In the U.S., manual-move irrigation (hand-lines and wheel-lines, ~ 70% efficient) is employed on 5 million acres and furrow/gravity irrigation (~55% efficient) is employed on 23 million acres. Much of these lands comprise high-value crops and/or parcels shaped other than square or circle. For example, California has 5.7 million gravity-irrigated acres, mostly high value crops. California faces the most significant water crisis in history. After three years of drought, water reserves are at record lows. The Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta ecosystem is near collapse as evident by the $170,000,000 West Coast Salmon Fishery Collapse appropriation last June. Pumping restrictions cost California's economy an estimated $350,000,000 in 2008 and are projected to cost some $2,000,000,000 this year. Linear-move irrigators constitute the most efficient overhead applicator of agriculture irrigation water (~90% efficient) and, thus, are preferable on high value crops or where water is expensive. Linear move irrigators effectively irrigate squares, rectangles, L-shapes, adjacent rectangles and enable pivot/linear combo irrigation. However, deployment of linear irrigators remains hamstrung due to largely prohibitive operating expenses. PURPOSE: For many years, Hydrolinear Irrigators has been developing a very affordable-to-operate linear-move irrigator. The subsequent major reduction in operating expense is anticipated to unlock the potential of the linear irrigator such that conversion to linear irrigation will become greatly more attractive on the above mentioned 5 million manual-move and 23 million gravity-irrigated acres. Unfortunately, this technology was developed when oil was $15 per barrel and, thus, diesel power generation was then a viable power supply for moving the linear irrigator. SBIR funding provides for completion of a working example of a high efficiency power supply. The presently employed diesel generator can then be supplanted with the high efficiency power supply. Hydrolinear can then commercialize the affordable linear-move irrigator. OBJECTIVES: OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of this project is to achieve a working example of an efficient mobile power supply for powering the drive motors on linear-move and center-pivot irrigators. By design, the new power supply will alleviate the wasted fuel and associated pollution of diesel generator power generation. Achieving a working example of an efficient mobile power supply comprises successfully accomplishing the following technical objectives: Technical Objective 1: To establish a proprietary generation means for deployment in a high efficiency power supply. Technical Objective 2: To make a high efficiency power supply operational employing the proprietary generation means from Objective 1. Technical Objective 3: To make auxiliary power generation operational, the auxiliary augmenting the power supply from Objective 2. Technical Objective 4: To maximize the efficiency of the proprietary generation means from Objective 1. Technical Objective 5: To equip the existing commercial-ready affordable high efficiency linear-move irrigator with the system created by accomplishing Objectives 1 - 4. OUTPUT: Project success will output a working example of an efficient mobile power supply for powering the drive motors on linear-move and center-pivot irrigators. APPROACH: APPROACH: The above Technical Objectives 1 - 5 are sequential in nature. For example, undertaking Objective 2 is predicated upon achieving Objective 1, undertaking Objective 3 is predicated upon achieving Objective 2 and so on. As such, engagement in Objective 4 establishes that Objectives 1 through 3 have been successfully achieved. Objective 4 pertains to maximizing efficiency. Proprietary generation operating efficiency equals energy output divided by energy consumed. Components are subsequently modified and measurement again made. The resultant maximized proprietary generation efficiency must exceed a pre-established minimum acceptable performance of 60% efficiency. Ultimate achievable performance has been pre-established at 90%. Degree/percent of success is thus calculated: the maximum achieved efficiency divided by the 90% ultimate achievable performance. Objective 5 comprises putting the new power supply into service for field-testing.
