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-   -   Agromining, mining by growing crops. (https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/agromining-mining-growing-crops-40858.html)

Xist 03-29-2023 07:05 PM

Agromining, mining by growing crops.
 
Ricky explains how companies can grow crops in areas that have too many metals for conventional farming, but insufficient for conventional mining, get a higher concentration of metals than normally occur in nature, and then the crops provide their own fuel when you burn them to concentrate the metal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv2jNePY00Q

freebeard 03-29-2023 08:22 PM

There are house plants that clean the air indoors. Also:
How Solar Panels Are Changing Agriculture - Agrivoltaics Revisited
Agrovoltaics would be Old Sparky, the electric chair.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr 03-30-2023 02:32 AM

Quite interesting. BTW it's been mentioned often that buckwheat can be cultivated near vineyards as it copes well with the increased copper content around vineyards.

Xist 04-01-2023 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freebeard (Post 682217)
There are house plants that clean the air indoors. Also:
How Solar Panels Are Changing Agriculture - Agrivoltaics Revisited
Agrovoltaics would be Old Sparky, the electric chair.

I never shared that?

There is always too much to do.

Did I share solar canals?

freebeard 04-01-2023 05:47 PM

Quote:

How Solar Panels Are Changing Agriculture - Agrivoltaics Revisited

Undecided with Matt Ferrell -- 255K views 4 days ago
I could check your post history for you, were I to care.

It's a maybe on canals, but I know we've see taking electricity from the edges of a clear pane before. Just not passing plant-friendly colors.

Xist 04-01-2023 06:30 PM

I didn't search my post history, I just used the search box, but since that never seems to work I copied and pasted "solar canals" into the address bar and added "site:" before ecomodder.com, deleting the rest of the URL.

I didn't see it, so here you go: How "solar canals" could help California reach sustainable energy goals

The canals in the Phoenix area started by the 1400s, are 180 miles long, more than twice as many miles as in Venice or Amsterdam combined, World War II prisoners dug canals, and some of these diggers dug out of the POW camp, but didn't account for dry river beds--they planned on floating to Mexico.

People swam in them before the 1950s, when swimming pools and air conditioning became more common. Salt River Project transformed the waterways to make them more efficient, and they banned swimming in the canals as it was now dangerous.

There were plants and trees along the canals, like cottonwoods, but they cut those down because cottonwoods used water, and they put in paths for maintenance of the canals and power lines.

In the mid-1990s SRP put white amur, a carp from China, in the canals, and they "can eat nearly three-quarters of its weight in weeds and algae a day."

They are finally supposed to upgrade the canals, but that is continually delayed. Lifeblood of Phoenix: 7 things to know about canals The entire canal system is "336 miles from Lake Havasu City [the western border] to Tucson." On average, the canal is 80 feet across in the beginning.

What is the average size?

Does it taper down to 1, 10, or 20 feet?

I cannot find any information on where it ends, nor could I find a canal in Tucson to follow it to its end, but say it tapers down to nothing, which wouldn't make any sense, the average would be 40 feet, totaling 70,963,200 square feet of free real estate.

How much power could that provide--when it is sunny?

It is often sunny in Arizona.

"How much water is lost through evaporation? [A]pproximately 4.5 percent, or 16,000 acre feet from the aqueduct and 50,000 acre feet from Lake Pleasant."

I am not suggesting solar lakes.

Are you, freebeard?

"Why isn't the aqueduct covered? The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) [...] found the cost to be prohibitive. Covering the canal would have quadrupled the $4 billion the project originally cost." Frequently-asked questions

People are going to build solar panels somewhere and SRP is both the power company in the valley and the water company, so they can just build panels over the canals, and reduce that 4.5%.

freebeard 04-01-2023 07:54 PM

Quote:

I am not suggesting solar lakes.

Are you, freebeard?
Me? I'm in favor of [solar salt water thermal battery] lakes embedded in the tops of the new glaciers.

With floating casinos to pay for it all. Like the Fhloston Paradise from Fifth Element.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr 04-02-2023 12:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xist (Post 682324)
The canals in the Phoenix area started by the 1400s, are 180 miles, more than twice as many miles as in Venice or Amsterdam combined, World War II prisoners dug canals, and some of these diggers dug out of the POW camp, but didn't account for dry river beds--they planned on floating to Mexico.

Makes me wonder how it would compare to Mendoza, Argentina.

Xist 04-02-2023 01:07 AM

I see many posts about Mendoza having canals, but no specifics.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr 04-03-2023 01:23 AM

AFAIK they're usually smaller, and were never a popular place for swimming. Otherwise, most likely I would have met fewer Argentinians on the beach :D

Xist 04-19-2023 04:16 PM

Arizona utilities have long rejected covering canals with solar panels. Here's why that may change
So, canals in the valley are open to the public. We are prohibited from entering the waters, but we can hang out on the paths?

I knew an epileptic who rode her bike down the path--until she had a seizure.

In that article they mentioned:
Quote:

One SRP board member asked Pane why the Central Arizona Project canal that delivers Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson wasn't a good candidate for solar, because unlike SRP canals in metro Phoenix, the CAP is closed to the public.
It didn't seem like they had a good answer.
Quote:

The Gila River Indian Community announced last year it was building a pilot project to cover part of its canals with help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Quote:

[T]he Turlock Irrigation District in California announced it would also develop a $20 million pilot project testing solar on a canal. Both the Gila River and Turlock projects bill themselves at the first-of-their-kind in the U.S.
People kept complaining that maintenance equipment wouldn't fit under the panels.

I always visualized them as high as solar parking.

Why wouldn't they be high like solar parking?

How low are these imbeciles visualizing this? Sure, solar farms are usually near the ground, but you would need to be able to see across the canal!
Quote:

Pane said that solar equipment would have to get built high enough to allow emergency vehicles to pass, and that because SRP canals are open to the public, safety is a major consideration.

freebeard 04-19-2023 04:56 PM

I was going to mention canals in the highways thread.

Why would [not] the solar panels float on the water, designed to be maintained from above?

That might keep your epileptic frens out of the water.

redpoint5 04-19-2023 06:11 PM

Solar panels are not load bearing (except roof replacement ones that cost a fortune).

You want panels high enough that people aren't going to mess with them. Mine are on the roof, and squirrels still mess with them.

freebeard 04-19-2023 07:07 PM

Quote:

You want panels high enough that people aren't going to mess with them.
Create a high trust society. Easy-peasy.

The higher they are the more air circulates and carries moisture away.


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