… - …

Chapter Twenty

A White Coat and a New Plan

March 2004 (Five years have passed since the last chapter. Harry and Hermione were recently married. Potter Waterworks has been operating in the Middle East for nearly six years. Everyone involved has become quite wealthy)

In one of the poorer areas of Boston, sixteen people wearing reflective safety jackets walked out of their vehicles. There was also a dump truck that had a steaming load of hot asphalt in the back. Another truck pulled up, towing a flat bed hauler with a steam roller tied down, as if they weren't planning on actually using it. Several of the workers wearing the orange safety jackets that read Roadmaster Street Repairs were carrying odd looking shovels, placing the hot asphalt into the potholes, ruts and crevices in the pavement that the workers carrying garden rakes had prepared.

If someone had been looking carefully, they would have seen that the holes, which had been full of water and slush just minutes before, were now perfectly dry. If they'd placed their hand by the hole, they'd have quickly pulled it back, as the hole and the surrounding area had been heated to 350 degrees. After the shovel man had filled the hole with the hot asphalt, the second person; in this case a young woman, ran the back of her rake back and forth over the hot asphalt. A few seconds later, it had all packed down tightly.

The young woman ran her rake just over the perfectly filled pothole and whispered, Impervious. Next to her, another young woman with a rake was tending another hole.

She glanced to one of the shops along the street that had a sign that read Royal Massage. For a moment, she recalled an unpleasant conversation that she'd once had with a former school advisor. Shaking off the bad memory, the young woman started on the next hole in the pavement and smiled at the fact that she'd be starting at the school's healer program in two months.

While her parents had been paying for her schooling, and she'd been awarded a full scholarship to the healing program, Laura Simmons wanted to take a semester off and use some of the charms and transfiguration skills that she'd learned at the Salem Institute. Her earning a good bit of money in the mean time was an added bonus. She smiled as she silently reflected on the day when the green-eyed teen, Harry Potter had sat next to her while visiting Herbology class.

… - …

Harry went to visit Professor Flitwick, who had been notified in advance of the meeting. Harry disillusioned himself as he passed the gates and walked into the castle. He recognized several students in the hallways and finally reached the professor's door then knocked.

The diminutive goblin smiled when he let him in and asked, "How may I help you, Mr. Potter?"

With only the briefest of greetings and small talk, Harry got down to business. He asked, "Is there a practical means of measuring the amount of magic leaking from the ley lines at a specific point?"

Delighted by his question, Flitwick replied, "If you looked at it from the perspective of how deep or wide is the river at a given location, then yes. I assume that you are referring to the vortex that lays deep beneath this castle?"

"Exactly."

"There are few reliable data points. One in particular interest is that the extensive Hogwarts wards are powered by the vortex. To your point, if you were asking how much magic you could draw from the vortex without weakening the wards, the answer would be calculable and could be verified. The strength of the wards can be reliably measured. So you would have an x - constant = y formula, where y is the amount of magic that could be tapped from the vortex."

Harry asked, "Is this something that I could help with?"

"Yes. Lend me one of your wonderful cellular telephones. I'll check the strength of the wards every morning. Should they not be at 100%, I will turn it on and telephone you."

"That would be perfect. I have one here. To turn it on, you press this button. It takes about a minute to turn on. To call me, press this button."

Flitwick nodded and replied, "Excellent. How soon would you begin your testing?"

"One week. The test would run for two weeks. What can I do to help you, Professor?"

"You already have, 50 times over. It's delightful to see so many more students at the school."

"As they finish, I'll have good jobs for them, should they wish."

Flitwick asked, "When are most students taking their NEWTs at Salem?"

"After the startup surge levels out, I'd expect at age 14 or 15 on average. In many cases, the Low Mage students were already at the school, so some are starting their cast magic courses at 11, others at 15 or older. Then there are the two summer sessions. To your question, they could make up to three school levels in a few classes within twelve months, if they truly wished to. By age 18, many of the students have earned their first masters degree."

Harry had been charging 500 pounds of cobalt a week and hadn't triggered a dip in the ward strength. He wanted to charge more; thus the meeting with Professor Flitwick.

When he attempted 1,100 pounds a week, he received a call from Flitwick. He immediately removed the cobalt from the chamber. The next week, he charged 1,000 pounds and didn't receive a second call. He'd reached the maximum that he could draw from the Hogwarts vortex. He hoped that it wouldn't become a limiting factor in his plans.

… - ...

Dan walked into the garage where Harry was tinkering with his solar seawater evaporation device. As Harry had been working on it several years without bringing it up very often, Dan guessed that he was stuck on some aspect and asked, "How's your project?"

Harry replied, "I understand how to make the various parts and components to make a semi-passive desalination system; I just don't think I can sell it."

Dan replied, "You have your solar collection devices. Essentially you heat the sea water to speed up the evaporation, right? For some five years, you've worked with 5,000 acre-feet lakes. An acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons, times 5,000 is 1,625,000,000 gallons; 1.6 billion. You do fills every other week, so each lake provides 3.2 billion gallons a month. Factor in 30 days in a month and however many gallons per daily consumption. You come to the conclusion that each lake will service just under a million people. I think it's fair to say that if they used 150 gallons per person, per day, supporting 750,000 people per lake would be realistic.

"What output per hour are you hoping to put into your passive desalination specifications?"

"1.5 gallons per hour per square yard. Do the math and the monthly output is 111 million gallons per square mile. Do the math again, using 150 gallons per person per day and a square mile of desalination facility can provide water for about 25 thousand people using our semi-powered 24-hour system. So the 10 x 10 miles block of land that I previously mentioned to John Steele could provide the entire water supply for 2.5 million people. That would work for Nevada until more people move there, except it's nowhere near any sea water. The problem is that there's 36 million people in California, 2/3 are in in the southern half of the state. We'd need an area as big as Joshua Tree National Park and a world of 48 inch pipe to help them."

"OK." Dan wasn't disputing the math, or the material requirements. He wanted to know where Harry was going with his discussion.

Harry continued, "We can't do it on a large enough scale to solve their problem without revealing the existence of magic. John was right. We'd never get it built. We'd be better off building a big three story warehouse, flooding it with seawater and having Dean lift the water while Colin and Dennis transfigure it.

"Everyone wants nearly free water. They won't pay to pipe it, or give us the right of way permits, they won't pay to transfigure it, they won't pay for the construction materials for an untested technology. Deep down, they're hoping that some mythical river of rain is going to dump an extra billion acre feet of snow in the mountains five years in a row and solve all of their problems."

Dan remarked, "Maybe it will, but it wouldn't happen ten years in a row. I still think Sam Kinison was right."

"Makes sense. Let's go see what Dobby and Winky's elflings are up to.

… -

June 2004 (3 months later)

Harry and the Grangers were having a beverage at the Tiki Bar. Emma asked Hermione, "Well, Healer Potter, are you planning on joining the Salem Healer System, joining a private practice somewhere, or hanging out a shingle of your own?"

She admitted, "I haven't thought much about it. I'm sure that there are plenty of healers practicing as natural healers, or recommending potions in the name of herbal supplements. Without a specialty, I'd be on the absolute junior end of the seniority rotation at Salem."

Emma asked, "What specialties are there?"

"Neo Natal, Pediatrics, Wizard Specific Disease, Elder Care, Spell Reversal, Memory Issues, Emergency Room and the like."

Something niggled at the back of Harry's mind but he let it go. He pointed out, "At least travel and distance aren't issues. What about working two or three days a week at Hogwarts?"

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Healer Pomfrey would probably appreciate some time off."

"Is she even there in the summer?"

"I don't think so. Have you applied anywhere?"

"No. I've been so focused on earning my white coat that I didn't spend much time on the then what? I've received all good grades. I could apply..."

Dan pointed out, "Most jobs are secured with contacts. Who do you know that you could..."

"That's not fair..."

Dan replied, "True. Yet Harry's hired 50 people, give or take. How many of them deserved their job, or were excluded, simply because of grades?"

"But..."

"Emma added, Dan has a point, contacts make things work. You should spend a few days thinking about where you might want to work. Then we'll go from there."
… - ...

July 2004

"Or does it?" muttered Harry to himself. He'd been thinking about his recent conversation with Dan, where he'd stated that his new water system had to be solar based. The problems were the immense amount of land that would be required, and the near impossibility of getting nearly 100 miles of right-of-way clearance to lay the pipelines to and from the desalination area. He started writing on his white-board.

No larger than an old discount retailer store building 100-150K square feet – dig out the bottom to make a lower level Lower has a pool of incoming water Upper level has heating units and boiler steam is piped through incoming water to condense

Charged Cobalt power source 2 inch thick, 6 foot long rods

Raise temp to 800 degrees F. Raise output at least 50x

Carbon Free - Clean Energy technology

Instead of annual rod recharge, go for 4x/year

Buy multiple facilities close to the ocean, minimize right-of-way issues

Use analogy of a big whiskey still, or a series of a big boilers

Blowers move the steam air from heating area to cooling area to increase output

Incoming water used to cool/re-condense piped vapor water

Keep costs low – Less than 1/10th cent per gallon

Negotiate tax exempt status

Catch Phrases - Water Treatment, Desalination and Steam don't sound threatening

Additives (chlorine, fluoride) could be included

Output volume could be adjusted

Build in extra capacity to connect to 2 existing water mains

After an hour, he was satisfied that he'd jotted down the basics and waited for Dan to get home.

…

Dan could tell that Harry wanted to talk, so they went into the garage after dinner. He looked at the whiteboard and said, "It looks like you want to try a different direction."

"The right of way thing feels like an insurmountable issue. My new idea is to buy a closed down K-Mart, or similar old retail building, as close to the ocean as possible, and convert it into a powered water desalination plant. They should be 100-150,000 square feet. On the output side, the best we'd be able to do is to connect to an existing 36 inch county water main. I was reading up on boilers and stills. The water's heated and vaporized. We'd cool it by passing the pipes through the pool of incoming water. That would recondense it. Once condensed back into water, we'd cool it a but more, treat it as requested, and run it into the existing water system with a flow meter."

"So you'd be evaporating the water via a more-or-less cost free energy source. What are you thinking of, with respect to output?"

"I'm hoping that a plant will have about the same output as a lake. Short of building one, I don't know how to test it. If we found a building that was close enough to the ocean, we could build one, pipe the water in, put a meter on the output side and pipe it back into the ocean as a proof of concept."

"How would it make any money?"

"The California water bills there typically have a fixed fee portion, say $50 a month just to be hooked up to the water system. After that, they bill for the water usage on an increasing, graduated scale, meaning any water that we sold to a city, or more likely, to a county, would allow them to remove restrictions on people watering their lawn or garden. We'll be adding to their capacity, allowing them to sell more of their higher rate water. They'd make more money for the county. I'm sure that they'd find a way to spend it. To your question, if we produced it at a tenth of a cent a gallon and sold it for a sixth, we'd do well, the county would do well, and people would have nice lawns and gardens. Everybody would be happy."

Dan suggested, "Maybe we should draw this out in more detail, then ask John Steel to take a look at it. What would you do with all of the salt?'

Harry glanced out in the direction of the Tiki Bar and waved his arm at all of the stuff that Dobby and Ed had accumulated.

Dan conceded, "Never mind."

… - ...

September 2004

Emma and Harry were visiting one afternoon. She and Dan must have been talking, as she inquired, "How's the water project going?"

Harry admitted, "I have several solutions. None of them seem suitable for 43 million people. With Dobby and Ed's help, I've still been stockpiling charged cobalt. I've purchased 1,000 pounds of 2 inch diameter 6 foot rods every other week."

To his first point, she observed, "Maybe they don't have to be suitable for all 43 million. You'll never get an audience with the President. They're either too focused on who to have sex with, who to make war with, or remembering their own name." At his chuckle, she added, "Seriously, you didn't sell all of the lakes to one single person in the Middle East; you effectively worked on a city or county, or at the most, on a state level."

Harry thought to himself, harshly spoken, but true. He replied, "What are you suggesting?"

"Two things. You originally sold John Steele on the lake idea because you had a large scale working model, not a brochure, or a conference room table model. Second, and it may have been a carefully researched work of due diligence, or it may have been blind-monkey luck, you quoted Rashad a price that was lower than their current practice, or alternative."

"OK."

"So, I'm suggesting that you find out if the California water treatment plants operate at the city, or the county level. The water commissioner or director at that level is your customer. Stick with the 48 inch pipe; you'll never get approval for the 10 foot version."

"OK." He wasn't certain where she was going with this cocktail napkin level rant, but it was always fun sitting at the Tiki Bar.

She continued, "Find someplace near the water that just enacted some sort of conservation plan, or additional water restriction. Subscribe to the newspapers, or ask Katie to do a search with her new computer. She seems to love looking up things. The cities or counties are all thirsty. The last thing you'll need to find would be some resident's water bill, so you know what they're charging. Find out if they're paying an eighth, a quarter, or a half cent a gallon. If they're currently paying an eighth or less, there's probably not enough profit margin for you to work with; especially if you're funding the start-up costs."

"OK." He'd done a lot of these things already, but greatly respected her business sense and was happy to hear his plan affirmed.

"Since it's the water department, they're probably currently running their treated sewage water out to the ocean, meaning that they already have a right of way established. All you'd need to do would be to lay a 48 inch pipe next to it and run it a mile or so farther out into the ocean. I can think of almost 1,000 helpers for that task. Then you'd need to purchase an out-of-business retail store that's near a water main. That's your point of delivery. Stick on a flow meter that they approve of and presto. Just like magic."

"Thanks for the idea."

… - …

A few hours later, Harry and Hermione were having dinner together. She asked, "Did Mum give you her ideas?"

"Yes. They were pretty good; great even. I agree with her points about having a production size demo building to show people, as well as latching on to an existing right of way."

She smiled and pointed out, "The question is, do you build it here, or in Sunny-Something County in Southern California? Perhaps you should ask Sharptooth at Gringotts to find you the closest available properties with that size buildings in the south half of the state. Quietly purchase the property and contact the water director in that county. The only thing that you'd initially be asking for is a permit to run a pipeline out into the water on a trial basis. Tell him what you're interested in doing and that it's on a trial basis. If it doesn't work, you'll remove the pipe at your expense. Sharptooth could probably even tell you what that county charges for water.

"You wouldn't even be asking the water director for any money; simply the intake pipe permit and an agreement to at least look at your operation when it's ready to go. At that point, you've invested in a building. If you get a truly negative response, resell the building and try again someplace else; someone will bite. You're not running the pipe for a nefarious purpose. The only other question would be, how close you would be to one of their main pipelines?

"Last, but not least, would be to find out the additive standards of their water – sodium, chlorine, iron, fluoride and the like. Then it would be a matter of building it on speculation and working out your costs. Give him or her something that they can say yes to. Once they start buying all of the water that they want, it's not very likely that they'll stop. On top of that, your primary source of energy is essentially free.

"If they're worried about control, offer to put up a treatment plant next to yours, so they can control the added chemicals. If you're able to keep the decision within the director's span of control, you're in. You should try for an at-will contract. You've willingly assumed all of the start-up expense and risk. That should be easy enough to negotiate. "As long as you're not selling below your incremental costs, you'll get people paid and eventually make something."

Harry replied, "That sounds like a good plan. On a different subject, are you planning on putting up an Old World Health Food storefront someplace, or working at one of the healing centers?"

She announced, "I'll work at the Salem Health System for a while, to get some real experience, then revisit the options in a few years."

Harry hugged her and replied, "I know you'll do great. We'll figure out the schedule part. Congratulations."

… - …

A few days and discussions later, Harry called John Steel to request a meeting. An hour later he was in Harry's garage where he'd built a large model. Harry explained his new water device. "The incoming sea water enters the lower layer of the building where it goes through a final filtering. Then it's carried into the top layer where it's super heated and evaporated into steam. The steam is cooled as the pipes run back through the lower layer, which holds the incoming water. It condenses into distilled water and is either stored in several water towers, or pumped into the treatment building where it's mineralized as needed to improve the taste. Depending on the county, fluoride and chlorine may also be added."

"Very elegant," observed John. Am I correct in assuming that your heat source is magical?"

"Yes. I'm referring to it as ionized cobalt, and use the lithium ion battery as an analogy. Unlike uranium, the rods aren't radioactive and can be handled and safely stored anywhere."

"Tell me about the costs."

"Currently, the average monthly water bill in southern California ranges between ¼ and ½ a cent per gallon, though they refer to their unit of measure as a CCF (100 cubic feet), which is 748 gallons. There also a monthly access fee, ranging from $25 to $65, depending on the area."

Rephrasing his last question, John asked, "What do you envision as your costs?"

"Aside from the purchase of the building itself, construction costs, property taxes, insurance and licenses, I'd have people operating the plant, testing materials and possibly additives. If we're supplementing their water, we probably wouldn't need that as the river water is over mineralized as it is. I estimate that it will take 40 people to staff a plant on a 24/7 basis.

"On a cost per gallon basis, if the water plant is heavily subsidizing their existing water supply, and operating at half capacity, our cost would be less than 1/10th of a cent per gallon. I expect to sell the water at 1/6th of a cent."

John asked, "What do you see as a typical output?"

"A maximum of 5,000 acre feet per day, about 1.6 billion gallons. 500 acre feet might be more typical, depending on where the plant was located and how much the county actually wanted to buy. The major constraint is that we'd typically be connecting to a 36 in water pipe."

"Where are you planning on locating these plants?"

"Either as near the ocean as practical, or near an existing water treatment plant, with the presumption that they're dumping their treated water into the ocean. Both scenarios are designed to either minimize the need for, or piggyback onto an existing right of way I expect that the larger counties would need several water plants. The ironic thing is it would be less bother to build several plants than try to obtain right-of-way to lay pipe all throughout a county,"

"Our bi-product is sea salt, which can either be processed and used by restaurants, or sent back into the ocean along with the treated waste water. More likely, I'd keep it, as some friends of mine are in the trading business."

"What's your marketing pitch?"

"Homeowners want to have a lawn or garden. While there's no shortage of water on the planet; there are spot shortages of fresh water. People should be able to flush their toilets, wash their clothes, or car whenever they want, and have a nice garden. The counties are using the sale of water as a funding source. My doubling their capacity would allow them to sell more, while at the same time, use less river water. You're right, these desalination plants aren't aren't practical to place 300 miles inland. California has 4.4 million acre feet per year in water rights – 58% of the Colorado River lower basin allocation. One water facility is just a splash in overall bucket, but for the individual counties that I can serve, it may be lifestyle changing."

"How many of these could you build?"

"With my current energy source, at least a dozen; maybe two. I'm pretty certain that I could expand pretty far beyond that. I have a good source of financing, if I ever need it."

"How do you explain your unique energy source?"

"It was something developed by a company from Britain. It doesn't involve using fossil fuels and it's uniquely suited to heating water. It's similar to the lithium used in the high-end batteries. They'd be recharged off-site using a proprietary process. Once we assure them that we're not building a nuclear facility in their backyard and their residents can buy all of the water that they want within their existing cost structure, I expect we'll see far more smiles than frowns."

The MACUSA Operations Director was highly impressed with the creative young man's plan and didn't doubt that he could assemble a team to carry it out. That said, he clearly needed a more established face for his company. He replied, "It's a great plan. Do me one favor."

"Sure."

"Interview this person. She could be quite helpful for you." He pulled out her contact card and handed it to Harry.

Harry read the card. "Dana Stone. How do you know her?"

"She was one of our top attorneys. She left MACUSA to raise her family. Her son Ethan started at Salem in the Low Mage program this year. She could be the face of your company in the US."

"What would I pay her?"

"How much do you pay the low mage crews?"

"I don't. I collect a bunch of them, suggest a city and give them some start-up money for prop equipment. They start up a company and bid the contracts for road repair and city cleanup. After that, my only involvement is to recharge their equipment twice a year."

"Ask her what she'd want and counter with 75%. It would be money well spent."

"I'll call her this afternoon."

… - …

A/Ns

Again, the numbers and statistics used were researched to the extent of my meager ability and weak eyesight. If you have a better set to use, please pen and post a tale, so we can all enjoy it.

As with many natural resources, I completely believe that the fight for fresh water will intensify in the next generation or two in many parts of the world.

Thanks for reading.

… - …