6 ms·
Cheaper, cleverer desalination
- stcredzero 17y agoWhat little energy is needed for pumping could also be supplied in-situ from solar power. What about solar thermal driving turbines or steam engines? This has the disadvantage of requiring high-pressure pipes. Solar Stirling? An even better idea: if possible, use tides to fill the normal-conentration seawater tank at a higher elevation, and let water flow naturally downstream. Use the same tidal basin to generate the process electricity. This would require a lot more infrastructure investment up-front, but that would pay off in the form of much lower expenses for inputs afterwards.
- kbob 17y agoOr they could hire a boy to carry water with a bucket.
- stcredzero 17y agoI'd rather the community/polity got a grant so that boy could be engaged in an activity with greater economic leverage. Or better still, be in school. Such infrastructure would be in the "hand-up, not hand-out" category to me. Also, the availability of fresh water on industrial scales would be an economic enabler in itself.
- ajju 17y agoIt doesn't have to be a boy. There are many poor communities around the world where fully grown men would be thankful for any job.
- billybob 17y agoOr they could use a horse/mule/camel/water buffalo/elephant to push a wheel and run the pump. Plants -> Big dumb animals -> Labor: the original solar energy.
- RK 17y agoI'll wait for the evidence that this actually works (and with efficiency relative to the other schemes).
- leecho0 17y agoI think I might just have to try it out at home sometime. Anyone know what would make a good salt bridge that's semi permeable to na/cl (or how to treat the polystyrene)? Would an U shaped jello mixed with acid/base work?
- apalmblad 17y agoI remember when they won a province wide business plan contest in Vancouver, BC, and it was noted that a key reason they won (the 100k prize) was that they had an engineering review indicating their process was feasible.
- leecho0 17y agoGreat idea! Instead of trying to fight osmosis, use it. It's one of those "why didn't I think of that" inventions.
- noonespecial 17y agoIt's kind of like dialysis, but for seawater. Sweet.
- jorgem 17y agoCan the left over streams be mixed and reused? Since they will have higher salinity and used as a new input?
- JoeAltmaier 17y agoThe "cleaner" streams are heavily charged with ions - the high-sodium stream with chlorine, the high-chlorine with sodium. It would probably take more energy to charge them higher than using "neutral" seawater.
- ggchappell 17y agoVery cool idea. I'm reminded of the setup at Chena Hot Springs Resort (east of Fairbanks, Alaska), where the temperature difference between a hot spring and a normal stream, is used to run an air conditioner that keeps the interior of an "ice museum" frozen year-round. It's a very different process, of course, but it seems to me to involve similar thinking.
- rfreytag 17y agoHow long before the ion bridges were clogged with biofilms, sediment, and other detritus normally present in sea water? Ion bridge replacement is another energy input.