Could the melting water be used to drive a generator, that cools the ice?
Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
#22How many of these things would be needed? It seems a great idea if you can harvest the melt water directly, but the idea is to let it seep into the streams and rivers. This thing looks big, but compared to the volume of water carried by even a tiny stream it is nothing. Water for drinking is measured in liters. Water for agriculture is measured in terms of acre-feet (just over 1x10^6 liters). I'm thinking perhaps a m…
A nice thing about this is that you can deploy them incrementally. A large dam is more of an all-or-nothing proposition.
Re: Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
#23Could the melting water be used to drive a generator, that cools the ice?
Just remember that it will never be “free” energy, there will at least be thermodynamic losses in principle, and that will be greatly amplified in reality.
Re: Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
#24How many of these things would be needed? It seems a great idea if you can harvest the melt water directly, but the idea is to let it seep into the streams and rivers. This thing looks big, but compared to the volume of water carried by even a tiny stream it is nothing. Water for drinking is measured in liters. Water for agriculture is measured in terms of acre-feet (just over 1x10^6 liters). I'm thinking perhaps a m…
A nice thing about this is that you can deploy them incrementally. A large dam is more of an all-or-nothing proposition.
On a river system a system of dams can be incremental. Giant dams are all about creating water pressure for power generation. If you are interested in mitigating water flow over the course of a year within a watershed then a series of much smaller structures can be built incrementally.
There is a very western parallel to this issue. Most ski resorts are suffering from reduced snow and earlier springs. To feed their snow-making equipment they need water, preferably water that doesn't need to be pumped up a mountain or harvested from a protected river. Look around and you'll see alpine dams being build and expanded at large resorts. These aren't holding back streams, they are using terrain to store water/snow/ice in one season for use in an another, exactly the same problem.
Re: Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its how the local hospital here is cooled during the summer. Large pile of snow which is covered in wood chips. Apparently it generated 1345,3 MWh cooling energy in 2002.. http://www.snowpower.se/sundsvalls-kylanlaggning_en.asp
Cornell does something similar, using Cayuga Lake as a heat sink for their campus cooling: https://medium.com/cornell-university/lake-source-cooling-d3...
I heard that they actually changed the temperature of the lake that way.
Re: Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
#26Reminds me of the Yakhchāl I've visited in Yazd, Iran. They used to sell ice from those in the summer to traders travelling the Silk Road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l
It's pretty amazing what they were able to accomplish with aqueducts so long ago.
Re: Can ice structures solve a Himalayan water crisis?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
A nice thing about this is that you can deploy them incrementally. A large dam is more of an all-or-nothing proposition.
On a river system a system of dams can be incremental. Giant dams are all about creating water pressure for power generation. If you are interested in mitigating water flow over the course of a year within a watershed then a series of much smaller structures can be built incrementally. There is a very western parallel to this issue. Most ski resorts are suffering from reduced snow and earlier springs. To feed their s…
Oh, true about water retention vs power generation.