Ecolibrium
Dam (Water Cleaning)
We will use our dam mainly for drinking water and power. When it comes to dam water purification processes, everyone has one common goal. That goal is to take out all the harmful things that are in the water and turn it into water that can be used to cook, drink, and bathe with. Clarifier's that purify the water add certain chemicals to clean it from any deposits that could possibly be harmful to those using the water. Once the water has been cleaned, it’s usually held in a water tower for easy access when people need to use it.
We are responsible for providing and regulating water throughtout Ecolibrium. Before we started the project we thought there needed to be more than one dam to power our city and get enough water for our citizens. As research continued, we realized we could use geothermal and solar energy as power sources. For our potable water, we can use the aquifer when we can’t clean enough water for our city from the dam. One thing we want to do for Ecolibrium is to limit how much water the citizens can use for non-household usage. We would also like to limit how big yards may be, unless they choose to put in a garden or a flower bed that uses water efficient plants. Without these changes, we risk running out of potable water that can be used in our everyday lives. We can also make use of our cleaned waste water to irrigate our lawns and fields. Afterwards, that water can be pumped back to be sanitized so that we can drink it. If we use waste water humans could save a lot of water just in irrigation alone. Alternative energy sources such as solar, biofuels, and hydroelectric would be used as the energy source to power our facilities.
Water
JoJo, Mapuana, Shannon
Solar Water Heating (large buildings)
We will use solar water heating to heat the water that people use for drinking and bathing in the big buildings. There are two basic types of Solar Water Heaters: Passive Solar Water Heaters (for warm climates) & Active Solar Water Heaters (for moderate and cold climates). Active systems utilize a circulating pump and some type of temperature control. Passive systems do not have any moving parts and rely on the basic principle of physics. We want to use Solar trackers to help heat up our water pipes in a more eco friendly way. Solar trackers rotate toward the sun to capture more energy. Depending on the type of trackers obtained and installed, the range of tilt will vary.
Aquifer
When a water-bearing rock readily transmits water to wells and springs, it’s called an aquifer. Wells can be drilled into the aquifers and water can be pumped out. Precipitation eventually adds water into the porous rock of the aquifer. Pumping too much water too fast draws down the water in the aquifer and eventually causes a well to yield less and less water and even run dry. We will mainly use our aquifer when we can’t pump and clean enough water from our dam.
Water Regulation
Our city is going to have small lawns to conserve more water. However, flower beds will be permitted so long as the plants are water efficient rather than plants that have a high water demand. The best plants to meet these needs will be native plants that are already used to the amount of water in the area. We will regulate how often and how much people will water their lawns and flower beds.
