Firebaugh, Fresno County —

Quietly whirring away in a dusty field in the Central Valley is a shiny solar energy machine that may someday solve many of California’s water problems.

It’s called the WaterFX solar thermal desalination plant, and it has been turning salty, contaminated irrigation runoff into ultra-pure liquid for nearly a year for the Panoche Water and Drainage District. It’s the only solar-driven desalination plant of its kind in the country.

Right now its efforts produce just 14,000 gallons a day. But within a year, WaterFX intends to begin expanding that one small startup plant into a sprawling collection of 36 machines that together can pump out 2 million gallons of purified water daily.

Within about five years, WaterFX company co-founder Aaron Mandell hopes to be processing 10 times that amount throughout the San Joaquin Valley. And here’s the part that gets the farmers who buy his water most excited: His solar desalination plant produces water that costs about a quarter of what more conventionally desalinated water costs: $450 an acre-foot versus $2,000 an acre-foot.

An acre-foot is equivalent to an acre covered by water 1 foot deep, enough to supply two families of four for a year.

Competitive price

That brings Mandell’s water cost close to what farmers are paying, in wet years, for water from the Panoche and other valley districts – about $300 an acre-foot. And that makes it a more economically attractive option than any of the 17 conventional desalination plants planned throughout California.

If Mandell can pull it off, the tiny farming town where he is starting his enterprise could be known as ground zero for one of the most revolutionary water innovations in the state’s history.

“Eventually, if this all goes where I think it can, California could wind up with so much water it’s able to export it instead of having to deal with shortages,” Mandell said, standing alongside the 525-foot-long solar reflector that is the heart of his machine. “What we are doing here is sustainable, scalable and affordable.”

Dennis Falaschi, manager of the Panoche district, and many of the 60 farmers that constitute his customer base say the sooner WaterFX expands, the better.

Saving water

Panoche expects to deliver about 45,000 acre-feet of water this year to its growers. That total is half of what the growers get in wetter years – but because drought and environmentally driven water mandates are not unique to 2014, the district’s farmers are already ahead of the curve on water preservation techniques.

Most use drip irrigation instead of water-intensive sprinklers and are hooked up to an unusual drainage system that captures used irrigation water and directs it into fields of wheatgrass, a salt-tolerant crop sold for cattle feed. But that drainage system is little more than a creative way to get rid of irrigation water that’s too salty for most uses once it leaches through farm soil.

Finding a way to make it suitable for people to drink and use on the crops they eat would be a breakthrough, Falaschi said.

“It appears this solar system will be cost-effective, and if Aaron can perform as we think he can, it can make a huge difference – be a great supplement at the very least,” he said. “We’re talking about basically unusable drainage water that is in everybody’s interest to mine.

“This solar plant could be a very important part of where we want to be in terms of being self-sufficient in the valley.”

Nothing from feds

Panoche, like many districts in the Central Valley – the nation’s most productive agricultural zone – has traditionally bought most of its water from the federally run Central Valley Project. But in this drought year, farmers are likely to get zero allocation from the project.

If that happens, Panoche will have to draw from leftover supply, the expensive spot water market and wells. All of that is pricier than usual, with the spot market alone charging as much as $3,500 an acre-foot.

“This situation right now is a killer, and anything that adds to a potential water supply is good,” said Mike Stearns, a fourth-generation farmer in the Panoche district who is fallowing most of his tomato, onion and other fields this year because of the drought. He’s concentrating on his wine grapes, which are thirsty but promise a good profit even in a drought year.

“And keep in mind that this water shortage doesn’t just affect farmers,” Stearns said. “Think about the jobs that are lost when we have to fallow our fields. Or the taxes that the government won’t get because we aren’t growing and selling. It’s bad. We need to do everything we can about this.”

Simple process

The way the solar plant works is simple, which is why the water it produces is cheap.

Water that dribbles down from nearby hills, and through the soil in the Central Valley after being used for irrigation, collects so much salt, selenium, boron and other minerals that it’s not fit for human consumption. The solar plant captures the foothill runoff and sucks in used irrigation water from a French drain-style system 6 to 8 feet under the crops, and sends that tainted water through a series of pipes and tanks that heat it.

The heat comes from the plant’s huge, parabolic-shaped solar reflector, which focuses the sun on a long tube containing mineral oil. That heated tube in turn creates steam, which condenses the brackish water into usable liquid, separating out the minerals.

The water then goes back out for irrigation. Mandell says that because his condensation method distills the minerals more efficiently than other desalination methods, he is installing a system that will process them for use. Selenium and boron can be vitamin supplements, for example, and gypsum can be used for drywall.

More conventional desalination plants – such as a $1 billion operation being built near San Diego – use a reverse osmosis process, in which brackish water is forced through screens to filter out the contaminants. That requires a lot of energy, which is why it is more expensive.

Raising money

WaterFX’s pilot plant cost $1 million in state grants to build last summer. The expansion of the 36-plant complex would cost as much as $30 million, which Mandell is working on raising.

“It does seem like this system is in a great location,” said Daniel Choi, an analyst with Lux Research, which researches emerging technology. “It’s where it should be – an area with a lot of sunlight, where reverse osmosis doesn’t make the most sense large-scale. It does seem like it’s viable.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if WaterFX expanded to other markets.”

Mandell’s expanded solar plant would be able to deliver 2,200 acre-feet of water next year – and if that performs as hoped, within a few years his ambition is to scale it up to 20,000 acre-feet. That would meet nearly half of the current demand from Panoche district farmers.

“Eventually we could process not just drainage water, but industrial and residential wastewater as well as groundwater that now is too salty to use,” Mandell said. Such desalination already happens on a large scale in other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, he pointed out.

Sinking land

Drawing groundwater, however – even groundwater that’s now too salty to drink – could prove problematic in the Central Valley. Years of tapping usable groundwater have so depleted aquifers that in some places the land has sunk 30 feet since the 1920s.

There are trillions of gallons of brackish groundwater available in California, said Claudia Faunt, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, and much of that has not been tapped because it is closer to the surface than the purer liquid deeper down. However, “to say there wouldn’t be subsidence (if it were tapped) is an unknown,” she said.

For now, Mandell said, he and his partners are focusing on drainage water – and that alone is a major issue.

“Look, there are 200 million tons of salt on the land in the Central Valley, and billions of gallons of drainage water, and cleaning up that drainage water is a huge issue,” said WaterFX’s chief consultant, Bruce Marlow. “I’d say if we can control the saline in the valley, in 10 years we might not have to rely on the federal water system here at all.”

Online extra: For more on California’s water issues, go to SFGate.com/drought.

Firebaugh, Fresno County —

Quietly whirring away in a dusty field in the Central Valley is a shiny solar energy machine that may someday solve many of California’s water problems.

It’s called the WaterFX solar thermal desalination plant, and it has been turning salty, contaminated irrigation runoff into ultra-pure liquid for nearly a year for the Panoche Water and Drainage District. It’s the only solar-driven desalination plant of its kind in the country.

Right now its efforts produce just 14,000 gallons a day. But within a year, WaterFX intends to begin expanding that one small startup plant into a sprawling collection of 36 machines that together can pump out 2 million gallons of purified water daily.

Within about five years, WaterFX company co-founder Aaron Mandell hopes to be processing 10 times that amount throughout the San Joaquin Valley. And here’s the part that gets the farmers who buy his water most excited: His solar desalination plant produces water that costs about a quarter of what more conventionally desalinated water costs: $450 an acre-foot versus $2,000 an acre-foot.

An acre-foot is equivalent to an acre covered by water 1 foot deep, enough to supply two families of four for a year.

Competitive price

That brings Mandell’s water cost close to what farmers are paying, in wet years, for water from the Panoche and other valley districts – about $300 an acre-foot. And that makes it a more economically attractive option than any of the 17 conventional desalination plants planned throughout California.

If Mandell can pull it off, the tiny farming town where he is starting his enterprise could be known as ground zero for one of the most revolutionary water innovations in the state’s history.

“Eventually, if this all goes where I think it can, California could wind up with so much water it’s able to export it instead of having to deal with shortages,” Mandell said, standing alongside the 525-foot-long solar reflector that is the heart of his machine. “What we are doing here is sustainable, scalable and affordable.”

Dennis Falaschi, manager of the Panoche district, and many of the 60 farmers that constitute his customer base say the sooner WaterFX expands, the better.

Saving water

Panoche expects to deliver about 45,000 acre-feet of water this year to its growers. That total is half of what the growers get in wetter years – but because drought and environmentally driven water mandates are not unique to 2014, the district’s farmers are already ahead of the curve on water preservation techniques.

Most use drip irrigation instead of water-intensive sprinklers and are hooked up to an unusual drainage system that captures used irrigation water and directs it into fields of wheatgrass, a salt-tolerant crop sold for cattle feed. But that drainage system is little more than a creative way to get rid of irrigation water that’s too salty for most uses once it leaches through farm soil.

Finding a way to make it suitable for people to drink and use on the crops they eat would be a breakthrough, Falaschi said.

“It appears this solar system will be cost-effective, and if Aaron can perform as we think he can, it can make a huge difference – be a great supplement at the very least,” he said. “We’re talking about basically unusable drainage water that is in everybody’s interest to mine.

“This solar plant could be a very important part of where we want to be in terms of being self-sufficient in the valley.”

Nothing from feds

Panoche, like many districts in the Central Valley – the nation’s most productive agricultural zone – has traditionally bought most of its water from the federally run Central Valley Project. But in this drought year, farmers are likely to get zero allocation from the project.

If that happens, Panoche will have to draw from leftover supply, the expensive spot water market and wells. All of that is pricier than usual, with the spot market alone charging as much as $3,500 an acre-foot.

“This situation right now is a killer, and anything that adds to a potential water supply is good,” said Mike Stearns, a fourth-generation farmer in the Panoche district who is fallowing most of his tomato, onion and other fields this year because of the drought. He’s concentrating on his wine grapes, which are thirsty but promise a good profit even in a drought year.

“And keep in mind that this water shortage doesn’t just affect farmers,” Stearns said. “Think about the jobs that are lost when we have to fallow our fields. Or the taxes that the government won’t get because we aren’t growing and selling. It’s bad. We need to do everything we can about this.”

Simple process

The way the solar plant works is simple, which is why the water it produces is cheap.

Water that dribbles down from nearby hills, and through the soil in the Central Valley after being used for irrigation, collects so much salt, selenium, boron and other minerals that it’s not fit for human consumption. The solar plant captures the foothill runoff and sucks in used irrigation water from a French drain-style system 6 to 8 feet under the crops, and sends that tainted water through a series of pipes and tanks that heat it.

The heat comes from the plant’s huge, parabolic-shaped solar reflector, which focuses the sun on a long tube containing mineral oil. That heated tube in turn creates steam, which condenses the brackish water into usable liquid, separating out the minerals.

The water then goes back out for irrigation. Mandell says that because his condensation method distills the minerals more efficiently than other desalination methods, he is installing a system that will process them for use. Selenium and boron can be vitamin supplements, for example, and gypsum can be used for drywall.

More conventional desalination plants – such as a $1 billion operation being built near San Diego – use a reverse osmosis process, in which brackish water is forced through screens to filter out the contaminants. That requires a lot of energy, which is why it is more expensive.

Raising money

WaterFX’s pilot plant cost $1 million in state grants to build last summer. The expansion of the 36-plant complex would cost as much as $30 million, which Mandell is working on raising.

“It does seem like this system is in a great location,” said Daniel Choi, an analyst with Lux Research, which researches emerging technology. “It’s where it should be – an area with a lot of sunlight, where reverse osmosis doesn’t make the most sense large-scale. It does seem like it’s viable.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if WaterFX expanded to other markets.”

Mandell’s expanded solar plant would be able to deliver 2,200 acre-feet of water next year – and if that performs as hoped, within a few years his ambition is to scale it up to 20,000 acre-feet. That would meet nearly half of the current demand from Panoche district farmers.

“Eventually we could process not just drainage water, but industrial and residential wastewater as well as groundwater that now is too salty to use,” Mandell said. Such desalination already happens on a large scale in other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, he pointed out.

Sinking land

Drawing groundwater, however – even groundwater that’s now too salty to drink – could prove problematic in the Central Valley. Years of tapping usable groundwater have so depleted aquifers that in some places the land has sunk 30 feet since the 1920s.

There are trillions of gallons of brackish groundwater available in California, said Claudia Faunt, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, and much of that has not been tapped because it is closer to the surface than the purer liquid deeper down. However, “to say there wouldn’t be subsidence (if it were tapped) is an unknown,” she said.

For now, Mandell said, he and his partners are focusing on drainage water – and that alone is a major issue.

“Look, there are 200 million tons of salt on the land in the Central Valley, and billions of gallons of drainage water, and cleaning up that drainage water is a huge issue,” said WaterFX’s chief consultant, Bruce Marlow. “I’d say if we can control the saline in the valley, in 10 years we might not have to rely on the federal water system here at all.”

Online extra: For more on California’s water issues, go to SFGate.com/drought.

Updated about 4 hours agoMon 8 Sep 2014, 3:38pm

Photo: Newcastle thermal coal spot prices are less than half their post-financial crisis peak. (Supplied)

Map: China

China’s record trade surplus is bad news for Australian miners, with commodity imports falling.

Australia’s biggest trading partner booked a surplus of just shy of $US50 billion in August, a record balance.

However, that is bad news for resources exporters as China’s surplus came not only from a 9.4 per cent annual rise in exports, but also a 2.4 per cent slide in imports.

Of particular relevance to Australia, iron ore exports dropped 9.3 per cent in August compared with July, although they remain 16.9 per cent up for the year to date.

That fall in imports was both exacerbated by, and a cause of, a steep decline in iron ore prices last month, which has continued so far in September with the benchmark Chinese spot price hitting a fresh five-year low of $US83.60 a tonne.

The news for coal was even more bleak, with an 18.1 per cent slump in imports between July and August, while imports are down 5.3 per cent over the year so far.

A key benchmark price for Australia thermal coal, used for power generation, has fallen more than 20 per cent this year.

Both iron ore and coal prices are now less than half their post financial crisis peaks.

Capital Economics analyst Julian Evans-Pritchard says a property market slowdown is starting to reduce demand for building materials such as steel, reducing iron ore prices, but lower iron ore prices have also weighed on the value of imports.

“Slower import growth reflects cooling investment, particularly in the property sector, which has weighed on commodity demand,” he told Reuters.

“That said, the weakness in commodity imports has also been magnified by the sharp falls in commodity prices in recent months.”

Mr Evans-Pritchard does not expect that situation to change soon, however other analysts are hopeful that China will introduce some stimulus to maintain growth near its 7.5 per cent target.

“It’s an interesting set of numbers for policymakers: it calls for more policy easing but, at the same time, strong exports and a record surplus will put some pressure on policymakers to let the currency rise in some way or the other,” Hong Kong-based RBS economist Louis Kuijs told Reuters.

All I can say is that Oz Comic-Con 2014 in Brisbane was amazeballs! To be honest, it was the first time in my life I’ve ever been to a convention focused on comic books, sci-fi, fantasy and everything nerdy. Which now means I need to rethink my budget so I can factor in the expenses to visit the next one — where ever and whenever that will be, year after year.

To see all the cosplayers is really a great experience. The amount of time some have spent to look like their favourite characters is unfathomable — at least to me. When you’re not sure if they are the real deal or a very devoted fan, you know they’ve gone that extra mile to make their costume look absolutely awesome!

What attracts a lot of people isn’t just the cosplayers and the amazing merchandise you can buy there. It’s where you can have the chance to meet some of your favourite actors. Have them sign a photograph while you exchange a few words with them, maybe even have your photo taken with them. Then sit in at one of their panels where you might be lucky enough to ask them a question or two.

Earlier this week I had the amazing opportunity to speak with Chris Judge. An absolutely awesome experience. Talking with a famous actor that is able to show he is a very grounded person, and not that different from you and I, is amazing and inspiring.

Of course, it’s when they get on that stage, start answering questions from fans and interact with them, you truly see who they are as a person. Again, just amazing.

Chris Judge had two panels that were open for everyone, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. I ended up going to both. That’s how much I enjoyed hearing Chris Judge talk about is experience playing Teal’c in Stargate SG1 and all the crazy stuff he got up to on set.

His reputation for pulling pranks was so bad that he got blamed for anything that went wrong on set.

“If it rained I got blamed for it.”

He was also infamous for duct taping people to things around the set as prank. But what made the crowd roar with laughter was the stories about the farting contests they had on the Stargate SG1 set.

“[One time] I let one go [and] it was great. [We] had to stop shooting for 40 minutes.”

Chris Judge didn’t only tell stories about his antics on set. He also told about how much he appreciate his fans and that it’s thanks to their devotion to the show that made it so successful.

Then to see William Shatner later on stage was almost unfathomable, as he is an actor I’ve grown up with as a kid. Not only knowing him from Star Trek, but from The Twilight Zone and Boston Legal, to name a few.

Hearing him talk about how Star Trek has inspired so many people’s lives was really great. Especially how the moon landing in 1969 increased the ratings of Star Trek, which in turn sparked a greater interest in space exploration. Making us realise that TV shows don’t only entertain, but also educate and inspire us.

Which is especially what the Star Trek franchise has been best known for, dramatising what we humans are doing on this planet to each other. Juxtaposing things we should be able to be with out, such as racism.

To experience something like this, as in, being in the same room as someone you’ve only seen on TV is not part of my daily life. As far as I know, this might be the first and last time I ever get the chance to meet Chris Judge and William Shatner. Which is why I decided to grab the opportunity to say hi, in person, and get a signed photograph from them both.

Money well spent if you ask me. As I will now enjoy having the memorabilia to remind me having met these two amazing actors.

Too often the media focus only on the fame that surrounds these actors. What we forget, which they discussed in both their panels, and I’ve mentioned earlier, is how their shows have had a huge, personal impact on people’s lives — sometimes even politics. Which is something we need to keep in mind, that they sure earn a good living doing what they love, but they also touch a lot of hearts with what they do.

As mentioned, they don’t only entertain us, they also inspire us to become better persons.

Well, with Winter out of the way and balmy nights ahead our thoughts once again turn to sky watching. Everything in astronomy involves peering through this long tube we call the telescope. So, what exactly is a telescope and what do they do?

Well, for one thing, telescopes don’t magnify anything, they just gather light. It’s true! The real magnification comes from the different lenses, or eyepieces you pop in the scope.
Think of a telescope then as a ‘light bucket’ – the bigger the bucket, the more photons a telescope can collect. The lens or mirror in your telescope collects the light from the Moon, a planet or distant star and sends it through the eyepiece to your eye where it’s magnified.

Astronomy is one of those hobbies where bigger is better but be careful, you only get what you pay for. Telescopes today are made to a price, not a quality, and the trade-off is usually in the eyepieces. Cheap toy telescopes found in department stores are to be avoided.

In Australia, any telescope under $250 is considered junk so beware. A good pair of binoculars on a tripod can be better than a cheap telescope that wobbles in a light breeze and won’t focus properly.If your telescope shows everything as blurry or distorted, it’s probably a lousy eyepiece that came in the box. Simply replacing it can breathe new life into a telescope that could have been relegated to the junk heap. Look for the letters ‘H’ or ‘K’ on the barrel. If you find that stamped there replace them with better quality units like Plossls.

By the way, Galileo didn’t invent the telescope. History got that one wrong. Hans Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle maker is usually acknowledged for the earliest recorded design for an optical telescope in 1608. Galileo was, however, the first one to turn it into a commercial proposition.

Hey, I almost forgot. When buying a telescope decide if you just want to observe the heavens or take it outside in the daytime as well. Some telescopes invert the image – that’s right, they turn everything upside down! Reflecting telescopes, popular with a lot of amateur astronomers, will do this but a refractor won’t. So, if you intend packing the scope for a day out whale watching followed by a night session in the backyard, go for the reflector OK.

Observe away from buildings, pavement or large objects that absorb heat by day and release it at night. The best locations are open, grass covered areas. For a similar reason, observing through an open window is also a bad idea. Allow your eyes to become dark adapted before trying to observe faint deep sky objects. This takes time, typically 15 minutes under truly dark conditions. Unfortunately, it only takes seconds to ruin your dark adapted eyes by looking into a bright light again.

One last thing, control the magnification when using your telescope. Too much power is the single biggest mistake beginners make with a telescope. Excessive magnification yields a fuzzy, very dark image. OK, open the door. Mars and Saturn begin the month still close together in the west, with the Moon just to the right of Mars. In the early evening, the Southern Cross can be seen in the south west, tipped over on its side, with the two ‘pointers’ almost vertical above it. The Milky Way spans the sky overhead, looking splendid as it stretches almost north south tonight.

Scoping The Spring Skies

You know, a telescope is really a subtle space ship of the mind. Its range is limited only by your willingness to be patient. Learn how to use it to its best advantage and learn how to really see what it is showing you. Be aware though that the views won’t look like the full colour spreads in magazines and books. Only instruments like Hubble can do that.

The Moon will be dazzlingly bright and sharp with a lifetime of detail to explore. The planets will look very small, even with high power, but if you’re patient you’ll be surprised how much colour and subtle detail will be revealed, especially during brief moments when our atmosphere is steady.

All of your observing with the unaided eye, binoculars or a telescope will be easier and richer with the help of good over the counter sky software like Starry Night. Here’s a tip – if you go to www.stellarium.org you can download a program almost as good. I use it all the time. It’s easy to use, and free to download.

Take your time and really observe an object. This technique probably cannot be overstated. Spending even 2-3 minutes studying what’s in your field of view will reveal vastly more detail than simply glancing at an object then hurrying on to the next. A quick glance at Saturn for instance shows it rings, a long look reveals divisions in those rings, cloud bands, subtle colorations, and moons. No technique in astronomy will show you more than spending time examining an object in detail with your own eyes.

Let’s start with one of the easiest to find yet most rewarding objects when visible, the Moon. Its rugged craters, high mountains, and vast ‘seas’ offer some of the finest details to be found in any astronomical target. It changes every night as the terminator, the line between sunset and shadow, progresses over the surface, revealing new details.

At first, the lunar landscape will look quite confusing, but keep in mind that lunar north has fewer craters than lunar south. As you study the Moon from month to month craters will become more familiar to you. Notice those huge flat grey areas? They’re called ‘seas’ after Galileo who first spotted them through his newly invented telescope. He thought they were oceans but they’re just cold grey flat lava beds, some hundreds of kilometres across!

So, where should you set up? Footpaths and rooftops absorb heat during the day and radiate it back off during the night. The resulting turbulent air can distort the image through your telescope. So for best results, set up your telescope on dirt or grass, which absorb much less heat, and avoid aiming directly over nearby buildings.
The best time to view an object is when it is high in the sky. There’s less pollution and less sky glow, so the view will be clearer.

Light pollution decreases late at night, as downtown businesses close and households turn off outdoor lights. Try stargazing near midnight or during the ‘wee hours’ of the morning when possible. You know, astronomy is now your own personal voyage of discovery into the depths of the universe and your telescope is your spacecraft. The glory of it all is that we can do it from our own backyard. Enjoy. For a FREE 323 page e-book “The Complete Idiots Guide To Astronomy” subscribe to Dave’s weekly newsletter www.davidreneke.com