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Seems like this idea is couple of decades in making.. A seawater greenhouse is a greenhouse structure that enables the growth of crops in arid regions, using s
by achow 10y ago
Seems like this idea is couple of decades in making..
A seawater greenhouse is a greenhouse structure that enables the growth of crops in arid regions, using seawater and solar energy.
The technology was introduced by British inventor Charlie Paton in the early 1990s and is being developed by his UK company Seawater Greenhouse Ltd.
The technique involves pumping seawater (or allowing it to gravitate if below sea level) to an arid location and then subjecting it to two processes: first, it is used to humidify and cool the air, and second, it is evaporated by solar heating and distilled to produce fresh water. Finally, the remaining humidified air is expelled from the greenhouse and used to improve growing conditions for outdoor plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_greenhouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_greenhouse
Making Namibia’s desert green using seawater
https://www.newera.com.na/2016/07/08/making-namibias-desert-green-seawater/ https://www.newera.com.na/2016/07/08/making-namibias-desert-...
- hyperpallium 10y ago> On a sunny day, up to 39 megawatts of energy can be produced – enough to power the desalination plant... They don't appear to be using evaporation and distillation, but instead generate electricity and run the desalination plant with that... I'm guessing, by pressured osmosis, as used elsewhere in Australia. My question is: why don't they do it as you assumed? Whatever a solar still might lose in efficiency, it must surely make up in the reliability and simplicity of no moving parts.
- bjelkeman-again 10y agoDuring the pilot project Sundrop decided to simplify the design. The equipment for the distillation of the hot humid air proved to be complicated to produce with the resources available at the time and they decided to go with a more conventional method. Personally I think the original design could be made to work, but it needed more R&D than Sundrop was prepared to spend at the time.
- stuaxo 10y agoIndeed, trying too many new processes all at once would be setting yourself up for failure. Now this works, the other parts can be addressed and further efficiencies made.
- stuaxo 10y agoThere's a great video on youtube about the Advanced Passenger Train in Britain in the 80s where they tried a few too many new things with predictable results.
- Razengan 10y agoI can't help but imagine this technique being handy when settling on or terraforming certain planets.
- creshal 10y agoCertain planets with an abundance of salt water?
- Razengan 10y agoOr flooding them with such, first? Not that I know which currently-known planets we could do that on.
- TheBeardKing 10y agoThermonuclear bomb the Mars ice caps. I think I read that in a scifi book.
- Retric 10y agoMars is really cold. At the equator the thin atmosphere can heat up reasonably at noon, but it still hits minus 100f at night even at the equator.
- thescriptkiddie 10y agoThere are subterranean brine rivers on mars so large that they can be seen from orbit. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-th...
- Retric 10y agoNot quite. Here is a link that's probably easer to understand. https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast29jun_1m https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/a... We are not looking at underground water in those pictures we are looking at evidence of likely very short term water causing a tiny amount of erosion in just the right situation. However, it's long been known there is actually quite a lot of ice on Mars.