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In Reply to: RE: Hug a tree hugger posted by Inmate51 on August 14, 2012 at 19:31:10
Depending on the standard of living you expect, the world IS in a potable water shortage.
Out here on the left coast, Palm Springs grows green lawns in front of every house and has dozens of golf courses, watered several times daily. The water table is falling several feet per year.
So Cal is a desert receiving no more than 1' of water per year.
The Colorado river reaches the Sea Of Cortez less than 1 time per decade.
The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted faster than replenishment....and this supplies much of the water for the US.
I'll post a photo of Hoover Dam....the upstream side is AT LEAST 100 feet low. And leaves a world class bathtub ring.
This is as much a population problem.....7 billion on the planet, give or take, as it is a political problem.
Too much is never enough
Follow Ups:
"Depending on the standard of living you expect"Ya know, the 7 billion people aren't all living on continental North America. Heck, just a week or two ago, I read that, get this... 600 million, yes, 600 million, people in India (that's ONE country, not a continent) were without electricity, due to a storm. Putting it into perspective, there are about 310 million people in the entire U.S.
The usage of water in the U.S. has ZERO effect on people in India, China, or the African continent, the three of which account for the large majority of people on the planet, and it doesn't even matter to Canada and Mexico.
Potable water is where there is water and water treatment plants and delivery infrastructure, and no amount of "saving water" is going to help anyone somewhere else.
What is so irritating is that governmental agencies and politicians in the U.S. have completely failed in their responsibility to plan and build robust water availability and delivery systems, and yet have allowed over-building of business and residential areas which clearly need the water. This isn't rocket science.
Back to the standard of living thingy... This is the United States in 2012. Why are we still talking about this?!! Water and electricity should be cheap and plentiful. But we have politicians and emotionalists who refuse to allow it.
:)
Edits: 08/15/12 08/15/12
Our master bath is on the opposite end of the house from the water heater. We keep a tall bucket (pool chlorine container) in the whirlpool tub (colossal waste of space IMO) and run the water into the bucket until the hot water arrives. Then turn on the shower and hop in. I then pour the water into the pool or onto plants.
Every little bit helps...
Good for you. My wife wastes more air-conditioning electricity taking one cereal box out to the recycling dumpster than that box will EVER return in environmental benefits. Why does she do it? Because she knows that I'll just throw it into the wastebasket and get on with things.
And don't even get me started on light bulbs. $20 for a stinkin' LED bulb? LEDs are a dime a dozen. I gotta get a piece of that action. Who in their right mind would spend $20 for a light bulb when 60 watt incandescent bulbs are 4 for two bucks?
"Under my plan, energy prices would necessarily skyrocket." Who said that?
:)
"Good for you. My wife wastes more air-conditioning electricity taking one cereal box out to the recycling dumpster than that box will EVER return in environmental benefits."When I hear environmental lobbyists going on about the wasteful ways I wonder about all those jetliner flights they take and wonder if their Prius's make-up for their 3800 square foot heated and cooled homes.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
More expensive doesn't necessarily mean better.
Edits: 08/16/12
"I wonder about all those jetliner flights they take"
Hey, at least they're tax-free.
;)
I view incandescent bulbs as heat sources. I loathe the idea of incandescent bulbs being used in the house during summer months. But, like you, I cannot justify LED's in every fixture. Even CFL's get very warm to the touch. During the winter months I say let those babies burn!
My wife is bad about walking out of a room and leaving the light(s) on. When the outside temp is 105 F, it chaps my behind to see a 4-bulb fixture fitted with 60W incandescents being left on while she heads to another part of the house. But in her defense, we have a 3500 sf house that she keeps clean, she works part-time, and we have 2 elementary-age boys who keep her on her toes while I am working.
As far as recycling, we keep a basket in the laundry room. Once the basket gets full it is taken out to the larger, curbside bin. Fewer trips to the garage.
I have purchased 2 LED floods so far. One over the front door and one over the kitchen sink. They were ~$45 each. I wanted a long-lasting bulb out front as the fixture is 15' overhead and gets left on on occasion. For ambient light after sundown I installed the other over the kitchen sink. My mind is eased knowing the light is not coming from a bulb that is, what, a couple hundred degrees F?
The fact that most things....from population to resource usage grow exponentially means that a wall will eventually be reached.
Doesn't matter what it is. Oil? Food? Pollution? Mineral Resources? Water? The fact is that Earth...and we ARE all in it together and continue to use more of everything while resources are typically finite. Even substitutes typically cost much more. A 60 watt CFL uses about 13 watts or maybe 17va. (power factor). Here in California, you'll eventually have to bootleg in regular incandescent lamps. I use CFL where they'll do the most good / cost effective. I have one as my garage light over the washer / drier. They last for 10 years and outlast well over their cost in 100 watt bulbs.
In my studio lights, I use REGULAR bulbs since I need to dim them and they are used sparingly.
10 months a year, I use less than 400kwh per month. Summer? more because of AC usage. The ceiling fan has paid for itself in other energy savings. If the Al Gore article is correct, he uses more power than 4 or 5 homes like mine. The point of the article is NOT that he uses so much power, but the fact that he lectures OTHERS to conserve. I wonder how many corporate jets he's ridden in his career? Than his son gets a ticket for > 100mph in a PRIUS of all things. Great.
As far as LED lights go.....and for that matter, the semiconductor part of CFLs, these are wafer fabrication produced devices. Very chemical intense. Hydrofluoric Acid, Hydrochloric Acid. Hydrogen Peroxide in the liquids. Boron, Arsenic and Phosphoris gasses. Countless compounds and proprietary chemicals. Not to mention the equipment used in the manufacture, and what it takes to make THAT. This industry is well and highly regulated. Even California still has a few fabs.....with 6 digit electric bills to boot.
We put out 3 different 'bins' each week. Garbage. Recyclables. Green. I spend some time each week making sure that aluminum, cardboard and plastics get recycled. Green is all garden while garbage is what's left. The trucks are highly motivated and Waste Management is making billions in profits. I can take my used motor oil and electronics and some other stuff to the recycler. The metal yard the next town over will buy aluminum cans and I recently got 10$ for a brass fauctet....@over 1$ per pound.
Too much is never enough
...in TI's RFAB in Richardson, TX. Been working in wafer fabs since '89. Litho, then Thinfilms, then Etch, now back to Thinfilms. Yes, it is crazy what goes into making chips. Even silicon is finite!
Speaking of water usage, fabs use tons of it. The helium supply is also on it's last leg. I read somewhere that there's about 16 years' worth left at current usage rates.
The fact that all resources are finite, and that population growth is and always will be exponential are scary thoughts. Love my boys, but kinda wish I hadn't brought kids into this unpredictable world. That's why I live for the day. No telling what tomorrow has in store.
Keep up the good work. Hopefully our efforts pay off for future generations.
Hey BS, we're neighbors! I wrote some data collection software for Dallas Semiconductor back about 15 years ago. Can you say "infant life" and "failure mode"? LOL
Edits: 08/16/12
I was working at National 15 yrs ago. Never saw the Dallas Semi site but knew a couple of people who had come from there. We're in Mckinney. You?
Helium in short supply? Their is an infinite supply only 93,000,000 miles away. If you land at night when it's cool, you can have all you want.
SInce I was a CVD / tFilms / Diffusion guy, I'd forgotten about helium in dry etch. And in cryopumps. We even did a helium implant.....or was that hydrogen? Strip off the electron and you've got either an alpha particle or a simple proton to implant.
The number for population growth used in 'The Limits to Growth was 2.1% annually which means a doubling time of about 32 years...give or take a couple months. That is a 40 year old number which I hope has gone down.
I worked for Western Digital when they owned a fab.....Also, TRW and IR along with Statek, a very unusual fab making quartz (grown, not fused) tuning forks for precision time keeping.
When I worked litho, we had 'contact' aligners....later....'proximity'.....Projection? I saw the first Perkin Elmer.
I worked on an Extrion implante....sr# 86. Also, worked on Varian Sputterers ....3190s. later, 3290s. and Bruce and Thermco furnaces...The Thermco had 8" floppies...if that tells you anything! When I started, 3" wafers were the norm.
Too much is never enough
I worked on the model 100 projection aligners. Had to load them with tweezers. 3"/4" line at the time. We also had 200's and 300's. Litho has come a LONG way.
Currently working 300mm. RFAB is the world's first 300mm analog fab. Funny things about it is that the equipment in RFAB came from my previous job in Richmond, VA. I worked for Qimonda.
Q made DRAM, going bankrupt in early 2009. TI bought the contents of the entire site for $173M. Pennies on the dollar. They took everything except the hardware in the restrooms! Found my old toolbox the other day in a storage area.
A fully automated 300mm facility is a sight to see. 450mm is next!
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