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Israel already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycli
by 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 agoEvaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoAlready there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.
- bobthepanda 6y agoThis sounds very interesting. Do you have sources for more reading on this?
- aspenmayer 6y agohttps://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 agoI 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.”
- hansvm 6y agoIf that isn't a fantastically deceptive piece of marketing then I don't know what is. It writes as if other salt deposits didn't originate in some kind of ancient body of water, and it uses the fact that they're harvesting a brine to imply that the entire bloody ocean is still hiding under the Appalachians, so that by buying their salt you're buying "sea salt" (and all the naturalist voodoo that might entail) but without any of the contaminants of modern oceans. Being low in mercury and whatnot seems like a good thing, and their salt is probably fine, but that marketing is something else.
- foota 6y agoIsn't seawater like 3 or so percent salt? The amount of salt produced seems like it'd greatly exceed demand. Although maybe this would be a better alternative to salt mining, not sure if that's clean or not.
- pstuart 6y agoI think this is more appealing: https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-hydroxide-0213 https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-h...
- riffraff 6y agoFIY; if you evaporate sea water you don't get sea salt, you get a shitty tasting mix of various compounds, trash, microorganisms etc. You can use the brine to get NaCl but it's not just boiling it up.
- notmadnomad 6y agoYes. Call it "Sierra Nevada sea salt," just as how "Himalayan sea salt" mostly comes from Pakistan. That is, after you evaporate it down to solids.
- dzhiurgis 6y agoI think there was some ideas of using it in concrete. Surprised we can't just pipe it deeper and let it disperse slower.
- Gustomaximus 6y ago> One big technical problem is what to do with the brine Cant it be dumped back into the ocean at points where it can re-salinate?
- baq 6y agoyou'll raise salinity at the dump point to toxic levels and mixing it with water by dumping via ship adds so much complexity and cost it isn't even worth writing about