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“ A 2018 United Nations study says there are now almost 16,000 desalination plants operating in 177 countries, producing a volume of freshwater equivalent to al
by jdkee 4y ago
“ A 2018 United Nations study says there are now almost 16,000 desalination plants operating in 177 countries, producing a volume of freshwater equivalent to almost half the average flow over the Niagara Falls. However, the toxic brine which is usually dumped in the sea, risks contaminating food chains if left untreated.”
Given the volume of the oceans compared to average flow of Niagara Falls, the orders of magnitude difference in volumes makes this an insignificant problem, no?
If you dump the wastewater brine offshore a mile or so there may be local concentrations that are polluting but how does this become problematic in the vast open oceans?
- ace2358 4y agoI think that while the ocean is vast, that doesn’t mean it mixes quickly. If you dump brine, it will stay together as a cloudy salty area for quite a while. No matter where you dump the brine, it will be affecting some ecosystem somewhere. There are videos of divers moving through different strata of salinities in the ocean, sometimes in caves. It looks as though they’re breaching the water-air layer, but they’re actually coming through a water-water layer of different salt densities. So dumping in the ocean will still change a local area of ocean to toxic levels of brine concentration. I’m 100% for desalination, but it’s a tough issue to solve.
- helsinkiandrew 4y agoI believe this is what Israel does in the Mediterranean with apparently no ill effects: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135419311765 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00431... Given the greater currents in the Pacific and Indian oceans I’m sure this could be managed well by dumping out to sea, although I’m sure many plants just pump out near the local beach.