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Recognizing that global collaboration is imperative for solving the world's greatest challenges has been a powerful paradigm shift in recent years. This global focus is important to create impact at scale, and also helps when solving pressing challenges within our own local communities; sometimes the solution is right at our fingertips, and other times, the idea is budding across a distant border.
Launched at the Second Annual Exponential Impact Day on June 15th, the 2015 Singularity University Impact Challenge is a new impact competition in collaboration with California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. The goal? To help alleviate the severe drought in California by leveraging new and exponentially growing technologies.
"Water is certainly one of our Global Grand Challenges," says Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom, chief impact officer at Singularity University. "And if you look at our mission, it embodies what we want to do as an organization, which is to leverage exponential technology to solve a Global Grand Challenge. What better way to do that than to solve the biggest problem in California right now and one that is in our backyard?"
Golden Opportunity, Soylentils: What's your technological magic bullet solve a problem caused by generations of water policy failures?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:36AM
Using a saltwater secondary cooling loop which is doubling as both a steam generator and 'purified exhaust water collection system'. Instead of leaving the cooling towers open as is currently done, have them vent into a secondary chamber surrounding the inner tower to condense and use gravity to wick the condensed water away to either storage or pumping facilities as needed for storage or distribution. Depending on design this could also provide a retrofit option for current facilities while allowing gravity fed 'dump' water in the case of a reactor or pump failure that might otherwise allow the reactor to go critical.
The fine details of the engineering is beyond me, but this could solve three issues at once, baseline power generation, water production for high demand areas, and reactor safety for situations where loss of water flow or capacity could drive a reactor critical.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:46AM
As nuclear power plants are complex construction projects, their construction periods are longer than other large power plants. It is typically expected to take 5 to 7 years to build a large nuclear unit (not including the time required for planning and licensing).
anon-fail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @09:15AM
pfft. just throw a boat load of old smoke alarms in a big bonfire and park a few firetrucks full of water close to it and BAM! INSTANT NUCULAR STEAM SHIZ!
*trundles off to file patent*
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:17PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @01:04AM
The San Onofre nuke plant was shut down after its operator (SoCal Edison) proved to be untrustworthy.
You could call them "incompetent", but that would be letting them off easy--they are simply liars.
The only remaining nukes in Cali are at Pacific Gas and Electric's Diablo Canyon facility.
That is an ecological nightmare, sucking in tons of sea life every day and expelling it as dead biomass.
The plant is build on an earthquake fault.
Diablo Canyon is a disaster.
The publicly-owned ("Socialist--gasp) Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has always said NO to nukes.
DWP demonstrates again and again what lousy providers SCE and PG&E (profit-driven corps) are.
Want to build a nuke in Cali?
Start here:
Pay 75 years of liability insurance up front (the way the USA Post Office has to pre-pay its retirement fund).
Good luck finding an underwriter for that.
...and NO, you can't get federal help nor a waiver.
The title of this page contains the word "ABUNDANCE".
What Cali has in ABUNDANCE is SUNLIGHT.
Once your collectors are in place, the energy is gratis.
There are also plenty of mountain passes that have wind whipping through them.
Capture that energy. (People on the receiving end of Santa Ana winds will thank you.)
Again, after the turbines are up, the energy doesn't require railway cars or pipelines nor does it involve high-level waste (which USA has been producing with nukes since 1943--though we haven't yet figured out what to do with that).
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @09:15PM
The publicly-owned ("Socialist--gasp) Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has always said NO to nukes.
The LADWP owns (and has owned since the beginning [latimes.com]) 5.7% [clui.org] of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station [wikipedia.org] to the west of Phoenix. Fortunately, the plant, like the coal-burning power plants that provide the bulk of the city's power, is well downwind of Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday July 29 2015, @02:45AM
phil, how is that going to help them when they only have a year of water left before the shit really hits the fan?