What is going on in Flint?

seabeerob213

i think reverse osmosis needs to be made the standard everywhere. it can be set up to desalinate or not, it makes the water so clean the water has to be hardened or blended with untreated water to prevent corrosion of metal pipes. ph is more easily adjusted with uniformly clean water being churned out, and chlorination is easier. as for the lead joined pipes, they can be chemically grouted, which would allow them to solve this issue without digging up the entire distribution system. the line the inside of the pipe with a bladder, then fill the void between pipe wall and bladder with an epoxy, it sets as basically a new pipe fit tight to the inside of the existing. it would repair all the leaks, and give a little more pressure, although volume would suffer a little, and there may be more strain on distro pumps.

seabeerob213

IF you have lead or other heavy metals, DO NOT boil your water, because, in all essense, youre concentrating it. the metal doesnt boil, nor do the particles get carried of by rising vapours.

mhardy6647

RO can indeed generate very pure water (it's standard practice in my business), and very pure water is indeed ASTONISHINGLY corrosive (because, thermodynamically, it "wants" to be saturated with, e.g., various metal ions).

The problem with RO is that it is extremely inefficient in terms of the amount of water required (feedstream) and the energy input (pressure-driven, usually, requiring pumps of some sort) to generate high purity water. I guess the former's not a big problem for sea water, but the latter is.

Actually, in biotech, the standard is so called RODI (reverse osmosis/deionized) water and it is indeed very clean.

seabeerob213

i worked at an RO plant the whole time i was in sicily, im familiar with them, the good thing is, you can isolate them, if there is low demand you can run less ro units to keep your tanks full, yes those ro feed and second pass boosters are indeed hungry, hours needed 480v power. reject water can be rerouted back to raw water storage or into the storm system, where it will either make its way back through multimedia filters and be good for treatment, or back into the ecosystem.

tonyb

mhardy6647 wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

I know I've harped on this before, but.....instead of sinking all those billions into solar and electric cars which in the grand scheme of things means squat, how about sinking it into infrastructure ? Making sure we have the best available, and most, clean water ? Into research to turn sea water into fresh. That would have a more lasting effect on human kind imho.

That's enough common sense for one day....I better stop before the po-lice come a knockin'. lol

That's an interesting point -- I think (?) it's because infrastructure isn't sexy; "technology" is. Hard to get folks excited about digging up old pipes and putting in new ones -- or replacing a bridge (work which just mucks up their commutes).

Consequently, as is oft said, our infrastructure is indeed "crumbling".

As an aside -- turning sea water into fresh is straightforward -- just not terribly cost effective in most jurisdictions. I think that the thermodynamics of desalinization will mean it shall ever be thus.

There are places (the Middle East and San Diego being two) where the cost is bearable, it seems.

Like all things Mr. H, we just need better technology to obtain a plausible way of turning salt water into fresh. If we can accomplish that, think of the changes it would bring to fresh water starved nations like in Africa, our own farmers here, not to mention improving the quality of the water here through better H20 infrastructure AND the improved health benefits that would accompany that.

To me anyway, if your going to spend hundreds of billions, let it be for something beneficial to everyone in so many ways rather than some solar panels that will only benefit a few in sunny locations or who can afford them.

While solar and electric cars are nice ideas, we don't NEED them, but we DO need clean water and lots of it.

tonyb

seabeerob213 wrote: »

i think reverse osmosis needs to be made the standard everywhere. it can be set up to desalinate or not, it makes the water so clean the water has to be hardened or blended with untreated water to prevent corrosion of metal pipes. ph is more easily adjusted with uniformly clean water being churned out, and chlorination is easier. as for the lead joined pipes, they can be chemically grouted, which would allow them to solve this issue without digging up the entire distribution system. the line the inside of the pipe with a bladder, then fill the void between pipe wall and bladder with an epoxy, it sets as basically a new pipe fit tight to the inside of the existing. it would repair all the leaks, and give a little more pressure, although volume would suffer a little, and there may be more strain on distro pumps.

seabeerob213 wrote: »

i think reverse osmosis needs to be made the standard everywhere. it can be set up to desalinate or not, it makes the water so clean the water has to be hardened or blended with untreated water to prevent corrosion of metal pipes. ph is more easily adjusted with uniformly clean water being churned out, and chlorination is easier. as for the lead joined pipes, they can be chemically grouted, which would allow them to solve this issue without digging up the entire distribution system. the line the inside of the pipe with a bladder, then fill the void between pipe wall and bladder with an epoxy, it sets as basically a new pipe fit tight to the inside of the existing. it would repair all the leaks, and give a little more pressure, although volume would suffer a little, and there may be more strain on distro pumps.

We have a system here already to do that, but not for water pipes. It's used on sanitary pipes when tearing up the street isn't feasible or cost effective. You can't get water pipes dry enough in order to use the same process. A cast iron water pipe today will last 50 years if not longer because we have special coatings for the outside of the pipe to help it from corroding in bad ground. We even use heavy wall plastic pipe for water but it's pretty expensive. The benefit there is hardly no build up of garbage on the inside over time. An Iron pipe....I've cut into some 30 year old Iron pipe and almost half the diameter is filled solid with minerals that harden over time. Ever open a fire hydrant and see all the rust and gunk that comes out the first 30 seconds ? Same stuff that's in your water lines going to your house.

You worry about the inside of the pipes, the outside is important too because of all the junk in the ground these days that will corrode metal. To think we grow our food in this ground too.