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No...Most ocean life is ridiculously dependent on perfect salinity levels. We wouldn't be doing any favors by increasing these levels, no matter how small our i
by ryannevius 12y ago
No...Most ocean life is ridiculously dependent on perfect salinity levels. We wouldn't be doing any favors by increasing these levels, no matter how small our impact may be.
- jessriedel 12y agoThe change in salinity would obviously be negligible averaged over the ocean, and would be massively, massively dwarfed by other human factors. Your extreme use of the precautionary principle would prohibit essentially all new constructions, if applied widely. Much more interesting is the question of the impact to the nearby ecology in the immediate neighborhood of the discharge pipe. I'm not familiar with this, but I'd wager it can easily be mitigated. EDIT: Thank you to CHY872, who provides a link below to a review of the environmental impact of the waste water from desalinization: > In most other cases environmental effects appear to be limited to within 10s of meters of outfalls.
- CHY872 12y agohttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20633919 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20633919 suggests that they can be mitigated.
- singlow 12y agowon't the new fresh water get back to the ocean too?
- jacquesm 12y agoThere will be a phase lag and a concentration effect.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoAdd it to a large tidal river mouth and you just shift the mix point upstream slightly.