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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
by 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 agoI 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 agoI 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.