3 ms·

Aluminum smelting. Desalination is a good idea too, but instead of selling the water they could use it to grow forests and then sell carbon credits.

andy_ppp 9y ago
Growing forests would be incredible, it’d be like rain forest eventually right? It would be very strange to see a substantially green country in the Middle East.
- sp332 9y ago
  But to do that you need to increase the salinity of the nearby ocean for years.
  - tdb7893 9y ago
    How much of the increase in salinity stays? The ocean is huge and the water moves so I'm surprised that desalination has a large effect in that regard
    - sp332 9y ago
      I don't know. I live on the other side of the continent from California but sometimes I hear complaints about the ecological impact. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150426-column.html http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-201504... The oceans may be deep in the middle, but they are often shallow at the edges. And Saudia Arabia is bordered by two seas which have much less capacity to dilute salt than an open ocean.
    - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
      I think “the Earth is huge” is one of those things that makes intuitive sense to us, but that fails to take in to account the scale with which we operate. A desalination plant must put a lot of excess salt into the ocean somewhere. Whenever you’re dumping high quantities of something into the ocean, there’s always going to be some effect. The question is just “how significant” is the effect. I assume the local animal population could perhaps be greatly affected. And depending on the region there could be effects on migrating populations as well. Everything we do has an impact.
eternauta3k 9y ago
But where will they train their Sardaukar?
dazam 9y ago
The smelted aluminium goes to the market, recyclable aluminium from scrap is recovered and fed into grid scale aluminium air batteries (still in development) and you have got a closed loop of generation and storage.
Robotbeat 9y ago
Aluminum smelting does NOT handle shutdowns very well, though. Aluminum smelting really needs a constant power source because shutdowns can actually damage the electrolysis pots.

andy_ppp 9y ago

Growing forests would be incredible, it’d be like rain forest eventually right? It would be very strange to see a substantially green country in the Middle East.

sp332 9y ago
But to do that you need to increase the salinity of the nearby ocean for years.
- tdb7893 9y ago
  How much of the increase in salinity stays? The ocean is huge and the water moves so I'm surprised that desalination has a large effect in that regard
  - sp332 9y ago
    I don't know. I live on the other side of the continent from California but sometimes I hear complaints about the ecological impact. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150426-column.html http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-201504... The oceans may be deep in the middle, but they are often shallow at the edges. And Saudia Arabia is bordered by two seas which have much less capacity to dilute salt than an open ocean.
  - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
    I think “the Earth is huge” is one of those things that makes intuitive sense to us, but that fails to take in to account the scale with which we operate. A desalination plant must put a lot of excess salt into the ocean somewhere. Whenever you’re dumping high quantities of something into the ocean, there’s always going to be some effect. The question is just “how significant” is the effect. I assume the local animal population could perhaps be greatly affected. And depending on the region there could be effects on migrating populations as well. Everything we do has an impact.

eternauta3k 9y ago

But where will they train their Sardaukar?

dazam 9y ago

The smelted aluminium goes to the market, recyclable aluminium from scrap is recovered and fed into grid scale aluminium air batteries (still in development) and you have got a closed loop of generation and storage.

Robotbeat 9y ago

Aluminum smelting does NOT handle shutdowns very well, though. Aluminum smelting really needs a constant power source because shutdowns can actually damage the electrolysis pots.