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Salt build up in agricultural soil seems like a looming problem but I'm not seeing a huge issue with the salt from desalination. Can't we continue to dilute and
by s0rce 8y ago
Salt build up in agricultural soil seems like a looming problem but I'm not seeing a huge issue with the salt from desalination. Can't we continue to dilute and put the brine back in the ocean? Is it ideal, probably not, is it better than rerouting rivers and depleting aquifers, probably.
- mikelyons 8y agoThe pattern with human activity is that anything less than ideal will eventually kill us.
- rtkwe 8y agoFTA: > The primary byproduct of desal is brine, which facilities pump back out to sea. The stuff sinks to the seafloor and wreaks havoc on ecosystems, cratering oxygen levels and spiking salt content. The issue is the dissolution process is slow enough that the salt has time to wreck havoc on the environment. And if you're taking river water or aquifer water to dilute the brine to a point near the local salinity why go through the whole desalination process to start with instead of using the water to dilute this byproduct? It's easy to forget that at large scales the ocean doesn't really disperse things evenly. Surface salinity for example ranges from 30-40 g/kg across the surface of the ocean. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/images/591162main_pia14786-43_full.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_f...