An Oasis in the Desert
June 15, 2017 7:43 AM Subscribe
Sonam Wangchuk is an engineer who has come up with an innovative way to provide fresh water to villages in Ladakh, one of the high-altitude deserts in the world located in the Himalayas.
Wangchuk sources water from streams and uses it to create artificial glaciers, which store fresh water until it's needed in springtime. [Mashable Video]
I wondered about the numbers on this but didn't get much meat out of the video, any writeups and/or papers on his efforts? I want to like this but they pessimist in me sees it as iffy. I'm more than prepared to be wrong.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:22 AM on June 15, 2017
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:22 AM on June 15, 2017
The Mashable article isn't that good, and the Rolex Awards it links to isn't much better. Sonam Wangchuk and his Ice Stupa ptoject does have its own page with a little more information.
posted by happyroach at 8:28 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 8:28 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
"By mid-September all farming activities end, and yet a smaller stream flows throughout the winter steadily but wastefully going into the Indus river without being of use to anybody."
Not to quibble but.....
posted by Pembquist at 8:40 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
Not to quibble but.....
posted by Pembquist at 8:40 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
Not to quibble but.....
That was my initial thought. It's a blinkered look at only part of the system. But from the happyroach link it seems to be a zero energy method of slowing down the effects of the melting glaciers further up, so I guess it's not that much of a removal of water from the system. In previous years that winter water flow would be lower because it would have been retained by the main glacier, so this is just moving where the ice usually is a bit further down the mountain.
posted by Brockles at 8:53 AM on June 15, 2017
That was my initial thought. It's a blinkered look at only part of the system. But from the happyroach link it seems to be a zero energy method of slowing down the effects of the melting glaciers further up, so I guess it's not that much of a removal of water from the system. In previous years that winter water flow would be lower because it would have been retained by the main glacier, so this is just moving where the ice usually is a bit further down the mountain.
posted by Brockles at 8:53 AM on June 15, 2017
The water in the streams is glacier melt water, and it melts anyway. But there is also a problem with retreating glaciers, population growth, and pressure on existing water supplies for farming.
The first planting is spring is particularly important, and water disputes can occur at that point. This is a way of 'banking' otherwise unused water over winter, so it can be released in spring.
It's kind of analogous to pumped-storage hydroelectric systems, except the cycle is annual rather than 24 hours.
posted by carter at 9:06 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
The first planting is spring is particularly important, and water disputes can occur at that point. This is a way of 'banking' otherwise unused water over winter, so it can be released in spring.
It's kind of analogous to pumped-storage hydroelectric systems, except the cycle is annual rather than 24 hours.
posted by carter at 9:06 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also - if you google for SECMOL you'll come up with links to other projects that Angchuk has been involved in.
posted by carter at 9:14 AM on June 15, 2017
posted by carter at 9:14 AM on June 15, 2017
There are lots of water banking or storage and recovery systems in use to capture higher flows for use later in the year. Reservoirs are an example, as are aquifer storage and recovery projects. I have seen upper watershed wetlands and wet meadows discussed as potential options for increased storage as well. This is the first I've seen using ice, but effectively it should work just like any other impoundment.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:33 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 9:33 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
By quibbling I didn't mean the mound of ice which sounds pretty clever. There was a project built in Princeton back during the "energy crisis" that was recorded in some John McPhee book I read where they were using a snow making machine to make ice in the winter under a big tarp that they would use for cooling in the summer. They had visions of giant pipes sluicing frigid water into Manhattan to cool the hot city. I don't know who "they" were but it sounded cool, (apologies.)
My quibble is probably just me being unrealistic and wishing for a less anthropocentric view of the world. I guess the conflict is between the idea that that sentiment is a nicety that not everyone can afford vs that that is how we got into this predicament in the first place. But then you have to ask "what predicament" and if it is not one thing it is another. I just heard on the radio that there are 400+ dam projects planned for the Amazon and its basin and some people are "concerned."
Damn these thumbs!
I guess the world has always been in a handbasket and thinking about it I am a little ashamed at sitting on the sidelines chucking stones. What is that expression? "Lead follow or get out of the way"?
posted by Pembquist at 11:01 AM on June 15, 2017
My quibble is probably just me being unrealistic and wishing for a less anthropocentric view of the world. I guess the conflict is between the idea that that sentiment is a nicety that not everyone can afford vs that that is how we got into this predicament in the first place. But then you have to ask "what predicament" and if it is not one thing it is another. I just heard on the radio that there are 400+ dam projects planned for the Amazon and its basin and some people are "concerned."
Damn these thumbs!
I guess the world has always been in a handbasket and thinking about it I am a little ashamed at sitting on the sidelines chucking stones. What is that expression? "Lead follow or get out of the way"?
posted by Pembquist at 11:01 AM on June 15, 2017
The people of the area weren't shipped in. They have been there all along. The downstream population and combustion, effects them, up on that high desert with warming, and loss of ice. So they are keeping some of the ice that would be lost, and they can live maybe as well, or better than they always have, in spite of what is going on down below.
posted by Oyéah at 11:17 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 11:17 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think this is a way cool idea, but I'm wondering what the process is that shoots water out the top of the pipe. Is an electric pump used? If so, what's the energy source? Are there heaters that keep the water in the pipes from freezing until it's sprayed? Are we talking seriously sustainable or is this a nifty technique that isn't seriously sustainable?
posted by BlueHorse at 5:40 PM on June 15, 2017
posted by BlueHorse at 5:40 PM on June 15, 2017
I'm wondering what the process is that shoots water out the top of the pipe.
In the video it talked about gravity feed, which is the only option that would really make sense.
They hold more water than I had assumed -- I did some really basic math, and unless I got a decimal point wrong, a cone of ice that is 30m high (the size of the ones they propose to build next) might hold something like 7000 cubic meters of water, or around 5.7 acre feet. Not any enormous amount, but enough to help.
Whether or not these are better than traditional impoundments is a different question. They would be vulnerable to weather -- a warm year means they won't freeze, and a cold year might freeze the pipe before the ice cone is complete -- but on the other hand would require less earthmoving. (It still takes some, as you can see in one of the photos on the Rolex page, and hopefully they were able to put down a layer of clay or something else impermeable to reduce leakage.)
posted by Dip Flash at 6:20 PM on June 15, 2017
In the video it talked about gravity feed, which is the only option that would really make sense.
They hold more water than I had assumed -- I did some really basic math, and unless I got a decimal point wrong, a cone of ice that is 30m high (the size of the ones they propose to build next) might hold something like 7000 cubic meters of water, or around 5.7 acre feet. Not any enormous amount, but enough to help.
Whether or not these are better than traditional impoundments is a different question. They would be vulnerable to weather -- a warm year means they won't freeze, and a cold year might freeze the pipe before the ice cone is complete -- but on the other hand would require less earthmoving. (It still takes some, as you can see in one of the photos on the Rolex page, and hopefully they were able to put down a layer of clay or something else impermeable to reduce leakage.)
posted by Dip Flash at 6:20 PM on June 15, 2017
Thanks Dip Flash. I guess I just assumed that the 'gravity feed' was a process in which the water was gathered and pumped out of a source into a large tank above that would allow enough pressure to be generated to shoot it out of the central pipe.
They 'gravity feed' livestock tanks here in that way--slow fill using electricity over time up a hill to a tank until full, and then the water flows by gravity into tanks as much as a mile away.
posted by BlueHorse at 6:52 PM on June 15, 2017
They 'gravity feed' livestock tanks here in that way--slow fill using electricity over time up a hill to a tank until full, and then the water flows by gravity into tanks as much as a mile away.
posted by BlueHorse at 6:52 PM on June 15, 2017
They 'gravity feed' livestock tanks here in that way--slow fill using electricity over time up a hill to a tank until full, and then the water flows by gravity into tanks as much as a mile away.
That works really well when you have a slow but steady source of water, and the big tank provides the central supply to the individual tanks with float valves.
They seem to be doing the reverse -- piping the water down from near the glacier to be frozen and stored near the point of use. In the US, people would just build small earthen dams to hold the water in that situation, but that works here because the cost of digging a pond with machinery is relatively cheap compared to average incomes. Not only do most farms have the machinery needed, so the cash outlay can be close to zero, but there have been a lot of subsidies and technical assistance programs to help farmers put in irrigation and stockwater ponds over the last century.
In a poor, remote mountain village, the math is going to be rather different and maybe this option will pencil out better. I'm glad they are trying it, and if it works people will likely adopt it.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:23 PM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
That works really well when you have a slow but steady source of water, and the big tank provides the central supply to the individual tanks with float valves.
They seem to be doing the reverse -- piping the water down from near the glacier to be frozen and stored near the point of use. In the US, people would just build small earthen dams to hold the water in that situation, but that works here because the cost of digging a pond with machinery is relatively cheap compared to average incomes. Not only do most farms have the machinery needed, so the cash outlay can be close to zero, but there have been a lot of subsidies and technical assistance programs to help farmers put in irrigation and stockwater ponds over the last century.
In a poor, remote mountain village, the math is going to be rather different and maybe this option will pencil out better. I'm glad they are trying it, and if it works people will likely adopt it.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:23 PM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
« Older "I'm real cream! I'm real cane sugar!" | RT if you know why Sen. Harris gets interrupted. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by leotrotsky at 7:59 AM on June 15, 2017 [4 favorites]