4 ms·

This will probably suffer from the same issue as desalination. What to do with the left over brine(salt/minerals)

detritus 4y ago
Store it in old oil tankers for future dispersal in polar oceans when salinity drops from glacial melting, potentially disrupting things like the Gulf Stream? - ed "North Atlantic thermocline" is what I meant! I originally wrote "North Atlantic endocrine" before realising that was entirely wrong, and after wracking my brain went with 'gulf stream'. I need more tea.
muttled 4y ago
Sell it as some sort of high-end version of regular salt at Whole Foods?
eloff 4y ago
I doubt it, much less a problem than with desalination, volume wise.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  The volumes are huge. Each hydrogen molecule needs one water to break down. That adds up at industrial scale.
  - eloff 4y ago
    The volumes are tiny compared to desalination. Freshwater is worth much less than hydrogen.
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      I cant seem to edit the parent comment but you are indeed correct. I thought the water usage was high because I was looking at local water usage from planned hydrogen production compared to human usage, but most of the hydrogen will be exported, so globally it averages out to a small amount that is very significant locally.
  - jjk166 4y ago
    The hydrogen equivalent of 1 liter of gasoline requires 0.16 liters of water. So enough fuel to drive a sedan about 300 miles requires roughly the same amount of water as an adult male consumes per day.
    - eloff 4y ago
      Exactly, which is nothing compared to how much water a human uses per day for other purposes. The volume is so small here.
pjc50 4y ago
It's simply left in the sea and washed away by the current. Presumably that results in a local salinification, which might limit the safe scale.
chipsa 4y ago
I think I saw this somewhere else earlier, and one of the ideas listed was: don't use seawater, use other wastewater, like mining leachate, or similar. This gets rid of the water in it, making it more concentrated, and gives a useful product. The more concentrated heavy metal contaminated waste would then potentially be used as feed stock for extraction. Or if you're using seawater, and have a convenient large area nearby, just make sea salt from it.
DennisP 4y ago
With some of it, we can make those fancy new sodium-sulfur batteries.

Store it in old oil tankers for future dispersal in polar oceans when salinity drops from glacial melting, potentially disrupting things like the Gulf Stream? - ed "North Atlantic thermocline" is what I meant! I originally wrote "North Atlantic endocrine" before realising that was entirely wrong, and after wracking my brain went with 'gulf stream'. I need more tea.

muttled 4y ago

Sell it as some sort of high-end version of regular salt at Whole Foods?

eloff 4y ago

I doubt it, much less a problem than with desalination, volume wise.

brutusborn 4y ago
The volumes are huge. Each hydrogen molecule needs one water to break down. That adds up at industrial scale.
- eloff 4y ago
  The volumes are tiny compared to desalination. Freshwater is worth much less than hydrogen.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    I cant seem to edit the parent comment but you are indeed correct. I thought the water usage was high because I was looking at local water usage from planned hydrogen production compared to human usage, but most of the hydrogen will be exported, so globally it averages out to a small amount that is very significant locally.
- jjk166 4y ago
  The hydrogen equivalent of 1 liter of gasoline requires 0.16 liters of water. So enough fuel to drive a sedan about 300 miles requires roughly the same amount of water as an adult male consumes per day.
  - eloff 4y ago
    Exactly, which is nothing compared to how much water a human uses per day for other purposes. The volume is so small here.

pjc50 4y ago

It's simply left in the sea and washed away by the current. Presumably that results in a local salinification, which might limit the safe scale.

chipsa 4y ago

I think I saw this somewhere else earlier, and one of the ideas listed was: don't use seawater, use other wastewater, like mining leachate, or similar. This gets rid of the water in it, making it more concentrated, and gives a useful product. The more concentrated heavy metal contaminated waste would then potentially be used as feed stock for extraction. Or if you're using seawater, and have a convenient large area nearby, just make sea salt from it.

DennisP 4y ago

With some of it, we can make those fancy new sodium-sulfur batteries.