[OT] Interesting trip

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 05:48 -0500, David Bandel wrote:
> On 3/15/07, Chong Yu Meng <chongym at cymulacrum.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 08:01 +0100, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 10:29 +0800, Chong Yu Meng wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 12:49 -0700, Bill Campbell wrote:
> > > > >  Their first attempts failed because the
> > > > > automatic safety features shut things down so they disabled five safety
> > > > > systems in order to make the tests.
> > > >
> > > > There's a lesson in there somewhere! My first job was in a factory -- a
> > > > wafer fabrication plant to be precise -- and we had all kinds of safety
> > >
> > > You fabricated water?
> >
> > LOL! That's WAFER, not water. It's a silicon disc that has DRAMs
> > literally made on it. Though strangely enough, "fabricated water" would
> > make sense in Singapore now. There is a new initiative here, where they
> > are building water recycling plants that recycle -- among other things
> > -- human waste fluids into drinkable water! It's called NEWater
> > (http://www.pub.gov.sg/NEWater_files/index.html)! Something else for the
> > Yanks to laugh at us about -- until they come here and have to drink
> > it! :)
> >
> > Bottom's up!
> >
> 
> Actually, the waste treatment plants in the US (at least the newer
> ones), put cleaner water back into the rivers than reach the taps
> (after the water taken from the rivers has been treated).  The only
> reason the US doesn't do the recycled water bit is the reaction most
> folks have to the thought of it -- along the lines of what you allude
> to above (the "yuck" factor).

In Riyadh KSA, there is a Lake Riyadh. After treatment, the water has
been let run out into the desert. It now forms a large man-made lake.
Moslems cannot use this water. Of course, all water is recycled water,
so this is really nonsense. But it is interesting to see how much water
has been desalinized and pumped from the rather limited aquafiers. And
of course much more has evaporated and seeped into the ground. Given
their own cheap sources of energy, it is no surprise that they can
support this. No solar powered desalination for them. Even if they
(University of Riyadh) have developed an inexpensive system for just
that.

-- 
Roger Oberholtzer

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