IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

More Funny Things - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Hey, kids!! Start now and collect the whole set. 

 

What kind of sauce??

 

I wonder if they found one: 

 

From where??

Comparison of Solar Heater Locations - Dick LaRosa

In my last post, I was looking at the possibility that a solar heater raft location at the south end of San Francisco Bay would escape the morning fog encountered at the San Francisco Airport. However, the spread in wind directions is greater at the south end during the months May through September when we need the solar heating to overcome the temperature inversion that prevents the formation of high altitude rain clouds. Www.windfinder.com/windstatistics/  shows that winds at San Francisco Airport and Oakland Airport have higher probability of coming from the west and WNW directions than the wind at the south end. These two airports are located across the bay from each other near the widest east-west dimension of the lower bay.

The long dimension of the solar heater raft would be aligned with the most probable wind direction. It would run from the San Francisco Airport to a point where the San Mateo bridge crosses the east shoreline of the bay. This is quite far south of the Oakland Airport, so I will have to study wind statistics along the east shore. The road map that I have been studying has its compass rose centered in Montery Bay, so I am only now realizing that there is room for a raft length greater than five miles. The width of the raft might be less than the one mile that I was assuming. The deep water navigation channel would cross the raft in approximately a north-south direction, perpendicular to the most probable wind direction. A gap in the raft to accommodate the navigation channel would have minimal effect on the temperature rise of a packet of air moving along the length.

With this orientation, there is room to keep the raft away from both shores to minimize interference with recreational boating and other activities. Composing this post has helped me to clarify my thinking. I hope this dream turns into a successful reality.

San Francisco Bay Raft Location - Dick LaRosa

Previous blog posts have considered the possibility that a large solar absorber floating on San
Francisco Bay might be able to heat the moist surface air enough to make it rise through the temperature inversion that exists from May to September. This would allow the formation of high altitude cumulus clouds that would bring rain to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and restore the ground water in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. I initially thought that the raft location should be near the S F International Airport because fog passes between San Bruno Mountain to the north and the Santa Cruz Mountain range to the south. This low-altitude passage across the San Francisco Peninsula is referred to as the San Bruno Gap. It seemed that evaporating fog at the airport might be a selling point that would help gain acceptance for the project. But now I think it might be better to choose a fog-free location so that the solar heating can start earlier in the morning and increase the ability to overcome the temperature inversion.

The Santa Cruz range peak altitude increases toward the south and shields locations at the south end of the bay from wind and fog. There are two bridges across the bay near the south end. One, the San Mateo Bridge, is north of Redwood City. The other, the Dumbarton Bridge is southeast of Redwood City. Redwood City is located on heavily traveled Route 101, which runs along the east coast of the peninsula to the city of San Francisco. There are several water channels, called sloughs, between the coast and the deeper part of the bay. One of these sloughs has been dredged out to form the deepwater Port of Redwood City. Bulk cargo, such as cement, is transferred between water transporters and road and rail transport. Google Earth shows the depth in the port as 0 ft. This probably means that depth information is missing in the Port. Further north in the bay one can spot the location of the dredged-out deepwater channel using the Google altitude readings. The solar absorber raft must be kept clear of the navigation channel.

A study done about 20 years ago showed that the wind speed at Redwood City is about half that at the airport. Whether this will allow a smaller raft size will depend on the results of a numerical study that remains to be done. As I close in on the size and orientation of the raft, I will be looking for a location to accommodate it. The east side of the bay appears to be less developed than the west side. I will need to do much more calculating, collection of data, and study of the competing industrial, commercial, residential, and recreational activities.

E-Mail Downloading Problem - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Regarding that bogus phishing message I got, the bogus message which I thought at first was a reply from Optimum Online regarding my question to them about e-mail trouble, please see the following. 

The delays I've been having in getting e-mails to download have be quite profound.

Optimum Online's apparent choice so far to ignore me taken aside, can anyone offer some insight about this?