underused canals?

[Proper Job]

......

when will they realise that desalination would work. And if sea levels rise due to global warming there would be plenty of water just need to remove the salt.

Even after you remove the salt and purify it (read - cost), you'd still have to pump it around.

 

Why not pump around the pure stuff that we've already got.

[dor]

Remember the Victorians built a pipe from Mid-Wales to Birmingham to supply water. Over 100Km and all worked by gravity.

 

They knew how to build things then! It cost £6million then which even allowing for inflation is much less than the sort of figures you see for similar civil engineering contract now. Probably all the H&S extras.

[Guest]

I fully agree with you. I am a supporter of canals being used for water transfer. While the water is being transferred I will be able to boat along without water shortages or low pounds etc. They may even do some dredging to increase the water capacity. Still vastly cheaper than £2.6bn pipelines.

 

Bring it on!

 

George ex nb Alton retired

I am inclined to agree too. The infrastructure is already in place.

[mrsmelly]

I believe that the sun shines there an awful lot.

 

They have for many years caught a lot of rainwater and used that on a big catchment area on the side of the rock. It used to be great there but not been recently since the border was reopened wiv the Spaniardos...........

[lexicon]

Even after you remove the salt and purify it (read - cost), you'd still have to pump it around.

 

Why not pump around the pure stuff that we've already got.

 

I'm a little confused as to why it would require purification?

 

Surely if the water is heated and condensed to remove salt it would be pure enough to use? Rainwater into reservoirs doesn't need to be purified first.

 

And as to the energy required to do it why not use rubbish?

 

Burn waste to generate heat and/or electricity and stop paying to put it in landfill.

 

Although that's far to sensible joined up thinking for a government to see I'm sure.

[Guest]

I'm a little confused as to why it would require purification?

 

Surely if the water is heated and condensed to remove salt it would be pure enough to use? Rainwater into reservoirs doesn't need to be purified first.

 

And as to the energy required to do it why not use rubbish?

 

Burn waste to generate heat and/or electricity and stop paying to put it in landfill.

 

Although that's far to sensible joined up thinking for a government to see I'm sure.

Some good ideas there, but the corrupt ones would lose out from all the backhanders and free golf club memberships if we were to go down such sensible routes.

[Morat]

from a brief look around the web, there are several desalination processes. One of which is boiling/condensing which leaves the water pure but has a high energy cost. The other processes would still need the normal purification that our current sources undergo.

[Jim Riley]

something is sadly lacking from this discussion - reality! It's our northern water, there's a surplus of cash down south, 2 pipelines needed, one flowing "downhill", one "uphill". Time to redress the balance. Or I won't stop p1551ng in the cut!

[mickspangle]

Rainwater into reservoirs doesn't need to be purified first.

 

Erm...yes it does. To make drinking water from surface reservoirs takes a lot of treatment.

[Doorman]

Some good ideas there, but the corrupt ones would lose out from all the backhanders and free golf club memberships if we were to go down such sensible routes.

 

Now we're getting somewhere!

 

As an example to Catweasel's inference to the real way how things are done, consider this.

 

As a member of the maintenance team within a very large car plant, I was privvy to a meeting where the engineering management decided to outsource weekend maintenance work to contractors, on the basis of a cost saving strategy. Not without resistance from the unions, did they slip this new working procedure into place. Within weeks, following numerous Monday morning machine failures and costly downtime, the management finally conceded and returned to letting their own time served tradesmen, carry out the weekend maintenance schedules.

 

On one occasion, whereby I risked being sacked for refusing to 'make good' an excuse for a modification that one of the contractors had installed the previous day, did the management admit that their cost cutting scheme was failing. To expect a craftsman to remedy the work of an imbecile, whom we later discovered was being paid at a higher rate than the company workers, was beyond a joke!

 

It was only after further investigation, was it discovered that the contract company had been hurriedly formed, by two of the same engineering management team that suggested outsourcing of the vital weekend repair work in the first instance.

 

Now there's a coincidence!

 

This little anecdotal evidence was one of many incidents that occurred during my 23 years in industry. Good men were overlooked for promotion in place of brown nosed 'yes men' who didn't know their arse from their elbow. How they ever produced cars in that factory was a mystery to us all!

[lexicon]

Erm...yes it does. To make drinking water from surface reservoirs takes a lot of treatment.

 

But water taken from reservoirs to fill canals wouldn't be purified

[tillergirl]

Not wanting to leave myself wide open to criticism but.....................we are an island............sea levels are rising.....................coastal de-salination plants? Surely we are not so backward in the 21C that someone has not thought of this as a solution?

[matty40s]

hmmm the old cheshunt of lack of water again.

 

when will they realise that desalination would work. And if sea levels rise due to global warming there would be plenty of water just need to remove the salt.

 

 

Not wanting to leave you the target either, but this was post 38......

[tillergirl]

Not wanting to leave you the target either, but this was post 38......

 

Ah well you that's what you get for not reading the whole thread ..............sometimes maybe because people just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on............................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Doorman]

Surely we are not so backward in the 21C that someone has not thought of this as a solution?

 

Don't forget, that we are talking about the likes of Boris Johnson and all of the other cronies here!

[kevinl]

The plan with the pipeline is to shift 66,000,000 gallons of water a day. Won't 66 millions gallons flowing down the canals have a bit of an effect? To me 66 million gallons sounds a fast flowing river, won't it rip anything that's not nailed down off its moorings, what happens when it hits the locks or weirs as they will become and more worryingly if I go down south will I ever be able to back to the north or will I need a bigger engine (or a tow off naughty Cal)? Plus won't the banks erode with a flow of water like that. Anybody out there clever enough to do the maths for nearly 3 million gallons an hour down a 20 feet wide by 4 feet deep canal?

[Doorman]

What happens when it hits the locks or weirs as they will become and more worryingly if I go down south will I ever be able to back to the north or will I need a bigger engine (or a tow off naughty Cal)? Plus won't the banks erode with a flow of water like that. Anybody out there clever enough to do the maths for nearly 3 million gallons an hour down a 20 feet wide by 4 feet deep canal?

 

Reading between the locks, you are of the negative type of person whom only sees the pitfalls in life!

 

Have you not considered the positives, in so much that you'll save a fortune on diesel by being able to surf all the way down to the Olympics in neutral. Plus, you'd be able to listen to Radio 4 without the hindrance of that deafening exhaust note.

 

Keep a stiff upper lip and welcome the change, it can only do us all a favour, specially those darn sarf!

[Morat]

Maybe they only open the gates at night once most folk are securely moored? Then we can have a nightly "Severn Bore" down the GU. Surfs up!

Edited March 5, 2012 by Morat

[mayalld]

And as to the energy required to do it why not use rubbish?

 

Burn waste to generate heat and/or electricity and stop paying to put it in landfill.

 

Although that's far to sensible joined up thinking for a government to see I'm sure.

 

And what about the environmental impact of burning all that rubbish?

[Doorman]

And what about the environmental impact of burning all that rubbish?

 

I don't think that matters really. If it did, the government would have put a stop to the oil companies buying out any fossil fuel alternative to propel our massively polluting motor cars!