 miles, similar to the Turkish Straits -from the southern end of the Dardanelles to the northern end of the Bosporus. The Black Sea is 56.2 times larger (168,500 sq mi) and 25.7 times deeper (7,257 ft) than Death Valley; due to river water it receives from large Eurasian fluvial systems, including the Don, the Dnieper and the Danube, the Black Sea’s water balance is positive (more water flows from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean than the other way around), cooler, less saline and less dense than the Sea of Marmara. These differences generate a deep anoxic flow with a volume equivalent to the sixth largest river on Earth if it were on land. The minimum width of the Bosporus is approximately 765 yards (2,295 ft); its average depth, 213 feet.
There are no fluvial systems flowing into Death Valley, therefore its water balance would be negative and flow in only one direction –from the Pacific. Accordingly, the canal’s capacity would have to be large enough to instantly replenish the water that the system would constantly lose due to evaporation, distribution, desalinization and electrolysis.
The magnitude of this enterprise due to the mountainous terrain would dwarf the Panama and Suez canals combined, however it should be noted that both were built long ago with obsolete equipment and technology to accommodate much smaller ships. With today’s equipment, it would still be enormously difficult and expensive, however the alternative of not doing anything is much worse. Not only would that eliminate the need for pipelines, inland ports could be built to export the hydrogen and other products.
The opium trade of the 18th and 19th centuries was Britain’s solution to its chronic trade deficit with China. The reason for the deficit was an extraordinarily high demand for Chinese commodities in Europe and little or no demand for European goods in China. The problem was compounded because the only commodity that China accepted in payment was silver, preferably Spanish Carolus coins. Prior to 1810 the British had been able to obtain the coins primarily through trade, however beginning that year Spain’s supply of silver began to decline -and finally ended- when its American colonies gained their independence.
Faced with dwindling reserves, the British searched for a commodity with which to pay the Chinese. Their solution was to buy cheap opium from their Indian and Burmese possessions and sell it to Chinese addicts. By the late 1830s British and American vessels were landing 30,000 chests annually, and the number of addicts grew to 12 million.
In 1839, when the Chinese Emperor attempted to halt the trade, the first Sino-British Opium War began. Following its defeat, China granted Britain most-favored nation status for trade, ceded the island of Hong Kong, accepted the principle of extraterritoriality -whereby British merchants would no longer be held accountable to Chinese laws- and opened Shanghai, Canton, Ningbo, Foochow and Amoy to western trade. In 1844 the United States and France extracted similar concessions.
In 1854 the British further demanded that China open all its ports to foreign trade, legalize the importation of opium from British India and Burma, and exempt British goods from all import duties. In 1857, when the Chinese demurred, British and American warships were sent to Canton, and France and Russia joined. Following its second defeat, China ceded the port of Kowloon to Britain, agreed to export indentured Chinese laborers to the United States and Canada, and legalized the importation of opium.
“Misunderstanding of the present grows fatally from ignorance of the past” -Marc Leopold Bloch
1962 – Cold War I
The end of Cold War I, widely viewed in the west as proof of the innate superiority of capitalism over communism, led some to believe that the disappearance of ideological antagonism between the United States and Russia, the Soviet Union’s successor, would yield “peace dividends.” With the issue settled and the consequent diminished probability of a nuclear war between the former foes, so the argument went, it seemed logical to assume that America’s defense budget would be demobilized from the war footing it had been on since World War II.
2014 – Cold War 2?
As we know, that has yet to happen. In 2013 U.S. defense-related expenditure was approximately $640 billion, exceeding China ($188B), Russia ($87B), Saudi Arabia ($67B), France ($61.2B), Britain ($57.9B), Germany ($48.8B), India ($47.4B), and South Korea ($33.9B) combined, and significantly more than the Congressional Budget’s Office 2014 projected deficit of $514B.
State-sponsored communism imploded because its fundamental tenet –perpetual self-sacrifice of the individual for the benefit of the state- is anathema to human nature. No doubt other species with highly structured and –it is duly noted- very successful societies might agree with it, but human beings are keenly aware of their mortality and short youth, and most yearn for the freedom and means to make their lives worth living while it matters. Except for the truly saintly, few willingly make vows of poverty or accept a perpetual state of subservience. No, capitalism did not defeat communism. Communism self destructed because it failed to deliver.
Accordingly, on the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, with all its lessons the world has yet to heed, it seems in right order to review how capitalism has performed relative to the middle and working classes since that fateful night when East Berliners scaled and sat on the infamous wall. Scores of charts and data on the distribution of wealth and income indicate that the rich got richer and the poor poorer, that the trend continues unabated and that it is accelerating. At this rate, the day will come when there will be little or no difference between capitalism and communism with respect to the distribution of income and wealth.
Overwhelming wealth conveys near absolute power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; worse, wealth tolerates no dissent because it exists only to perpetually replicate itself even though it exists in a finite world with a growing population. Clearly we can have either a plutocracy or a democracy, but we can’t have both. Unsurprisingly, many of today’s rivalries, intrigues and conspiracies coalesce around domination –though not necessarily outright ownership- of the world’s gas and oil reserves and the global financial system. Whoever succeeds in doing so will rule the world for the foreseeable future.
The rise of the global economy and global warming accelerated concurrently with the demise of institutionalized communism and its aftermath, and for the vast majority of people everywhere the result has been nothing less than catastrophic:
1) A wealth gap so wide, according to numbers compiled by Credit Suisse in its latest World Wealth report, that the top 1% control 46% of the world’s assets, and 86% of global wealth is owned by the richest 10%; in the U.S., the richest 1% own more than 35% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 50% together share just 2.5%. In demographic terms, the 400 richest Americans are wealthier than the bottom 150 million Americans put together. 2) Global warming. There is an ongoing mass die out of land and marine species directly attributable to it, and no one knows what the consequences will be. The ocean, which absorbs about one-third of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions at a rate of 300 tons per second, is now 30 percent more acidic than before the Industrial Revolution. This has harmed marine food webs with all the ripple effect that it entails. 3) Water. Rising demand and climate change will exacerbate water problems worldwide. By mid century the world’s population is expected to reach 9.6 billion. As a result, the demand for water is likely to increase by 55%, exacerbating the already very severe shortages. That may very well lead to wars, famine and other disasters.
Most politicians, economists and scientists agree that these issues are unsustainable, unacceptable and extremely dangerous, yet so far no one has outlined a specific, feasible plan to resolve all three simultaneously. Some suggest reforming the tax code, an understatement to say the least, as if that were the equivalent of restoring the millions of well-paying middle class jobs that were outsourced over the last forty years. Others choose to highlight the number of jobs created since the end of the Great Recession but fail to mention that:
Well in excess of 40% of them are low paying retail jobs.
Today’s autoworkers in the U.S. are paid about half of what their parents used to make.
The labor participation rate stands at just over 62%, the lowest ever.
The nation’s home ownership rate in the first quarter of 2014 fell to 64.8%, the lowest in 19 years.
The pace of rent increases over the past decade has been double the growth in incomes.
New construction of small, 2-bedroom single family homes for first-time buyers in non-wealthy areas is practically nonexistent.
The total debt of the federal government at the end of fiscal 2013 -including both the debt held by the public and the intragovernmental debt- was $16.72 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2024, the total debt of the federal government will be $27.16 trillion—of which $20.95 trillion will be debt held by the public. In simple terms, over the long run deficits will rise to unsustainable levels relative to the economy.
Industry estimates of long-range energy demand suggest oil and natural gas will remain essential growing sources of energy in the coming decades despite international efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. Natural gas, which emits roughly half the carbon dioxide as coal but which is roughly 75% methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is expected to grow faster than any other fuel type; therefore its chemical composition and growing demand, particularly in China and India, should result in higher net emissions of greenhouse gases.
The situation is too far gone for cosmetic, half-hearted tweaks. It calls for fundamental, drastic structural changes, which are in any case inevitable. The only question is whether our elected representatives can summon the willpower and courage to take meaningful action to achieve a soft landing. The alternative -doing nothing of consequence- borders on suicidal.
The Andes extend 7,000 kilometers (4,349 miles), from Venezuela to Chile.
The Andes region
Nowhere else on Earth is there another mountain range adjacent to the ocean and of this length and height.
The ocean’s close proximity to the Andes means solar powered plants could be built on or close to the shore to produce green hydrogen by electrolysis. Hydrogen, not water, would be pumped up to them. Some of the peaks exceed 20,000 feet.
There, hydrogen-burning power plants would be built.
The plants would use advanced hydrogen turbines that do not require fuel cells.
When hydrogen is burned, water vapor is produced. Instead of letting it dissipate, it would be condensed and stored.
Terraces would be carved below the hydrogen plants.
Each level would have hydroelectric turbines powered by the water produced by the hydrogen plants above them.
The combined electricity generated by all the hydro turbines driven by the same pressurized water (aquafacture) cascading down thousands of feet should greatly exceed the energy spent in the electrolysis process. A portion of the surplus electricity could be used to produce more hydrogen to fire up other arrays; surplus hydrogen would be exported to clients anywhere in the world. Theoretically, clients should be able to replicate the system at a site of their choosing, however they would still depend on a steady supply of imported hydrogen.
While the U.S. meets all the requirements to build a vast aquafacture-based economic infrastructure, Mexico also has comparable but less capital-demanding features with which to implement Plan A.
Baja California
The Gulf of California –wholly Mexican- eliminates the need to dig a canal, and its two sparsely populated coastlines have abundant sunlight the year round.
Islands & mountains
There are mountainous islands, and the peninsula proper, over 1,000 miles long, also has a steep mountain range in the middle.
But what makes Mexico a leading candidate to become a global hydrogen producer is the need to balance its trade deficit with China, to create millions of well-paying jobs, and to replace the revenue it will lose when its oil reserves are gone. According to statistics from Mexico’s Department of Economy, in 2012 it exported $5.7 billion and imported almost $57 billion from China, a ten-fold imbalance that even the Chinese seek to redress. Accordingly, in April 2013 Pemex signed its first long-term contract to ship 30,000 barrels of oil a day to Sinopec, China’s state oil company, and Mexico’s administration has indicated that it will soon introduce legislation to allow greater international investment in its oil sector, currently a state monopoly. This is implicit recognition of the fact that Mexico needs foreign capital and expertise to search for and develop new oil and gas fields. But, should Mexico realize that hydrogen from electrolysis -a virtually unlimited resource- could be of great interest to nations whose domestic energy and/or water supplies are insufficient to meet domestic demand, it may consider developing it in earnest. One advantage Mexico has in the decision-making process over the U.S. is that it does not suffer from the same degree of gridlock.
Since the existing topographic features require little or no modification, and should the energy sector be opened to foreign investors, China and Japan, among others, would likely consider investing in the fuel of the future.
Sunny Spain and Portugal, surrounded by water on three sides. What if it they could use their sunlight, seawater and gravity to produce green hydrogen and simultaneously generate more electricity than is consumed in the process? Furthermore, what if they could export a (theoretically) unlimited amount of electricity to the rest of Europe and green hydrogen to distant, virtually insatiable energy and water markets such as China and India?
What if the Canary Islands…
and the Balearic Islands
suddenly became world-class energy exporters? Would that diversify their economies, create jobs, and improve their standard of living? Would that be enough to merit an in-depth study?
Santa Cruz is the country’s second-largest (94,187 square miles) and least densely populated (2.9 persons per square mile) province.
54 km (34 miles) SW of the port of San Julián lies the (2,900 sq km (1,119.7 sq mi) depression of the same name.
San Julian Depression, aerial view
San Julian Depression
Within the depression lies the Laguna del Carbón, an endorheic salt lake 105 meters (344 ft) below sea level, the lowest point in the Western and Southern Hemispheres and the seventh lowest point on Earth.
Laguna Del Carbon
Currently the depression has little or no use. Instead, it could be utilized to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of seawater. The first step would be to carve a sea-level canal from the coast to the depression. That would keep it full by gravity which would avoid pumping costs.
Coal is extracted from the ground either at ground level by open pit mining, or by shaft mining. The world’s top producer and user of coal (and energy in general) is China, accounting for about half of global coal consumption.
Coal-fired electric power generation emits approximately 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt-hour generated, almost double the CO2 released by natural gas-fired plants per megawatt-hour generated. Coal supplies about 70% of China’s total energy consumption, however the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that it will fall to 59% by 2035 due to higher energy efficiencies and China’s goal to reduce carbon emissions per unit of GDP. However, absolute coal consumption is expected to double over this period due to the large growth in total energy consumption.
Smog in Chinese city
Thick, off-the-scale smog routinely shrouds eastern China in winter, forcing airlines to cancel flights because of poor visibility and prompting the government to temporarily shut down factories and curtail fleets of government cars; streetlights and buildings all but disappear into the haze and pedestrians don face masks. But the problem is global: as of May 2013 worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming, carbon dioxide, reached 400 parts per million, an amount never before encountered by humans. The last time this happened was at least 2 million years (could be as much as 10 million years) ago, during the Pleistocene Era. When measurements of this gas were first taken in 1958, it was 315 ppm; currently, the concentration of CO2 is growing at about 2 parts per million per year, 100 times faster than at the end of the Ice Age. At that time it took 7,000 years for CO2 levels to rise by 80 parts per million. Now, because of burning fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil, levels have risen by the same amount in just 55 years. Natural gas, which is 75% methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, also pollutes the air, albeit at a lower rate. Today the concentration of carbon dioxide is rising at 2 ppm per year. If the entire world were to switch to gas, the concentration of CO2 would still rise at approximately 1 ppm per year, and methane would increase as well.
Earth moving equipment
Today’s giant earth-moving machines would fit right into science fiction movies, a far cry from the equipment used when the Panama Canal was built. Almost any excavation project is possible if the required technological, political, human and financial resources are brought to bear.
A sea-level canal from the Pacific Ocean
There’s no question that this project would dwarf practically any engineering endeavor ever attempted: a trench at least 200 miles long, 3,400 feet deep, depending on the route, and 500 feet wide. The cost could well be in the hundreds of billions of dollars; the exact amount would have to be determined by a feasibility study. But it would have to be done only once, and it would pay for itself over time. In any event, not seeing this through is not an option given the gravity of our economic (few well-paying jobs for the working class) and environmental condition. Instead, it should be pursued with the same urgency and intensity as if our lives depend on it, because they do.
to Death Valley.
At 282 feet below sea level, the floor of Death Valley is the lowest, driest, and hottest location in North America, about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 sq kilometers). During the middle of the Pleistocene Era it was part of a succession of inland seas, collectively referred to as Lake Manly. There are four major mountain ranges between the Valley and the ocean, each one adding to an increasing rain shadow effect. As a result, the average annual precipitation is 1.58 inches (40 mm) and the typical summer daily evaporation rate 0.75 inches/day (1.9 cm/day. It is due to these characteristics that only a sea-level canal would constantly replenish the water that would be lost to evaporation and electrolysis without incurring constant pumping costs.
The idea of consuming large tracts of flat real estate with solar panels to generate electricity makes sense only if we persist in clinging to the outdated concept that buildings must be supplied with electricity generated somewhere else. Why not install efficient solar cells on each and every new building in the desert, including homes, and distribute the profits go to homeowners instead of utility shareholders? That would create an incentive to generate as much power as possible. The resulting income stream would help pay their mortgages, reduce the risk of default and lower interest rates. Of course, utilities could still compete with other licensed contractors to monitor, maintain and repair the distribution grid, necessary for industrial-scale electrolysis and aquafacture.
Building with solar panels
Multi-story buildings have a larger theoretical capacity to generate more electricity for the same area of real estate than single family homes. The drawback is that they need additional space from other buildings of equal or greater height in order to avoid each other’s shadows. Thus, a dense forest of skyscrapers would not be ideal.
Add solar panels to any and all homes, no matter how modest,
If every home in every desert city were equipped with enough panels to produce a surplus of electricity during the day to charge batteries to be used at night, when the demand is lower, and export whatever is left to big users, the cities themselves would become the generating power plants. This disperses the generating sources, an advantage in case of war or terrorist acts.
To produce hydrogen and chlorine by electrolysis at Death Valley. Save and store the chlorine; compress and pipe the hydrogen up to…
Compressed hydrogen -not water- would be pumped uphill. The advantage is that hydrogen weighs much less than water, therefore it requires less energy to pump. Because hydrogen is lighter than air, it tends to rise. This would simply accelerate the process.
Suitable mountaintops in the desert…
This is California’s Sierra Nevada, facing north. To the west is the San Joaquin Valley (not shown), to the right is a portion of the great southwestern desert. There are many mountains and hills in the desert that rarely, if ever, get any precipitation. Below are ravines and dry river beds. Only geologically suitable mountaintops would be used.
New hydrogen power plants. Store a 24 hour supply of compressed hydrogen in man-made caverns and run the plants day and night. Fuel cells are not required.
Advanced Hydrogen Turbine
Clusters of five or more 1000-megawatt power plants would be built on top of selected mountains and use an advanced hydrogen turbine, currently under development, to burn hydrogen directly without fuel cells.
Condense and store the water vapor the plants will produce.
When hydrogen is burned, water vapor is produced. Instead of allowing it to dissipate into the atmosphere, the latter would be collected, condensed and stored
Use the same aquafactured water and gravity to turn turbines in a series of cascading plants located below the hydrogen plant. Their combined output should greatly exceed the energy used to produce, compress and pump the hydrogen. Dams are not required, only pipelines.
Below the hydrogen plant, a cascading series of water-driven turbines would be built. Costly dams would not be required, only pipes to feed the water to each successive turbine. The angle of descent and the pressure of the water would be designed to maximize efficiency. The jobs created by this system would be permanent and expandable. They would rely on free, inexhaustible raw materials (solar energy, seawater and gravity), not finite and unhealthful fossil fuels or nuclear fission.
Use the new drought-proof source of water (and the stored chlorine, to treat it as needed) to create an economic frontier in the desert and elsewhere, recharge depleted aquifers, and save crops.
This is aquafacture: the manufacture of drought-proof, pure water anywhere, even in distant inland deserts. Unlike desalination, which consumes vast amounts of energy and requires a nearby natural sea shore, aquafacture actually generates a surplus of energy, makes water, requires no exploration and mining in dangerous locations, precludes the possibility of polluting spills and radioactive accidents, ends the dumping of carbon into the atmosphere, and ushers in the possibility of making the deserts green to recycle the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. Farmers and cities would get a constant, predictable amount of energy and water the year round without the possibility of floods or droughts. The system depends exclusively on sunlight, seawater and gravity, all practically inexhaustible and free.
Using the new energy, pump seawater from Death Valley Lake to dry lakebeds throughout the Southwest.
The system is expandable. There are innumerable dry lake beds throughout the southwestern states.
Create a vast interconnected network of shallow, warm, saltwater lakes with waterfront and view real estate; perfect for tourism, retirement, water sports, and fish farms of high value endangered species. Clone the hydrogen system as desired.
Once interconnected, the resulting ecosystem would be supported and improved by life-giving water. Since so many mountains and hills surround the proposed lakes, the real estate in and around the area would have stunning views not seen in millions of years. In effect, the inland sea of prehistoric times would be restored to user-defined specifications.
Export any excess water concentrate (hydrogen) and accompanying chlorine (to treat the pure water their hydrogen plants will aquafacture) to China, a vast, insatiable and receptive market due to its
If we are to halt the emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, the chief culprits of global warming, enough hydrogen will have to be made available to China, India and Japan. They all consume enormous amounts of fossil fuels to generate electricity and will be forced to consume even more to meet future demand. China alone accounts for 50% of global coal use, and more than half of the country’s landmass has little or no water. Theoretically, even the Gobi Desert could be developed with aquafacture!
widespread, extreme pollution.
Extreme as it is, air pollution is not China’s most pressing environmental problem. The massive, continuing proliferation of factories has polluted most of its lakes and rivers.
persistent drought,
It’s not only that over half of China is extremely dry. Even areas that are supposed to have abundant rainfall have been hit with severe drought, a consequence of global warming.
and unquenchable thirst for energy to support its high growth rate.
China’s economy must grow to lift its people out of poverty. If and when its per capita income reaches parity with the U.S., its demand for energy and water will increase to levels never seen. Without aquafacture, how will they and the rest of the world meet future demand?
A win-win solution. Millions of new, well paying middle class jobs for the two largest economies powered by renewable energy. The result: clean air and water, balanced trade, and possible cooperation rather than confrontation.
Nuclear-armed mankind is at a crossroads. Either we cooperate to reverse the damage we’ve already caused to the environment, which is accelerating, or we’ll have to face consequences no one can foresee or control.
Welcome to Wikisolver, a free cooperative effort dedicated to finding feasible, practical solutions to the thorniest issues of our time, including, but not limited to, global warming, drought, and the yawning, growing gap in the distribution of income and wealth.
How It’s Organized
The site consists of one horizontal menu (in yellow letters at the top of the page), categories of posts on the left, and useful, informative external links at the bottom, sorted by topic. Plan A is a specific, feasible blueprint to simultaneously:
Halt -and eventually reverse- the accumulation of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
Prevent flooding of low-lying cities.
Conquer drought, including deserts far from any body of water where desalination is impractical or impossible.
Substantially reduce the abysmal gap in the distribution of wealth and income without necessarily resorting to onerous, egregious taxes on the rich.
The top menu includes a detailed description of how the plan works, examples of how it could be replicated in various areas with a variety of geographic, geological, topographic and cultural characteristics, and warnings of what will happen if these problems are not promptly addressed and solved.
The left menu consists of Posts related to these and other pressing issues, sorted by topic, and a Search Box. Below it is a section of useful external links, by subject. To the right of them is our Featured Post, and to the right of that is the RSS section that allows users to subscribe to any or all of the categories on the list.
NOTE: RSS Link of a particular category is the category URL followed by “/?feed=rss2” or “/feed” without the Quotes.
