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The oceans are big. Like... really really really big. According to [1], humanity uses about four trillion cubic meters of water per year. The oceans, per [2], c

The oceans are big. Like... really really really big. According to [1], humanity uses about four trillion cubic meters of water per year. The oceans, per [2], contain about 321,003,271 cubic miles of water. Adjusting units and turning that into a percentage, we would use 4.154*10^-4 percent (0.0004154%) of the ocean’s water per year. My guess is we can just dump the salt back in. :) Edit: actually add sources. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress [2] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html

orf 7y ago
That didn't work for sewage or plastic though. The ocean is huge, which is why if you look at the numbers then you can put all human garbage into it and it won't even take up 0.001% of it. In reality, the ocean is huge. So all that salt/garbage/whatever is increadibly uneavenly distributed and will naturally collect in certain areas. In the case of extra salt it could easily have an adverse effect on local ecosystems.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  The ocean is made of saltwater already, it wasn't made of garbage or plastic. Also salt dissolves in water which is why desalination is needed in the first place. Really think for a moment about what are saying must be true.
  - orf 7y ago
    Ocean water has a specific level of salt. Increasing that in specific areas, by even a small amount, could have disastrous consequences. Life has evolved in the ocean at a particular saline level. The point is not that plastic dissolves I’m water, it’s that the saline concentration won’t be spread evenly throughout the entire expansive ocean without first increasing it locally.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      That's not what you said originally, you said it would cluster together like garbage and plastic.
      - orf 7y ago
        Did I? Or did I say it would be unevenly distributed? > Really think for a moment about what are saying must be true. Indeed.
        BubRoss 7y ago
        > So all that salt/garbage/whatever is increadibly uneavenly distributed and will naturally collect in certain areas.
  - stevenhuang 7y ago
    You seem to have glossed over his last paragraph. No one's disputing that the ocean can sink the salt if the salt is evenly distributed. Trouble comes if that's not done properly and we get local ecosystems poisened by high salinity. Which if you think about it, is pretty easy to imagine from these plants pumping the salt to the nearest coastline.
- ORioN63 7y ago
  This is getting downvoted, but I don't see any problem with it. Another user, commented that it should be okay to dispose, by releasing it over fast moving currents in deep waters. That makes sense to me. The water we're using will mostly come back to the oceans and we'll have eventual consistency of the water/salt balance (in that process at least). Not sure if I got it right, though. Either way, I feel that disposal of brine will be a problem if done recklessly, like for example in coastal areas and only on ideal conditions by chance - which is how we dumped most things in the 20th century. My belief is that we should think about regulation, if we want desalinized water in a industrial scale.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
You must be very careful when doing so though; to do so in a haphazard way is dangerous to sea life due to the high salinity of the brine that is the primary byproduct of desalination.
- journalctl 7y ago
  Indeed, local salinity would be higher. I’m not sure how easy it would be to distribute waste salt over a large enough area of water. Alternatively, land-based storage might be an option, not unlike Yucca Mountain.
m463 7y ago
However the dumping site will quickly become toxic to marine life.

orf 7y ago

That didn't work for sewage or plastic though. The ocean is huge, which is why if you look at the numbers then you can put all human garbage into it and it won't even take up 0.001% of it. In reality, the ocean is huge. So all that salt/garbage/whatever is increadibly uneavenly distributed and will naturally collect in certain areas. In the case of extra salt it could easily have an adverse effect on local ecosystems.

BubRoss 7y ago
The ocean is made of saltwater already, it wasn't made of garbage or plastic. Also salt dissolves in water which is why desalination is needed in the first place. Really think for a moment about what are saying must be true.
- orf 7y ago
  Ocean water has a specific level of salt. Increasing that in specific areas, by even a small amount, could have disastrous consequences. Life has evolved in the ocean at a particular saline level. The point is not that plastic dissolves I’m water, it’s that the saline concentration won’t be spread evenly throughout the entire expansive ocean without first increasing it locally.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    That's not what you said originally, you said it would cluster together like garbage and plastic.
    - orf 7y ago
      Did I? Or did I say it would be unevenly distributed? > Really think for a moment about what are saying must be true. Indeed.
      - BubRoss 7y ago
        > So all that salt/garbage/whatever is increadibly uneavenly distributed and will naturally collect in certain areas.
- stevenhuang 7y ago
  You seem to have glossed over his last paragraph. No one's disputing that the ocean can sink the salt if the salt is evenly distributed. Trouble comes if that's not done properly and we get local ecosystems poisened by high salinity. Which if you think about it, is pretty easy to imagine from these plants pumping the salt to the nearest coastline.
ORioN63 7y ago
This is getting downvoted, but I don't see any problem with it. Another user, commented that it should be okay to dispose, by releasing it over fast moving currents in deep waters. That makes sense to me. The water we're using will mostly come back to the oceans and we'll have eventual consistency of the water/salt balance (in that process at least). Not sure if I got it right, though. Either way, I feel that disposal of brine will be a problem if done recklessly, like for example in coastal areas and only on ideal conditions by chance - which is how we dumped most things in the 20th century. My belief is that we should think about regulation, if we want desalinized water in a industrial scale.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

You must be very careful when doing so though; to do so in a haphazard way is dangerous to sea life due to the high salinity of the brine that is the primary byproduct of desalination.

journalctl 7y ago
Indeed, local salinity would be higher. I’m not sure how easy it would be to distribute waste salt over a large enough area of water. Alternatively, land-based storage might be an option, not unlike Yucca Mountain.

m463 7y ago

However the dumping site will quickly become toxic to marine life.