Daniel Salzler No. 1141
EnviroInsight.org Five Items March 18, 2022
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- How To Clean Solar Panels Without Water. Solar power is expected to reach 10 percent of global power generation by the year 2030, and much of that is likely to be located in desert areas, where sunlight is abundant. But the accumulation of dust on solar panels or mirrors is already a significant issue — it can reduce the output of photovoltaic panels by as much as 30 percent in just one month — so regular cleaning is essential for such installations.
But cleaning solar panels currently is estimated to use about 10 billion gallons of water per year — enough to supply drinking water for up to 2 million people. Attempts at waterless cleaning are labor intensive and tend to cause irreversible scratching of the surfaces, which also reduces efficiency. Now, a team of researchers at MIT has devised a way of automatically cleaning solar panels, or the mirrors of solar thermal plants, in a waterless, no-contact system that could significantly reduce the dust problem, they say.
The new system uses electrostatic repulsion to cause dust particles to detach and virtually leap off the panel’s surface, without the need for water or brushes. To activate the system, a simple electrode passes just above the solar panel’s surface, imparting an electrical charge to the dust particles, which are then repelled by a charge applied to the panel itself. The system can be operated a
automatically using a simple electric motor and guide rails along the side of the panel. The research is described in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by MIT graduate student Sreedath Panat and professor of mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi.
The new system they developed only requires an electrode, which can be a simple metal bar, to pass over the panel, producing an electric field that imparts a charge to the dust particles as it goes. An opposite charge applied to a transparent conductive layer just a few nanometers thick deposited on the glass covering of the the solar panel then repels the particles, and by calculating the right voltage to apply, the researchers were able to find a voltage range sufficient to overcome the pull of gravity and adhesion forces, and cause the dust to lift away. Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
2. Watershed Size Plays Major Role In Filtering Pollutants, Researchers Find. [In what seems to be just a matter of fact] Research has found that watershed size plays a major role in a river network’s ability to do this work. The findings further the understanding of which estuaries and coastal areas will be more impacted by human development in their watersheds and also casts a light on the intricacies of the global carbon cycle.
One of the important functions of a river is to remove some of the pollution that can end up in the water, like lawn fertilizers and harmful bacteria, before that water reaches sensitive downstream ecosystems such as estuaries and oceans. Research from the University of New Hampshire found that watershed size plays a major role in a river network’s ability to do this work. The findings further the understanding of which estuaries and coastal areas will be more impacted by human development in their watersheds and also casts a light on the intricacies of the global carbon cycle.
In the study, recently published in Nature Communications, the researchers used a model that integrates what is known about how streams and rivers function and found that when the watershed area being drained by the river network increases, the rate at which rivers filter pollution doesn’t just increase at a linear rate — it increases even faster. They describe what they uncovered about watershed size and river function as superlinear scaling, saying it occurs because larger rivers contribute disproportionately to the pollution-filtering function of the entire network of aquatic ecosystems, which can include lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands.
To keep as much pollution as possible out of estuaries and oceans, the research indicates that it is more important to manage land use and mitigate nonpoint source pollution — like runoff carrying fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and toxic chemicals — in smaller watersheds, which are less able to filter pollutants than larger watersheds. It is also important to mitigate nonpoint pollution in parts of the watershed that are closer to an estuary or coastal area, where the system will have less of a chance to filter the pollutants before it reaches those critical areas.
The research also reveals new information about the role of rivers in the global carbon cycle.
“Land is known to be a net carbon sink, but recent research has found that a large proportion of this carbon actually ends up in rivers,” said Wollheim. “Our research shows that due to superlinear scaling, aquatic ecosystems of larger watersheds potentially release the carbon that makes its way into the water from land (and thought to be stored there) back to the atmosphere, while this would not be as evident in smaller watersheds.”
The team hopes this new information about behavior of aquatic ecosystems and rivers will help design better pollution management strategies and improve the understanding of the feedback loop between the Earth’s ecosystems and atmosphere and how it impacts the rate of climate change.
Co-authors include Andrew Robison also from UNH, Tamara Harms from the University of Alaska, Lauren Koenig and Ashley M. Helton from the University of Connecticut, Chao Song from Michigan State University, William Bowden from the University of Vermont and Jacques Finlay from the University of Minnesota. Source: University of New Hampshire
[Arizona learned the lesson about watershed size influencing water pollution through the Oak Creek National Monitoring Program that was managed through the AZ Department of Environmental Quality.]
3. An Aravaipa Gem Protected Forever. A large ranch in the heart of southern Arizona’s Aravaipa landscape — one of the wildest, least developed parts of Arizona – is now protected, opening up public access to thousands of acres of public lands and sustaining the waters of Aravaipa Creek.
The complex conservation deal supported by The Nature Conservancy protects the 5,000-acre Cross F Ranch, the only unprotected private land remaining in the corridor between the Aravaipa Creek and Santa Teresa Mountains wilderness areas.
The Trust for Public Land purchased the land and conveyed most of it to the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to be managed as part of the Aravaipa Ecosystem Management Plan, which The Nature Conservancy played a key role in developing.
The land includes Stowe Gulch, which is adjacent to TNC’s Aravaipa Canyon Preserve and contains a network of natural springs that provides an estimated 50 percent of the water in Aravipa Creek, is a tributary to the San Pedro River. The creek, which flows
through the stunning 10 mile long Aravaipa Canyon, is q critical wildlife corridor and home to desert bighorn sheep, mountain lions, black bears and a diverse assortment of birds and wildlife.
About 40 acres were sold, along with a BLM-held conservation easement (deed restriction) that prohibits subdivision, to a private rancher along with associated grazing leases. TNC received guarantees to purchase this portion, should the owner decide to sell it.
The deal opened up public access to around 40,000 acres of public lands previously cut off from use by hikers, hunters and horseback riders. The uncertain future of the Cross F, its history of mining and poor grazing management, and previous plans to develop the property for commercial use had been a perennial threat to conservation investments in the area. Source: Nature Conservancy
4. Small Town In Arizona To Lose Access To Water.By Late last year. Leigh Harris logged onto a local Facebook group and learned that she and her neighbors were about to lose their water — for good.
In an area called Rio Verde Foothills, an unincorporated expanse of dirt roads and horse farms on the outskirts of Scottsdale, AZ. The neighborhood prong up during the housing boom of the early 20’s, but it lacked robust water access, so residents had to rely on private “water haulers” to bring them water from nearby Scottsdale. Every few days a truck bearing shipment of water from a city facility pumps water into a four-thousand tank on different residents homes. When the water tank runs out, Harris contacted the water transport company with another order for more water.
This time though, her water hauler was the one tapping out: The company posted on Facebook to say it would stop serving Rio Verde Foothills at the end of 2022. The other haulers in the area are quitting as well, because Scottsdale decided to stop allowing haulers to bring water to customers who live outside the city limits, including the hundreds of people in Rio Verde Foothills.
The city’s decision was a direct result of the federal government declaring what’s known as a Tier 1 water shortage on the Colorado River last year. The Colorado is hundreds of miles away from Scottsdale, but the city relies on the river for around 70 percent of its water, which travels across the width of the state on the 336-mile Central Arizona Project canal. The federal government financed the construction of the canal, and in return Arizona agreed to have the most junior rights of any state that uses the river, which means now the state is taking an 18 percent reduction in water deliveries to accommodate the ongoing drought. Cities that rely on Colorado water are scrambling to retrench their water usage so their own residents don’t suffer during future cuts. In Scottsdale, that means cutting off the haulers who brought water to Rio Verde.
The city had been warning about the shutoff for years, but the formal announcement set off a neighborhood-wide scramble to find an alternate water source. If the issue isn’t resolved before the end of the year, hundreds of residents in the area will lose their water access altogether, making their brand-new ranch homes both unlivable and virtually impossible to sell. The neighborhood’s water shutoff portends a much larger crisis caused by the climate change-enhanced megadrought in the American West, which experts say has no precedent in the past 1200 years.
Like many places on the outskirts of Phoenix, the Rio Verde Foothills area occupies a no-man’s-land between rural and urban. Development in the area has proceeded in a piecemeal fashion for decades, with new owners expanding a checkerboard street grid in every direction, but the area isn’t an incorporated city of its own, and it isn’t a part of neighboring Scottsdale.
In the early days of the neighborhood, most residents got water from groundwater wells on their own property. As time went on, though, the neighborhood continued to drain the subterranean aquifer, and some residents started to pay water haulers to bring them water from Scottsdale, which in turn got the water from the Colorado River. Water hauling is more common in remote rural areas than in big cities, but it has also become a linchpin for fast-developing exurbs like Rio Verde and New River north of Phoenix, which swelled 40 percent to house over 15,000 people over the last two decades.
Just as water hauling from Scottsdale wasn’t a permanent solution, neither of these routes would provide permanent solutions either. The federal government could declare a Tier 2 or 3 shortage on the Colorado as early as next year, which would cut another 6 percent from Arizona’s water allocation, and other water sources like the San Carlos reservoir
have also been at historic lows in recent years amid the west’s ongoing megadrought. Even if the neighborhood does manage to tap a long-term water source, the water will get more expensive as demand continues to grow. As Arizona scrambles to adapt to the first cuts, the various parties who receive Colorado water are starting to swap and sell water rights: The Gila River Indian Community, for instance, has sold water to the city of Chandler, another suburb like Scottsdale that needs to secure more water in order to grow. (Some tribes, like the Navajo Nation, have never reached a settlement with the government and thus have no guaranteed water access; other tribes suffer from outdated infrastructure that makes it impossible for members to tap their water rights.)
In the short term, though, most towns and cities will keep building. Local leaders have every incentive to approve future development, since new population growth helps shore up tax revenue and also brings new jobs. The cuts on the Colorado River will fall hardest on agricultural users, and a decrease in overall farming could free up more water for residential use. Arizona remains one of the fastest-growing states in the country, and in the most recent Census Phoenix leapfrogged Philadelphia to become the nation’s fifth-largest city. Source: USNews.com
5.TUCSON MILLION TREES PLANTING EVENT THIS WEEKEND – Join Tucson Mayor Regina Romero’s Tucson Million Trees initiative and help cool vulnerable neighborhoods by planting desert shade trees. Volunteer with Tucson Clean & Beautiful (TCB)/Trees for Tucson this Saturday, March 19, from 9-11 a.m., and help plant more than 100 desert shade trees in the Barrio San Antonio and Miles neighborhoods. Tree planting is fun, easy, educational, and appropriate for all ages and abilities. Please wear closed-toe shoes and sun protection, and bring a refillable water bottle to reduce single-use plastic. TCB will provide everything else, including ice-cold water refills, clean gloves, tools, and instructions. Come alone, or bring your family, to San Antonio Park, 502 S. Santa Rita Ave., at 9 a.m. sharp. Register by following the link below.
Register for tree planting
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