California regulators are likely to approve a new water desalination plant today as state officials look for solutions to ongoing water shortages, as the state struggles through its worst drought in over 1,000 years.
California regulators are likely to approve a new water desalination plant today as state officials look for solutions to ongoing water shortages, as the state struggles through its worst drought in over 1,000 years.
Speaking purely from a technical perspective, if renewable energy were to scaled up somehow it probably makes sense to do it. I don't know of any downside other than the immense energy inefficiency of the process, but in this case the increasing scarcity of water is pushing the economics toward getting water no matter the cost. It's unfortunate that the environmental cost of using up all the water and then switching to desalination is not factored in under capitalism. I guess I'm just hoping that renewable energy tech/infrastructure can get in place soon enough,, the future of humanity kind of depends on it right now.
My understanding is that it has a notable environmental impact since they have to pump that saline slurry back into the ocean which then creates an uninhabitable zone for fish. If you've seen anything about brine pools at the bottom of the ocean, it's basically the same concept but instead we're just creating a brine cloud in the ocean. On a global scale it's less significant, but on a regional level it can really hurt the creatures and mess up all sorts of stuff.
I don't see why they would have to do that, but I'm sure they will do it rather than store it on land or something (which would be its own form of pollution anyway). More research needed on my part
When you take salt water and pull out all the water, you're left with enormous amounts of salt-brine. Then you're left with the question of what to do with the new pile of waste you've created.
Guess how the Middle East handles this problem.
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Glad to hear Pei Xu and colleagues have been working on it. Do we know if an environmentally friendly disposal process has been developed yet? I'm sure it won't be implemented to save cost, but at least we'd have something to fight for.
The article lauds the Israeli approach, so... shrug. Presumably, you can dilute the brine with more sea water and diffuse it across the coastline, so you're not subjecting any single patch of sea to high levels of salinity.