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Desalination is a good tech to put some research into now as opposed to when climate change happens too quickly for us to adapt. Another poster pointed out it’

Desalination is a good tech to put some research into now as opposed to when climate change happens too quickly for us to adapt. Another poster pointed out it’s not popular because it’s not needed right now, which I agree with, but it will probably be a tech our race relies on to survive in the coming centuries. We were too slow to act on climate change.

vesinisa 6y ago
> it’s not popular because it’s not needed right now Dubai, a wealthy city of four million on Persian Gulf surrounded by the vast Arabian Desert, sources its water almost exclusively through desalination.
- shakezula 6y ago
  Yes, that’s still not popular by definition though. I understand that non-trivial amounts of water are being provided to major city centers via desalination. I’m saying that there’s a good chance that on century long timelines, we’ll be almost entirely dependent as a species on desalination to provide our fresh water. Even our most aggressive climate models aren’t keeping up with reality. This is a problem where even incremental advancements are important given our current situation.
canofbars 6y ago
In my state of Australia someone has built a massive desal plant in the middle of the desert next to a salt water source, the whole thing is powered by an array of mirrors and then the water is used to grow a huge tomato plantation in what would be totally unusable land without having to pipe in water. The pic is super cool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundrop_Farms#/media/File:160411_Whole_Site_Aerial.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundrop_Farms#/media/File:1604...
- shakezula 6y ago
  Oh man this is super cool! I've never heard of this but this is exactly what I think the future will require. Being able to create your own power and then desalinate it and use it to grow crops in the same space is crazy powerful. I wish them all the best luck.

vesinisa 6y ago

> it’s not popular because it’s not needed right now Dubai, a wealthy city of four million on Persian Gulf surrounded by the vast Arabian Desert, sources its water almost exclusively through desalination.

shakezula 6y ago
Yes, that’s still not popular by definition though. I understand that non-trivial amounts of water are being provided to major city centers via desalination. I’m saying that there’s a good chance that on century long timelines, we’ll be almost entirely dependent as a species on desalination to provide our fresh water. Even our most aggressive climate models aren’t keeping up with reality. This is a problem where even incremental advancements are important given our current situation.

canofbars 6y ago

In my state of Australia someone has built a massive desal plant in the middle of the desert next to a salt water source, the whole thing is powered by an array of mirrors and then the water is used to grow a huge tomato plantation in what would be totally unusable land without having to pipe in water. The pic is super cool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundrop_Farms#/media/File:160411_Whole_Site_Aerial.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundrop_Farms#/media/File:1604...

shakezula 6y ago
Oh man this is super cool! I've never heard of this but this is exactly what I think the future will require. Being able to create your own power and then desalinate it and use it to grow crops in the same space is crazy powerful. I wish them all the best luck.