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Less than 500 acres planted using sewege water from cities. The rest (planting millions of acres of forest) is just a wishlist and the article is short on detai

Less than 500 acres planted using sewege water from cities. The rest (planting millions of acres of forest) is just a wishlist and the article is short on details.

jacurtis 6y ago
To be fair, it was a proof of concept to see if it was possible. They did prove that it is possible. The rest of the details probably haven't been sorted out yet for how they plan to scale it. A terraforming project can easily take many decades or even a century to complete. So I think it is encouraging to see them starting and/or attempting this to benefit the generations to come.
nicoffeine 6y ago
Israel already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycling water as well as very targeted irrigation of crops, along with new technology such as the Sorek desal plant. The second generation may be up and running by 2023 [2]. There's an interesting paper [3] about building 40,000 Sorek style plants to sequester excess water in arid areas and avoid problems with sea level rise. Without any savings at scale, this would be around 20 trillion dollars, but that's clearly cheaper than building infrastructure to protect coasts around the world, with the side benefit of creating jobs and food in areas that are in the most need. I've been working (in the script-writing sense) on a narrative around EarthStations -- molten salt solar towers powering desal plants and green tech manufacturing, surrounded by highly efficient farms, and further out in the ring, forests that eat the desert. Since they are located on coasts, all the infrastructure can be delivered by ships, and all the goods created easily shipped out once they are up and running. One big technical problem is what to do with the brine -- I'm not sure how much could go into molten salt heat storage. But they could serve as an engine to keep sea levels stable. This is a longwinded way of saying I think the project in Egypt is a good example of the terraforming we need to be doing instead of dreaming about for a planet like Mars. Even though it is small scale, turning deserts into forests is pretty impressive, and something we need to do learn how to do well to fight climate change. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the... [2] https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalination-tender-after-us-pressure-1001330178 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalina... [3] https://f1000research.com/articles/5-889 https://f1000research.com/articles/5-889
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  Evaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Already there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      This sounds very interesting. Do you have sources for more reading on this?
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/microplastics-found-90-percent-table-salt-sea-salt/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/micro... Global Pattern of Microplastics (MPs) in Commercial Food-Grade Salts: Sea Salt as an Indicator of Seawater MP Pollution Ji-Su Kim, Hee-Jee Lee, Seung-Kyu Kim, and Hyun-Jung Kim Environmental Science & Technology 2018 52 (21), 12819-12828 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b04180 Resolves to: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b04180 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b04180 Karami, A., Golieskardi, A., Keong Choo, C. et al. The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries. Sci Rep 7, 46173 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173 Resolves to: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173
    - daniellarusso 6y ago
      I have suspected this, but have not read any specifics. I can actually recommend this, which should not have the micro-plastic issue: https://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ https://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ “Our brine is naturally sourced from an ancient, untouched sea called the Iapetus Ocean (predating the Atlantic) trapped below the Appalachian mountains. Our salt is free of contaminants and heavy metals that may be found in other oceans. Gleaned from the earth by an underground brine aquifer, the salt is then processed naturally using the power of the sun and gentle mountain breezes.”
jagger27 6y ago
Seems like a nice use of otherwise problematic expensive-to-treat waste.
underwater 6y ago
Yishan Wong (ex Reddit CEO) is working on desalination via solar power that sounds promising: https://www.terraformation.com/blog/our-project-in-hawaii https://www.terraformation.com/blog/our-project-in-hawaii
zahma 6y ago
This is typical in Egypt. There are or have been dozens of “plans” —- most of them half-baked, to develop parts of the desert to reduce densification and centralization in Cairo. When I lived there, the joke was always about how these developers (in cahoots with the military oligarchs) would source the water for these adventures. In practice, it makes no sense. Egypt is approaching critical water vulnerability. As they try to develop out in to the desert, most of the projects have nothing to say about this critical resource. These developments are therefore totally unsustainable as it requires constantly importing water by truck, building enormous infrastructure from the Nile or desalination facilities plus the transport infrastructure. Even then the cost to actually change the soil composition from desert to anything less arid have absurd water costs, to say nothing of what happens when these theoretical cities have to start providing for demands of the expected hundreds of thousands or millions people. To make matters worse, development around the city continues, and the prime agricultural lands, where water use is most efficient per calorie grown, has all but disappeared. In Egypt, like so many other places, but especially in Africa, are increasingly vulnerable to compound effects of man-made and climate change crises. Books have been written on the corruption, but the combined effects with climate are truly frightening to contemplate. Whatever transpires there after the proverbial well runs dry is going to make the January Revolution look like child’s play.

Less than 500 acres planted using sewege water from cities. The rest (planting millions of acres of forest) is just a wishlist and the article is short on details.

jacurtis 6y ago

To be fair, it was a proof of concept to see if it was possible. They did prove that it is possible. The rest of the details probably haven't been sorted out yet for how they plan to scale it. A terraforming project can easily take many decades or even a century to complete. So I think it is encouraging to see them starting and/or attempting this to benefit the generations to come.

nicoffeine 6y ago

Israel already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycling water as well as very targeted irrigation of crops, along with new technology such as the Sorek desal plant. The second generation may be up and running by 2023 [2]. There's an interesting paper [3] about building 40,000 Sorek style plants to sequester excess water in arid areas and avoid problems with sea level rise. Without any savings at scale, this would be around 20 trillion dollars, but that's clearly cheaper than building infrastructure to protect coasts around the world, with the side benefit of creating jobs and food in areas that are in the most need. I've been working (in the script-writing sense) on a narrative around EarthStations -- molten salt solar towers powering desal plants and green tech manufacturing, surrounded by highly efficient farms, and further out in the ring, forests that eat the desert. Since they are located on coasts, all the infrastructure can be delivered by ships, and all the goods created easily shipped out once they are up and running. One big technical problem is what to do with the brine -- I'm not sure how much could go into molten salt heat storage. But they could serve as an engine to keep sea levels stable. This is a longwinded way of saying I think the project in Egypt is a good example of the terraforming we need to be doing instead of dreaming about for a planet like Mars. Even though it is small scale, turning deserts into forests is pretty impressive, and something we need to do learn how to do well to fight climate change. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the... [2] https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalination-tender-after-us-pressure-1001330178 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-ide-wins-sorek-2-desalina... [3] https://f1000research.com/articles/5-889 https://f1000research.com/articles/5-889

daniellarusso 6y ago
Evaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Already there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    This sounds very interesting. Do you have sources for more reading on this?
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/microplastics-found-90-percent-table-salt-sea-salt/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/micro... Global Pattern of Microplastics (MPs) in Commercial Food-Grade Salts: Sea Salt as an Indicator of Seawater MP Pollution Ji-Su Kim, Hee-Jee Lee, Seung-Kyu Kim, and Hyun-Jung Kim Environmental Science & Technology 2018 52 (21), 12819-12828 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b04180 Resolves to: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b04180 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b04180 Karami, A., Golieskardi, A., Keong Choo, C. et al. The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries. Sci Rep 7, 46173 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173 Resolves to: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173
  - daniellarusso 6y ago
    I have suspected this, but have not read any specifics. I can actually recommend this, which should not have the micro-plastic issue: https://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ https://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ “Our brine is naturally sourced from an ancient, untouched sea called the Iapetus Ocean (predating the Atlantic) trapped below the Appalachian mountains. Our salt is free of contaminants and heavy metals that may be found in other oceans. Gleaned from the earth by an underground brine aquifer, the salt is then processed naturally using the power of the sun and gentle mountain breezes.”

jagger27 6y ago

Seems like a nice use of otherwise problematic expensive-to-treat waste.

underwater 6y ago

Yishan Wong (ex Reddit CEO) is working on desalination via solar power that sounds promising: https://www.terraformation.com/blog/our-project-in-hawaii https://www.terraformation.com/blog/our-project-in-hawaii

zahma 6y ago

This is typical in Egypt. There are or have been dozens of “plans” —- most of them half-baked, to develop parts of the desert to reduce densification and centralization in Cairo. When I lived there, the joke was always about how these developers (in cahoots with the military oligarchs) would source the water for these adventures. In practice, it makes no sense. Egypt is approaching critical water vulnerability. As they try to develop out in to the desert, most of the projects have nothing to say about this critical resource. These developments are therefore totally unsustainable as it requires constantly importing water by truck, building enormous infrastructure from the Nile or desalination facilities plus the transport infrastructure. Even then the cost to actually change the soil composition from desert to anything less arid have absurd water costs, to say nothing of what happens when these theoretical cities have to start providing for demands of the expected hundreds of thousands or millions people. To make matters worse, development around the city continues, and the prime agricultural lands, where water use is most efficient per calorie grown, has all but disappeared. In Egypt, like so many other places, but especially in Africa, are increasingly vulnerable to compound effects of man-made and climate change crises. Books have been written on the corruption, but the combined effects with climate are truly frightening to contemplate. Whatever transpires there after the proverbial well runs dry is going to make the January Revolution look like child’s play.