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Just to be clear, "brine" isn't "salty water." > This untreated salt water can’t just hang around in ponds—or, in worst-case scenarios, go into oceans or sewer
by arkades 8y ago
Just to be clear, "brine" isn't "salty water."
> This untreated salt water can’t just hang around in ponds—or, in worst-case scenarios, go into oceans or sewers. Disposal depends on geography, but typically the waste does go into oceans or sewers, if not injected into wells or kept in evaporation ponds. The high concentrations of salt, as well as chemicals like copper and chlorine, can make it toxic to marine life.
> “Brine underflows deplete dissolved oxygen in the receiving waters,” said lead author Edward Jones, who worked at the institute and is now at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, in a press release. “High salinity and reduced dissolved oxygen levels can have profound impacts on benthic organisms, which can translate into ecological effects observable throughout the food chain.”
It's an actual waste product that has to actually be responsibly handled. It's not "just the salty water from the ocean that we can dump back in however we want."
- nickthemagicman 8y agoIs there any use for it at all?
- jpfed 8y agoIt's possible to use salt water and limestone to capture CO2; I wonder whether brine could be used for this purpose.
- mcv 8y agoThat would be really interesting. Two birds with one stone: clean water and capture CO2. Though I assume you then still have a waste product you need to do something with, and how fast are we going to run out of limestone if we start doing this on a large scale?
- otikik 8y agoI guess you could use it to extract salt - one could place evaporation pools next to the water extraction plant. It would evaporate faster than regular seawater.
- endorphone 8y agoJust to be clear, "brine" isn't "salty water." It mostly is, and the additional chemicals they mention are already in the sea water, not that were added somehow in the process. It's just concentrated. That it's concentrated is a problem, obviously -- very high-saline water (e.g. brine) and concentrated toxins are a problem, and would cause environmental problems if just dumped. The most common way to deal with brine is simply diluting it before discharge, ensuring that the salt content isn't high enough that it sinks and forms a brine pool.
- Jeff_Brown 8y agoDiluting it with ... fresh water?
- endorphone 8y agoYou churn it with a large volume of sea water and then discharge it when the salinity is only acceptably above the natural amount. I believe France limits it to 10% above the natural salinity. e.g. take 3 gallons of sea water and extract 1 gallon of fresh water. You have 2 gallons of +50% salinity brine. Churn it with 8 gallons of seawater and you're back to +10% salinity. Wash it out into the ocean.
- mcv 8y ago> the additional chemicals they mention are already in the sea water, not that were added somehow in the process. Are you sure? The article made it sound like they were added. If they're natural to sea water, simply diluting it with more sea water or possibly sewage that's headed for the ocean anyway, sounds like the obvious solution.
- dahfizz 8y agoYup, desalination doesn't require adding "chemicals" to the water. It works using heat, electricity, and osmosis membranes[1]. I'm not sure why the article took the tone that it did. [1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/parise2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/parise2/
- sunstone 8y agoYes, just like exhaled breath is a waste product full of C02 and containing very little oxygen. If other people had to breath that they would become very sick or even die.
- kiriakasis 8y agoActual question, how many time can air be breathed? I think you can live on second-hand breath.
- rusk 8y agoWell that's how CPR works ... I can't remember the details ... it's many many years ago I studied first aid but I think it's something like 1/3 of the Oxegen gets used, so when you're giving the kiss of life you're imparting the remaining 2/3
- masklinn 8y agoI'd be quite dangerous and very uncomfortable: exhaled air contains ~4% CO₂, 16% O₂ and is at roughly 100% humidity. * at 4% CO₂ you'll be suffering from moderate CO₂ toxicity (narcosis, dizzy spells, increased heart rate & blood pressure, mild shortness of breath, exaggerated response to effort) * at only 16% O₂ (but assuming atmospheric pressure), you're well into chronic hypoxia land, not quite sure lethal but not far, the hyperventilation from CO₂ poisoning will make this slightly better but nowhere near good * the combination of hypoxia and CO₂ poisoning will make effort (let alone exercise) possibly to probably lethal * the extreme levels of humidity will make the entire thing even worse as you'll have a hard time cooling down You can probably live in this situation for a few days, but the CO₂ levels alone would make it lethal past a few weeks, the combination of all factors means likely no more than a pair thereof, at best.
- tim333 8y agoThe dictionary definition of brine is "water strongly impregnated with salt." ie salty water.
- pdpi 8y agoWhen in technical contexts, the technical definition matters more than the dictionary definition. Clearly the plant isn’t discharging the stuff I season my chicken with!
- manicdee 8y agoNo. You can’t take the dictionary definition, ignore the important word, then claim two things are equal. Salty water is not water strongly impregnated with salt. To simplify, the difference between salty water and brine is that brine is very salty water. The concentration of salt completely changes the environmental impact. Dumping post-desalination brine back into the ocean is an environmental disaster.