5 ms·

I don’t think the problem we should be focusing on is how to remove salt from water, but what to do with the salt after it has been removed.

RandomTisk 7y ago
Make a great big pile of it out in the desert? These[0] guys are doing it in the forest. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kali_(Heringen) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kali_(Heringen)
- heymijo 7y ago
  Doesn't look like doing it in the forest is the best idea. From your link... > Ecological impact The amount of salt that goes to the region's soil and rivers is enormous. The Werra river has become so salty (up to 2.5 g/L chloride ions, which is saltier than parts of the Baltic Sea) that few freshwater organisms can survive in it. The groundwater has become salty as well.[4] K+S are licensed to keep dumping salt at the facility until 2030.[3]
umvi 7y ago
Sell it? Put it back into the ocean?
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  http://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ http://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ 100s of millions of years old sea salt for cooking from the Iapetus Ocean. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_Ocean https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_Ocean
- brokensegue 7y ago
  Nobody wants to buy the sludge. Putting it back would kill ocean life in the area.
  - umvi 7y ago
    Just dump it in the great salt lake then
    - brokensegue 7y ago
      uhm, trucking this sludge all the way to Utah seems pretty pointless. Why not just put it in a dump? Why does it need to be put into water?
      - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
        Maybe to avoid build up of toxic dust like around the drying up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea ? https://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-salton-sea-20151001-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-salton-sea-20151001-st... Edit: To put it more generally: To avoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth
      - pixl97 7y ago
        Think of brine as industrial pollution. It wont stay in a dump, it will leak out and poison an area for tens of thousands of years.
        brokensegue 7y ago
        plenty of industrial pollutants are put into dumps/buried? what do you think we do with them? From wikipedia > Other methods [of disposing of brine] include drying in evaporation ponds, injecting to deep wells, and storing and reusing the brine for irrigation, de-icing or dust control purposes.
beatgammit 7y ago
It looks like we have a few solutions already, like power generation and storage. I don't know how cost effective these are, but it's certainly a interesting area of research.
heymijo 7y ago
There was an article linked to here in 2016 about an inventor who developed a process that reduces the need for brine disposal by nearly 100 percent. [0] Not sure what progress has been made since [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desalination-breakthrough-saving-the-sea-from-salt/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desalination-brea... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089
- gus_massa 7y ago
  The process uses calcium oxide (aka quicklime or burnt lime), you need to use energy to produce it. [1] The products don't look too valuable, it produce calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate. How big is the market for them? How expensive are them? Why is no one using this process to produce them using salt form a saline? Where they going to dispose the excess of calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate that nobody wants to buy? It looks like a mix of buzzword, like "carbon sequestration" and "brine reduction", but the whole idea makes no sense. [1] How much CO2 release the production of CaO? It is not only important to consider the energy to produce the CaO, but also that most CaO is produced from limestone that is CaCO3 in the reaction CaCO3-->CaO+CO2.
hinkley 7y ago
Kim Stanley Robinson posits using salt or brine to keep the North Atlantic thermohaline cycle from stalling by dumping it into the subduction zone. But that’s a lot of shipping. And I wonder if a better way is to capture the glacier melt runoff from Greenland before it can enter the ocean currents, and desalinate that brackish water. I’m not sure what the ratio of brine to fresh water is (ratio of boats in each direction) or the desal versus shipping costs.

RandomTisk 7y ago

Make a great big pile of it out in the desert? These[0] guys are doing it in the forest. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kali_(Heringen) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kali_(Heringen)

heymijo 7y ago
Doesn't look like doing it in the forest is the best idea. From your link... > Ecological impact The amount of salt that goes to the region's soil and rivers is enormous. The Werra river has become so salty (up to 2.5 g/L chloride ions, which is saltier than parts of the Baltic Sea) that few freshwater organisms can survive in it. The groundwater has become salty as well.[4] K+S are licensed to keep dumping salt at the facility until 2030.[3]

umvi 7y ago

Sell it? Put it back into the ocean?

dillonmckay 7y ago
http://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ http://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ 100s of millions of years old sea salt for cooking from the Iapetus Ocean. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_Ocean https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_Ocean
brokensegue 7y ago
Nobody wants to buy the sludge. Putting it back would kill ocean life in the area.
- umvi 7y ago
  Just dump it in the great salt lake then
  - brokensegue 7y ago
    uhm, trucking this sludge all the way to Utah seems pretty pointless. Why not just put it in a dump? Why does it need to be put into water?
    - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
      Maybe to avoid build up of toxic dust like around the drying up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea ? https://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-salton-sea-20151001-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-salton-sea-20151001-st... Edit: To put it more generally: To avoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth
    - pixl97 7y ago
      Think of brine as industrial pollution. It wont stay in a dump, it will leak out and poison an area for tens of thousands of years.
      - brokensegue 7y ago
        plenty of industrial pollutants are put into dumps/buried? what do you think we do with them? From wikipedia > Other methods [of disposing of brine] include drying in evaporation ponds, injecting to deep wells, and storing and reusing the brine for irrigation, de-icing or dust control purposes.

beatgammit 7y ago

It looks like we have a few solutions already, like power generation and storage. I don't know how cost effective these are, but it's certainly a interesting area of research.

heymijo 7y ago

There was an article linked to here in 2016 about an inventor who developed a process that reduces the need for brine disposal by nearly 100 percent. [0] Not sure what progress has been made since [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desalination-breakthrough-saving-the-sea-from-salt/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desalination-brea... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089

gus_massa 7y ago
The process uses calcium oxide (aka quicklime or burnt lime), you need to use energy to produce it. [1] The products don't look too valuable, it produce calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate. How big is the market for them? How expensive are them? Why is no one using this process to produce them using salt form a saline? Where they going to dispose the excess of calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate that nobody wants to buy? It looks like a mix of buzzword, like "carbon sequestration" and "brine reduction", but the whole idea makes no sense. [1] How much CO2 release the production of CaO? It is not only important to consider the energy to produce the CaO, but also that most CaO is produced from limestone that is CaCO3 in the reaction CaCO3-->CaO+CO2.

hinkley 7y ago

Kim Stanley Robinson posits using salt or brine to keep the North Atlantic thermohaline cycle from stalling by dumping it into the subduction zone. But that’s a lot of shipping. And I wonder if a better way is to capture the glacier melt runoff from Greenland before it can enter the ocean currents, and desalinate that brackish water. I’m not sure what the ratio of brine to fresh water is (ratio of boats in each direction) or the desal versus shipping costs.