Re: Greenhelm Engineering Opportunities

On Sep 7, 7:18 pm, bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 8, 11:45 am, mrdarr...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:



On Sep 7, 3:55 pm, "J.A. Legris" <jaleg...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 7, 6:06 pm, "flaviu.bar...@xxxxxxxxx" <flaviu.bar...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Greenhelm Engineering is looking for volunteers who wish to make a
difference by applying their engineering and technical skills. To get
involved in the Greenhelm projects or to learn more about the
organization, please visitwww.greenhelm.com.

Greenhelm Engineering is a non-profit professional organization that
works to strengthen communities and eradicate poverty through
implementing engineering solutions that improve life conditions.

Greenhelm was founded in June 2007 by a group of engineering students
from Canada and Germany willing to apply their knowledge and their
ideas to help people in need.

Our goal is to apply our knowledge and engineering skills to implement
basic technological improvements in regions where people's well being
depends on them.

Greenhelm volunteers are trying to balance the fulfillment of human
needs with the protection of the natural environment, thus
contributing to a safe and sustainable development.

Fullfillment of human needs and protecting the natural environment are
incompatible goals unless you invent a workable scheme to keep your
beneficiaries in a technologically augmented state of zero-population
growth and zero economic growth, completely cut off from the rest of
humanity. It sounds rather nice to me, but you'll likely get hauled
over the coals for even proposing it. Anything less (or should I say
more) is delusional.

--
Joe

Depends on your definition of "protecting" the natural environment.
Conversion of desert land (most of Nevada and Australia, for instance)
into farmland is different from, say, producing phosgene and dumping
waste product into the local river.

The depressing thing is that it isn't as different as you'd like to
thing.

Converting desert to farmland involves getting water from somewhere -
either diverting a river, and turning someone else's well-watered land
into desert, or draining a subterranean aquifer.

Once you've run the water through your farmland, and loaded it up with
salts and excess fertiliser, you do have to be a bit careful where it
goes.

There are once productive fields in Australia and Pakistan that have
salted up to the point where they are useless for agriculture or
grazing because the people who irrigated them didn't think carefully
enough about what they were doing.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen


You raise some excellent points.

A desalter *could* be used to turn brackish water from an underground
aquifer, or a nearby salty lake, into something more useful for
plants. Ideally, solar, though that raises its own can of worms (and
is typically expensive).

It won't be easy, of course. The idea is to turn an otherwise idle
workforce into something beneficial to themselves and to others.
(Otherwise, the idle workforce might turn to theft or violence.)

For sure, some desert snakes, insects, foxes and rodents may be out of
a home, if they cannot adapt. Though, as someone once said, if it
comes down to survival for either my dog Fido or me, I intend to
win...

Michael R. Darrett, P.E.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Greenhelm Engineering Opportunities
    ... implementing engineering solutions that improve life conditions. ... Conversion of desert land ... into farmland is different from, say, producing phosgene and dumping ... Converting desert to farmland involves getting water from somewhere - ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
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  • Re: Using nuclear power to make renewables and a hydrogen economy cost effective
    ... > Obviously we need to put more effort into the production of biodiesel. ... > about as much as goes into the production of fossil fuels! ... > Why are you so convinced that irrigation is necessary to grow a desert plant ... > seriously reduce the evaporation rate and thus water requirements. ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Using nuclear power to make renewables and a hydrogen economy cost effective
    ... > Obviously we need to put more effort into the production of biodiesel. ... > about as much as goes into the production of fossil fuels! ... > Why are you so convinced that irrigation is necessary to grow a desert plant ... > seriously reduce the evaporation rate and thus water requirements. ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: dehydrated runners
    ... US infantry soldiers trudge across a hill in the desert in the El Guettar ... but they'll slow the loss of water. ... marathon runners were still advised not to drink during races ...
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