Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to good point

re: good point
ER — (archived)

Desalinization works, they've been doing it in the MiddleEast and other places for years. Key West has a plant, because it is so expensive to pump water from the mainland out there. But desalinization costs money, and more important, energy. Unless you go nuclear, it will probably be too expensive except in certain limited areas. Even with nukes, I don't really know if you could water megalopoli like the Florida SE coast.

As for the salt, no problem. Dump it in the ocean. That's where it originally came from, and the fresh water you make will eventually wind up there again anyway. What you can't do is dump it all at once, and in one place. The spike in salinity would be hard on marine life. But if you disperse it gradually, in the right places, over time, there should be no problem in getting rid of it, just like getting rid of waste heat from power plants. Stuff like heat and salt can be released safely back into the environment by dispersing and diluting it. But if you dump it all at once in one place it can cause heavy damage, especially in enviromentally sensitive areas.

In fact, I believe a great deal of our bulk, non-toxic waste could easily be dumped at sea, as long as we spent the extra bucks it takes to drag it into really deep water well offshore.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (88 posts)