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Evaporation Prevention Using Molecular Blankets
Makarand writes "According to this article in the
New Scientist, a Canadian company is testing a
technology to reduce water evaporation from reservoirs by
spreading an ultra-thin blanket of organic molecules on the surface to block the escape
of water molecules into the air.
Trials conducted in India and Morocco showed between 30 and 45 per cent reduction in evaporation
using this method. However,
the long term ecological effects of reducing evaporation in lakes or reservoirs is not yet clear
as evaporation prevention can increase water temperatures and affect the exchange rates of gases
such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide."
same result, you get a nice film on the surface and damages the local ecology plus you can get it from your local gas station
how about spending money on better infrastructure or de-salination plants first ? then you wouldnt need to stop evaporation, remember 80% of the globe is covered with H2O so evaporation is not the problem
However, the long term ecological effects of reducing evaporation in lakes or reservoirs is not yet clear as evaporation prevention can increase water temperatures and affect the exchange rates of gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide."
Don't forget possible changes to the weather. For instance, there are a number of areas whose climate and micro-climate are influenced by nearby bodies of water.
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Just wait until they make a version that replicates.. so you can pour 1 cup in a lake and in a few days it covers the lake....
Then wait until someone pours a cup of this into the oceans.
Then wait when it stops raining and we all die.
YAY
I would think that if water cant get out kinetically then air and nitrogen cant get in. so you can kiss all fish and algea goodbye.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
However, the long term ecological effects of reducing evaporation in lakes or reservoirs is not yet clear as evaporation prevention can increase water temperatures and affect the exchange rates of gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
This seems like a pretty critical area of the research. If the water becomes stagnant and full of algae or dead fish, what good is it?
This could have unforeseen effects on the local ecosystem.
Unforseen? Maybe if you have your eyes and ears taped shut? Forgive me for being cynical, but it seems so many scientists are out for a little fame and don't see the big pictures.
Call me silly... but, isn't water evaporation part of the cycle of weather? Take out one part and the machine doesn't work. I hope that this "technology" is not used on a large scale. The implications concerning local weather patterns could be devastating.
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Last time I checked, something called "rain" is made possible by evaporation from lakes, resiorvoirs, etc. Wouldn't preventing evaporation prevent rain? Rain happens to be a great way to irrigate fields, and is very good for our environment...
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This would be great for those of us in the intermountain west.
Our reservoirs lose tons of water over the long hot dry days of summer. Add that to the 5 year drought we're in....and it'd help enormously. Of course, that would probably mean boats and jetskis would be off limits during that time, but having water is more important that having fun.
My first thought was the same as yours -- oil on water and asphyxiating fish. But that might not be the case.
They claim that their technique produces a monolayer on the surface. That's a layer one molecule thick. This would easily be disturbed by the slightest motion or breeze. The tiniest ripple would create local openings. In fact, this is probably why their reduction in water loss is so small -- only tens of percent. Lots of water gets out. This implies that lots of gases could also get in. (i.e., gas exchange with the atmosphere would perhaps be inhibited by tens of percent amount.)
It's kind of annoying that these days, when any new technology arrives, it is subject to a ridiculously paranoid environmentalism filter. Resevoir water is about .0001% of all water on the planet and people are worried about gas exchange and the temperature of it! Enough to deprive populations in the developing world of clean drinking water? I was suprised that the cost of the system wasn't mentioned in the header, only the environmental impact.
I work in the water treatment business, and I've visited water treatment plants all over North America. The thing that is common to all water supplies is that the customers think they have some sort of a "right" to unlimited clean water without sacrifice. They grumble and complain and write woefully misinformed letters to their newspapers when the local water company attempts to raise rates to cover infrastructure improvements or cost-of-living salary increases.
What people don't see is that treating water to make it drinkable costs money. If you could see the way water infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada is degrading and how the water industry (especially production and distribution companies) are being forced to ignore staffing and capital improvement needs just because their customers vote for the government to force low rates, you'd understand.
If water prices were allowed to fluctuate more realistically, people wouldn't waste so much of it. Really, in the U.S. and Canada, people pay over US$1.00 for a silly little bottle of water that isn't even guaranteed to have as good quality as tapwater, and then they balk at rate increases of a few pennies per thousand gallons!
If water prices more accurately reflected the true costs of production and distribution, people would think twice about watering their desert lawns. They'd go out and buy water saving appliances on their own, since it would directly translate into savings on their next water bill.
The only thing compulsory water conservation accomplishes is building a bloated bureaucracy of bill checkers, house inspectors and intrusions into the private lives of citizens. Realistic water rates encourage conservation, reduce the load on local governments who have to redirect resources from fire departments, roads, etc., to enforcement of water use regulations, and above all, give consumers more respect for the vital natural resource they've been pouring down the drain ever since Roman times.