The solution to the water shortage in the South-West, and Texas hydro-electric storage problem, eliminating carbon fuel dependence at the same time.

The Hoover dam water is being depleted. We are running out of water in the South-West United States. The water used for irrigation is too salty. The rapidly growing population requires more and more water. Texas needs hydro-electric storage to supplement the power when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.

First let us assess the size of the problem. The rainfall reaching the streams in the Colorado River basin is about 15 million acre feet per year, and is not increasing. See figure:

Now let us look at water allocations:

The total allocations come to 16.5 Million Acre Feet per year. This is clearly unsustainable, Lake Mead will be drained by 2 MAF per year and is now at 34% of full pool of 32.3 MAF. If nothing is done it will be drained in 5.5 years. Draining Lake Powell will give us another 4 years, so something must be done in the next 9.5 years.

Texas has a problem, all too well displayed in the big freeze of last winter. The wind farms froze, the sun didn’t shine and the coal fired plants had been shut down for environmental reasons. The only thing that saved the grid from total collapse was Nuclear Power. Even the Natural Gas powered plants ran out of supplies since some pipelines had lost power. And Texas has virtually no hydroelectric storage capacity.

This is my proposal: Build an aqueduct from the Mississippi river to Yuma California, about 1650 miles long, capable of carrying 15 MAF/year of water It will start and end near sea level, and pump water in Texas and New Mexico to more than 4000 feet elevation until it reaches the Gila river near Duncan, NM, then follow the Gila river all the way down to Yuma, AZ. On the way down the Gila River it will generate hydroelectric power, and recover much of the power spent pumping the water upstream in Texas and NM. You may wonder, what would a canal like that look like? Some of the way it would look like this, but be 30% larger, here is the All American canal under construction:

It will have many pumping stations. The size will be about 10 times the capacity of the ones used in the Colorado River aqueduct, shown here. (This aqueduct made it possible for Los Angeles to grow to a megalopolis.)

To pump all this water 4500 feet up will require twenty-two 500 MW electric power generators. The ideal power source for this is Liquid Fluor Thorium Reactors that provide power at all times, most of the time they pump water, but about 6 hours a day they stop pumping and provide peak power, thus functioning as a virtual hydroelectric battery. As all nuclear generators they generate no CO2, and LFTRs are so safe they do not require evacuation zones. If the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, or it is excessively cold or hot, they can even stop pumping water altogether and provide all the power to the grid. With the water on the downhill leg the opposite is true. It releases most of its water during times of high demand, acting as a normal peak water storage generator facility. Since both start and end points of this aqueduct is near sea level, about 90% of the power is recovered in this way except for the water that is diverted at high altitudes.

Who is going to get all this extra water? Check the current allotment and the new proposed allotment.

There will be no changes to the allotments for the states in the upper Colorado River basin in this proposal.

California will get its allotment increased from 4.4 MAF to 6.4 MAF, all water coming from the new aqueduct.

Arizona will get its allotment increased from 2.8 MAF to 4.3 MAF, all from the new aqueduct.

Nevada will get its allotment increased from 0.3 MAF to 1.3 MAF, the increase will be taken from Lake Mead.

Mexico will get its allotment doubled, to 3.0 MAF. The Colorado river should again be reaching Baja California with a flow of 0.5 MAF. This may restore a modest fishery.

New Mexico will be allotted 1.0 MAF for high elevation irrigation from this new aquifer.

The aqueduct will supply California, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico with water from the Mississippi river, much better suited for irrigation than the present water which is high in salinity.

This will reduce the outflow from the Hoover dam by 6.9 MAF, and the new aqueduct will supply 10.4 MAF downstream from Lake Mead.. With this reduction in outflow Lake Mead will recover quite well.

When the Hoover dam is near full pool, we should start using it as a peak power supplier by pumping water back from Lake Mohave to Lake Mead during off peak demand.

If there ever was a project worthy of consideration in the Infrastructure bill, this is it. Look what it does:

Saves Lake Mead from being emptied and secures its refilling over time.
The 22 LFTR plants in Texas and New Mexico will provide up to 8 GW of peak power for 5 hours a day, and all 11 GW of power can be commandeered for emergency use for a week.
The downstream dams in Arizona will provide up to 6 GW of peak power.
Once the project is finished, the Hoover dam is converted to a peak power storage with 2 GW peak power available.
the addition of 10.4 MAF water will add 40% to the water supply for over 40 million people.
The Mississippi water is better suited for irrigation than Colorado River water due to much less salinity.
By increasing irrigation by at least 3.5 MAF it will provide a 40% increase in food production from the greater imperial valley and a 40% increase in food production from Mexico.
The electric energy generated by the Nuclear power plants is all carbon free, and because of the peak power generated on the downhill leg, we can build another 19 GW peak power of renewable wind and solar generators. This will allow us to retire 19 GW of Coal fired power plants once the aqueduct is completed

The new name for this canal would be the Transcontinental Aqueduct.

June 29: Read through the Holy Bible in a year.

Acts 19:23-41. The tradesmen of Ephesus, who made souvenirs in the form of shrines and idols of silver considered Paul and the many believers bad for business. After all,Ephesus was the idol worship center of Artemis (Diana). This led to the riot at Ephesus.

2 Chronicles 21. The reign of Jehoram in Judah.

2 Chronicles 22. The reigns of Ahaziah and Athaliah in Judah.

2 Chronicles 23. Joash was crowned king of Judah and Athaliah was slain.

Psalm 48, of the Sons of Korah. “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised.”

Jun 27: The word for today.

It seems that the world changes every week. What is a Christian, saved by the blood of Christ to do about it? We are not to worry, but how? The word for today is from Romans 11:

This hymn gives the answer how we are to live, the key is to abide.

June 28: Read through the Holy Bible in a year.

Acts 19:1-22. Paul took the land route to Ephesus, where he met believers that had not even heard of the Holy Spirit. For two years Paul did many miracles there and did defeat evil Spirits, all to glorify Christ.

2 Chronicles 18. The prophet Micaiah warned Ahab of Israel,but Ahab listened to false prophets instead. The result was that Ahab died in battle.

2 Chronicles 19. King Jehoshaphat returned to Jerusalem and instituted a number of reforms.

2 Chronicles 20. Because Jehoshaphat turned to God, Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir were defeated and there was peace until the end of Jehoshaphat’s reign, but he made an alliance with Israel to build trading ships, and they were destroyed.

Jun 26. The word for today.

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:45 (King James version)

Is that good or bad?

In the Nordic countries sun is good, the more sun the better. People get out as early as possible in the Spring to catch as much sunshine as possible. In late fall, when the sun almost never shines cabin fever starts to set in, and a temporary cure for cabin fever is drinking, so the problem of alcoholism gets worse the further north you get.

In the 10 to 40 degrees latitude region the problem is the opposite. There is an Arabic proverb that says “All sunshine makes a desert”. In India and China people tend to avoid sunshine as much as possible, white skin is a great advantage to have, or one could be mistaken for a common laborer.

We must have sunshine, or nothing will grow. Another thing without which nothing will grow is water, so the second part of the word for today, rain, is that good or bad? Here in the U.S, if you live more than 500 miles west of the Mississippi river rain is good, if you live east of that, too much rain is bad, it can lead to flooding.

But God is no respecter of persons. God gives the same weather to the good and the evil, the just and the unjust. It is what we do about it that makes a difference. There is a Norwegian saying “there is no bad weather, only bad clothes”. But that is from a country without hurricanes and tornadoes. In some places their main source of rain is from hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones, dependent on in which ocean they form.

And so it was: The first treaty in the Bible was about water: See Genesis 21:

The battle of Beersheba occurred in 1917, when the Turks of the Ottoman Empire were routed.

Leading the charge was the Fourth Light Horse Brigade. They look more like camels to me.

The battle in the Middle East started about water, and is always partly about water.

The American West is also all about water. A farm without water rights is essentially worthless. A century ago the Colorado River Basin had a population of about 5 million people, now over 40 million people use the water from the Colorado river. In less than 20 years Lake Mead will be emptied, it is now down to 34 percent of capacity, a new all time low since the lake was first filled.

This calls for action, but there is no mentioning of what needs to be done in the proposed infrastructure bill, so I guess it leaves the American South-west high and dry.

It is high time for us all to pray that sanity will return to Congress and that they will start to tackle the real problems this country is facing. If this problem is not solved there will be man-made climate change. The problem is water, not CO2.

June 27: Read through the Holy Bible in a year.

Acts 18:9-28. Paul left Athens and went to Corinth where he stayed a year and a half, teaching many in the city, among them Priscilla and Acquila. The three of them went to Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Acquila and went to Antioch. Priscilla and Acquila met Apollos, a learned man preaching the baptism of John. “When Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace: For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.”

2 Chronicles 14 tells of Asa’s reign in Judah.

2 Chronicles 15. Asa threw out the idols and repaired the altar before the Temple. People from Israel joined, and thanks to following the LORD Judah had peace until the 35th year of Asa’s reign.

2 Chronicles 16. Asa’s made a treaty with Syria. That was a mistake. Hannai’s Message to Asa was that Asa had not relied on the LORD. Four years later Asa died.

2 Chronicles 17. Jehoshaphat reigned in Judah, they took the Book of the Law around the country and taught the people. The fear of the LORD fell on the surrounding countries, so Judah had peace for years.

Psalm 47, of the Sons of Korah. “Sing praises to God, sing praises“.

June 25: The word for today.

^{Ephesians 4:4}There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Twenty-two years ago a girl was born with undeveloped optical nerves and mild cerebral palsy. She was not expected to live more than at most one year. But God had other plans for her. At age two she began to sing. Her love for singing praises to God has never ceased. And so, in God’s providence she was chosen to sing at the 2017 presidential inauguration interfaith prayer service. And sing she did! Her name is Marlana VanHoose, a little girl, but with a voice.

Image result for the 2017 inauguration prayer breakfast how great thou art

Meanwhile, the media was busy tracking the protest rallies all around Washington that day. I watched all day and never saw this.

How did the audience that was privileged to watch react? It is worth to listen to it a second time, this time around watching the reaction of the public in attendance, notably Melania Trumps reaction.

After the song Melania led the standing ovation to acknowledge God’s grace, not only for the song, but for the whole day and for the whole presidency.

This is what give us evangelicals hope. The young woman not only sang it, she also sang the third and fourth verses, so often omitted in public settings, especially in interfaith services. Why is that important?

Let us look at the history of “O store Gud”, and how it came to be the most favored Hymn of at least three presidents before Donald Trump!

Clouds have always been my fascination. They come and go, form and disappear, cool by day and warm by night. But most impressive of all are thunderstorms, forming when the temperature and humidity are high, transport a lot of water vapor to higher elevations, there condensing as rain or ice, coming down, cooling and watering the earth. Clouds and thunderstorms are the thermostat of the earth. Without it the earth would respond like climate models, predicting a sharp temperature rise as carbon dioxide levels increase. The models are all flawed, since they predict a hot spot in the troposphere over the equator, but there is none. The thunderstorms in the tropical doldrums take care of that. “Settled science” instead has settled on ignoring the lack of the hot spot, for to acknowledge it would make the global warming claim invalid.

I thank God for providing us with a thermostat that protects the earth from overheating, and especially for thunderstorms!

Such was the case in July 1885, when Carl Boberg, a 26 year young pastor of a small congregation of the Swedish Missionary society was the honored guest of the ladies’ auxiliary annual picnic, held in a meadow near Mönsteråsviken, (a bay of the Baltic Sea in southeastern Sweden). The day was perfect, the sky was clear, pleasant temperatures, the cows were grazing on the meadow, the birds were singing, in short, a pastoral idyll. Then it happened. In a few short minutes thunderclouds appeared out of nowhere. There was no time to go home, so they all sought shelter in a barn close by. The rain came down hard, and lightning struck a nearby tree. Then as suddenly as it started the rain stopped and all was calm. In Sweden it turns much cooler after a thunderstorm, and the birds sing like they got a new lease on life.

They all went home, and the young pastor pondered the events of the day. He

080419-11, digital 28,8 mb RAW, 12-00 Koltrast, Turdus merula Uppland — 080419-11, digital 28,8 mb RAW, 12-00
Koltrast, Turdus merula
Uppland

heard the Coalthrush singing its melodic, beautiful drill, and in a distance he heard the church bells ringing from Kronobäck’s church. The bay was calm like a mirror, and inspired he started penning the song “O store Gud”. Here is the first verse:

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the works Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Refrain:
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

He continued to write and wrote of all the mighty works that God has made and what He has given us through His word, and continued long into the night. Before going to bed he had penned over twenty verses. The next Sunday he wove the poem into his sermon. They all loved it, but that was about it. Slowly the word got around the poem was pretty good, after much editing down, 9 verses were published in the local newspaper Mönsteråstidningen in 1886. Carl Boberg didn’t make any efforts to publish it further, and was surprised when he heard it sung a few years later to a Swedish folk melody (in 3/4 tempo). This was then published in the periodical “Sanningsvittnet” (witness of the truth) in 1891.

It was translated into German by an Estonian, Manfred von Glehn. Five years later it was translated into Russian by Ivan S. Prokanoff, the Martin Luther of modern Russia. It was published in a book with the title “Cymbals”.

Later, while in the Carpathian Mountains of what is now Western Ukraine the English Missionary couple Hine heard the song sung in Russian, this time as a wandering song in march tempo. He got impressed by God’s great works in the Polish mountains, and as Stuart Hine heard the people singing it on their way to church he penned a translation. This become the second verse:

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Refrain

From now on the English version is different than the Swedish original. This is the origin of the third verse: It was typical of the Hines to ask if there were any Christians in the villages they visited. In one case, they found out that the only Christians that their host knew about were a man named Dmitri and his wife Lyudmila. Dmitri’s wife knew how to read — evidently a fairly rare thing at that time and in that place. She taught herself how to read because a Russian soldier had left a Bible behind several years earlier, and she started slowly learning by reading that Bible. When the Hines arrived in the village and approached Dmitri’s house, they heard a strange and wonderful sound: Dmitri’s wife was reading from the gospel of John about the crucifixion of Christ to a houseful of guests, and those visitors were in the very act of repenting. In Ukraine, this act of repenting is done very much out loud. So the Hines heard people calling out to God, saying how unbelievable it was that Christ would die for their own sins, and praising Him for His love and mercy. They just couldn’t barge in and disrupt this obvious work of the Holy Spirit, so they stayed outside and listened. Stuart wrote down the phrases he heard the Repenters use, and (even though this was all in Russian), it became the third verse that we know today:
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Refrain

The second world war broke out, and the Hines’ were forced to return back to England, but they continued their ministry. The fourth verse was was added by Stuart Hine after the Second World War. His concern for the exiled Polish community in Britain, who were anxious to return home, provided part of the inspiration for Hine’s final verse. Hine and David Griffiths visited a camp in Sussex, England, in 1948 where displaced Russians were being held, but where only two were professing Christians. The testimony of one of these refugees and his anticipation of the second coming of Christ inspired Hine to write the fourth stanza of his English version of the hymn. According to Ireland: One man to whom they were ministering told them an amazing story: he had been separated from his wife at the very end of the war, and had not seen her since. At the time they were separated, his wife was a Christian, but he was not, but he had since been converted. His deep desire was to find his wife so they could at last share their faith together. But he told Hines that he did not think he would ever see his wife on earth again. Instead he was longing for the day when they would meet in heaven, and could share in the Life Eternal there. These words again inspired Hine, and they became the basis for his fourth and final verse to ‘How Great Thou Art’:

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”

Refrain

The complete song was soon published, not in England but in the Soviet Union (in English). The famous Gospel singer George Beverly Shea got hold of it, liked it a lot, but he wanted to change two words in the first verse: Instead of works, he wanted to use worlds, and instead of mighty he wanted to use rolling. Very reluctantly Stuart Hine agreed, but only for use in the Billy Graham Crusades. It was first sung in Canada in 1955. It became so popular that in Billy Graham’s 1956 New York Crusade it was sung at all 99 events, and from there the song spread out through all the world, even back to Sweden where the new version became the popular one. One of the visitors to this Crusade was the boy Donald Trump, who went with his Father and Mother and Brother (and Sisters?) to listen. God’s word never returns void.

God works in mysterious ways.

God works over all and in all and through all.

God is not finished with us yet.

God is.

June 26: Read through the Holy Bible in a year.

Acts 18:1-8. Paul left Athens and went to Corinth where he stayed a year and a half, teaching many in the city, and some believed. When the Jews opposed him Paul decided that he from then on would go to the Gentiles.

2 Chronicles 11. The LORD warned against going to war with Israel, so instead Rehoboam fortified the cities, the priests and Levites left Israel and moved to Judah. The family tree of Rehoboam is recorded.

2 Chronicles 12. Egypt Attacked Jerusalem and Judah paid the ransom. The reign of Rehoboam ended.

2 Chronicles 13 tells of Abijah’s reign in Judah.

Psalm 46. Of the Sons of Korah. “Let us sing the forty-sixth psalm in concert; and then let the devil do his worst.” (Martin Luther)

Revelation 18:21-24, The Finality of Babylon’s Fall.

Revelation 18:21-24, The Finality of Babylon’s Fall.

Yes, there is man-made climate change. It is land use change and results from the battle over water.

All sunshine makes a desert. Arabic proverb.

The rain that on the righteous falls,

falls also falls also on that other fella.

But mostly on the just, because

the unjust stole the just’s umbrella. (Author unknown)

There is no bad weather, Only bad clothes. (Norwegian saying).

Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. (Common British lament).

The last comment is not always true. There once was a lake in Central Asia, the fourth largest lake in the world. It provided a sensitive, but functioning Eco-system for a large portion of South East Soviet Union and western Afghanistan. Then the central planners wanted to improve the productivity of the area through central planning on improving land management. In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets started using the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya rivers to irrigate extensive cotton fields in the Central Asian plain. The results can be seen in these 6 Satellite photos

Disaster is a mild word. The lake was the source of the rains that fell up-stream. With the lake gone, the rivers dried up completely, and the whole upland became desert-like. There has been efforts to restore the upper part of the lake with a dam, but that will do nothing to stop the desertification. My suggestion to solve this is to divert the spring floods from the headwaters of the river Ob and tributaries. There is a gap in the mountains less than 600 feet above sea level, so it is very doable.

A much bigger challenge is facing the south western United States. Lake Mead is at its lowest point since it was first filled, and Lake Powell is faring even worse, with no spring flood adding to the water storage. lake Mead is at less than 40% of full pool

and Lake Powell is at less than 35% of full pool. If nothing is done both lakes will be emptied in less than 20 years, and that is counting on a stable climate. Beside the end of lawns, golf courses, swimming pools and even agricultural irrigation, the dams will no longer provide hydro-electrical storage for peak power, something that is of utmost importance when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, which actually happens from time to time. Renewable energy, wind and solar requires a large reserve of stored energy to use as peak power. How much stored energy do we have. This chart is scary:

The lithium batteries we have all over, powering cellphones PCs an all kinds of electric equipment would be able to power the U.s power grid for three hundredths of a second. Large scale electro-chemical storage used by power stations, hospitals and other facilities that need uninterrupted services, also lithium-ion based, can power up the net for almost 23 seconds. And all pumped hydro-electric storage can power the grid for nearly five minutes. This means that nearly all extra peak power up to now has to be provided by Coal and natural gas electric power, since Uranium based nuclear power works as a base load.

There must be a better way to produce electricity. My suggestion will go a long way to provide more water to the Colorado river basin and reduce dependence on fossil fuel.

The Moffat water tunnel takes water from the Colorado river basin, diverts it under the Continental divide and provides some of the water for Denver and Colorado Springs and assorted communities. The yearly water drained from the Colorado river basin is about 74,000 Acre Foot, or about 0.5% of the total rainfall in the Colorado river basin, not much, but every little drop helps. This needs to be stopped. There is one problem, though: The greater Denver- Colorado Springs metropolitan area desperately need more water too, and the Ogalla aquifer is endangered already, so we must do something drastic. The answer is to pump water up-stream South Platte River, all the way from Omaha, Nebraska, lying east of the Ogalla aquifer. To do so we have to pump water 1,300 meter higher, and that requires energy, about 4,500 kWh per acre foot. At a price of 4 cents per kWh that would be about $190 per Acre foot. For an urban dweller or a rancher without water rights it is a bargain, but for a farmer, his water cost would be $250 to $400 per acre, so say the farmer grows corn, this would add $2.60 dollars per bushel in a year without rain at the right time. Any rain during thr growing season would reduce that amount.

The project is very doable and will even allow for increased irrigation, and the draw down of the Ogallala aquifer can stop. We need to pump about 300,000 acre foot per year, requiring 1,35 TWh/year, or about 150 MW of power. But the power stations are only to pump when the electricity demand is low, so it is best to provide 500MW of nuclear power, eliminating maybe 3 TWh/year of coal powered power, reducing CO2 emissions by 3 million metric tons per year. Every little bit helps.

Here is my proposal. Take a maximum of 2000 acre feet of water per day from the Missouri river just south of Omaha, Nebraska, about 3% of the average flow in the river, and pump it up to Colorado Springs, with major tap off stations in Denver and Greely and maybe many other stations. The power will be provided by Liquid Flouoride Nuclear Reactors, maybe five 100 MW reactors. When this project is finished the Moffat tunnel can be shut off, stopping the stealing of water from the Colorado river basin.

Why LFTR? Here is 30 reasons, and the list keeps growing

1. A million year supply of Thorium available worldwide.

2. Thorium already mined, ready to be extracted.

3. Thorium based nuclear power produces 0.012 percent as much TRansUranium waste products as traditional nuclear power.

4. Thorium based nuclear power will produce Plutonium-238, needed for space exploration.

5. Thorium nuclear power is only realistic solution to power space colonies.

6. Radioactive waste from an Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor decays down to background radiation in 300 years compared to a million years for U-235 based reactors. A Limerick.

7. Thorium based nuclear power is not suited for making nuclear bombs.

8. Produces isotopes that helps treat and maybe cure certain cancers.

9. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors are earthquake safe, only gravity needed for safe shutdown.

10. Molten Salt Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors cannot have a meltdown, the fuel is already molten, and it is a continuous process. No need for refueling shutdowns.

11. Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors have a very high negative temperature coefficient leading to a safe and stable control.