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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996321

Day and night


India is at the epicentre of the pump revolution. Using technology adapted from the oil industry, smallholder farmers have drilled 21 million tube wells into the saturated strata beneath their fields.

Every year, farmers bring another million wells into service, most of them outside the control of the state irrigation authorities. The pumps, powered by heavily subsidised electricity, work day and night to irrigate fields of thirsty crops like rice, sugar cane and alfalfa.

But this massive, unregulated expansion of pumps and wells is threatening to suck India dry. "Nobody knows where the tube wells are or who owns them. There is no way anyone can control what happens to them," says Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater station, based in Gujarat. "When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India," he says.

Shah gave his apocalyptic warning at the annual Stockholm Water Symposium in Sweden last week. His research suggests that the pumps, which transformed Indian farming, bring 200 cubic kilometres of water to the surface each year. But only a fraction of that is replaced by the monsoon rains.

I think this has a lot to do with how technology is introduced without thinking of the long term implications of it. The water extraction technique should never have been made so simple as to where anyone could do it.

The same thing happend with CFC based refirdgeration and the end of freon manufacture in the US in 1991. For about 50 years Dupont made billions of dollars selling their nonflamable gas which cooled was it expanded. Then someone says it is bad for the ozone so they get it stopped. Other countires were pressured to do the same but their argument was "why do you guys get to make money on this and we don't? We also have a right to be airconditioned and refridgerated for low cost".

Now CFCs are relaeased into the air at staggering levels and their effects are not confined to the area in which they were released. Oh, and BTW we just do not manufacture them in the USA anymore. The stockpile of CFCs is mind blowing and perhaps will last 50-75 years.

Same thing with South American deforestation and farms. It is easy for people in North America living easy lives to say "those stupid south americans" but for the local man he is just trying to feed his family and make a living. It is the gatekeeper of the technology or resource for allowing the thing which could be destructive to become so common and cheap that it goes unchecked.

But even that is not a valid argument cause the science and Dupont to detect the harmful effects of CFCs was not available in the 1930s.

This is a perfect example of the problems the world faces, and the dependence of these countries with ENORMOUS populations and population densities. If energy continues to be cheap (which it won't), they'll suck the land dry and will face massive food shortages. If energy does become expensive (it will), pumps will stop operating at some point when energy is no longer cheaply available. Either way they lose big time. Massive starvation. It's going to be ugly.

This is one of those lovely innovations that forces everyone to jump on the bandwagon just to stay in the bandwagon.

The first farmers who can afford to buy pumps of course should: now they can get water more easily, devote a larger part of their land to expensive water-intenstive crops, etc. So the rich and the risk-takers jump on board, get pumps, and start raking in the dough.

Meanwhile, for everyone using human/animal power and wells, they start getting creamed. Other people can get the water cheaper. Plus, in some cases someone else's water pumping lowers the water table in the well you rely on. So, you end up either having to get a pump to compete (although by the endgame all the extra profits will be gone since well farming is a standard and the price is now dropping), or you get run out of business if you foolishly try the old fashioned way.

But hey, water intensive food will be cheaper for a little while. Aren't free markets awesome?

definity makes India a prime candidate for "worst case" peak oil (or what ever peak) disaster...

We have a similiar problem in America, but its not nearly this bad. The average medium sized sprinkler can pull 500 gallons PER MINUTE. On a 24 hour run they'll use more water then I use in a month. A flood irrigation system can run upwards of 1000 gallons PER MINUTE. Its absolutely insane when you think of the thousands of wells in an area running hours and hours a day.
States have set yearly water table levels. Such that, the water table can only drop 1 inch, or 5 inches a year or whatever it may be set at. This has caused pump restrictions in both new drilling and run time on old wells.
Add to that States water rights battles (Colorade, Wyoming and Nebraska come to mind) and it really gets fun. A State is required to release X volume of water downstream for not only its neighbors but for local animals. A good example is the Kingsley Hydro Plant on Lake Mcaunahy (Spelling!) in Nebraska is required to release X amount of water downstream JUST because of certain species of birds which are endangered and happen to use the banks of the river for breeding. The funny thing? The habitat isnt a natural habitat for the bird!!

Water Rights are one of those morbidly funny things......

Must read article from NewScientist

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996321

<snip>

But this massive, unregulated expansion of pumps and wells is threatening to suck India dry. "Nobody knows where the tube wells are or who owns them. There is no way anyone can control what happens to them," says Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater station, based in Gujarat. "When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India," he says.

<snip>

Indian farmers have invested some $12 billion in the new pumps, but they constantly have to drill deeper to keep pace with falling water tables. Meanwhile, half of India's traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up, bringing a spate of suicides among those who rely on them. Electricity blackouts are reaching epidemic proportions in states where half of the electricity is used to pump water from depths of up to a kilometre.

This article was already discussed in round table discussion: http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic1332.html

For the sake of convienience, lets all use that thread.

Thanks Whitecrab, didn't see it there. Sometimes I tend to overlook posts where I suspect a Matt vs Jay war might irrupt. Wanna kill this one mods?

Whats needed is a better irrigation method. Todays flood method irrigation is extreamly inefficient. Thhis method also leads to a buildup of salts and unwanted minerals in the soil rindering the soil less productive or even unproductive. Large amounts of water is lost of evaporation.

An better idea is this technology called drip irrigation. This method saves alot of water.

An better idea is this technology called drip irrigation. This method saves alot of water.

It saves a lot of water, but is not without its problems. Basically, only very expensive crops are worth drip irrigating. You must install miles of underground tubing, valves, switches, monitors, wiring, etc. All this tends to be very delicate. The tubing tends to leak, the valves tend to clog, switches tend to break, etc., and you usually don't realize it unless you walk the fields every day make sure the soil is moist and the plants aren't wilting. When you spot a problem, you get to play "find the leak." You can't use mechanical equipment in a drip-irrigated field, because it will rip the system to shreds. Human harvesters, who get paid per pound, tend not to care if they're stepping on delicate parts, or damaging them by ripping out the crops as fast as possible.

This is, I think, a demonstration of Tainter's "diminishing returns." Investments in complexity increase your costs, until you're going faster and faster just to stay in place. Eventually, you can't do it any more.

RIL makes huge gas find in Madhya Pradesh

August 08, 2005 13:10 IST
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's largest private firm, has made a huge gas find in a coal block in Madhya Pradesh.
The company discovered 3.75 trillion cubic feet of in-place gas reserves under coal seams in Sohagpur coal bed methane (CBM) blocks in Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh [India], senior officials said.

http://ushome.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/08ril.htm

Viva la climate change.

I think the industry is capable of capturing all of this as pointed out in this post:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic10800.html

Methane has remained at a constant level in the atmosphere since 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

except, there isn't the LNG terminal or tanker capacity to transport it to the US or other areas where the biggest demand is.

Is this a #ucking press release about coal bed methane? That and $2 will get you a coke.

Yes, coal bed methane has worked in a few cases in the past but it's still experimental technology.

Yes, coal bed methane has worked in a few cases in the past but it's still experimental technology.

In 2000 production of coalbed methane in the US accounted for 7% of total gas output (about 1.3 TCF). Recently it has been estimated the number rose to 9% (my source here is Harts). Reserves are at best anyones guess since recovery factor varies greatly but in place estimates I have seen from various sources including USGS, Harts, GSC, ERCB etc. are something like:

US: ~400 TCF
Canada: ~450 TCF
Alaska: ~900 TCF

The big challenge in CBM extraction is dewatering of the coal and disposal of produced water. Different coals behave differently so there are significant challenges in identifying likely candidates. Generally need a ton of wells....unit spacing is quite small.

The history of coalbed methane production is fairly good in places like the Powder River basin and the Uinta basin.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/6035.asp Many believe this predicts a recession (though it's only about 70% accurate as a predictor).

indiadaily.com wrote:The down ward trend will accelerate in 2008-2010-time period ... the worse will probably come around 2010-2012.

Kind of in line with the end of the slide of the Olduvai Gorge.

I don't like how things are progressing.

The Mogambo has noticed it too. he's pretty excited about it (of course it takes little to get him exited).

And how about the 2-year T-note yielding a quarter-point above Fed Funds rate? This is insane! The 10-year T-bond is yielding almost the same? This is insane, too! The yield on the 10-year bond is less than the freaking Discount Rate, which is the rate the banks themselves pay to borrow money from the Fed! I shake my head in disbelief, and my ears comically go flappa-flapp-flappa as they slap against my head.

..........

You can take it from me and the whole rest of human history, that when things get really weird like this, something bad happens that you are not going to like.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Daughty/dec212005.html