All of us are cursed with something. Some of us have all the money we want, some of us are at the body weight we want to be. I was cursed with wanting to be an engineer: you know, using science and technology to improve my future and the future of the world.
People tell me “Oh, I could never do that. Math is hard.” Yeah, sometimes it is, but physics is easy. Every second, we understand and use pressure, temperature, electricity, gravity, friction and energy to get the things we want.
So please try to imagine how hard I laughed when I learned about a proposal to refill the Great Salt Lake with seawater piped from the Pacific Ocean. The issues with that plan are far too numerous to list here, but the fundamental problem is the entire pipeline has to be completed before the first gallon dribbles into the lake.
No, the solution to our water drinking supply, and the future of the Great Salt Lake, is drift fences, half-mile tall, made of transparent polymer nanofiber suspended above every mountain range on towers of crystalline graphene. These curtains would cause snow to pile up on the leeward side instead of blowing into Wyoming. Cheap, clean, unobtrusive, able to be built incrementally and utilizing our vast existing infrastructure of reservoirs, canals and water distribution systems. Even backcountry skiers would support this system.
Martin Neunzert, Ogden
