A crash course in changing the world.
About 70% of the planet is covered with ocean.
Around 97.2% of the earth's water is salt water.
We are facing a water crisis in many third and second world countries. In the near future the water crisis could spread into the more advanced nations; especially with the growing population. With such a small amount of water actually available and drinkable, people are looking towards the sea for more water. However, desalination takes muche energy, and to solar-power it could work, although the market for solar powered desalination plants is limited to only those countries where solar power actually works.
The desert areas are therefore out.
The very polluted areas are off the list too.
But with so many people actively looking for better desalination solutions, surely we will eventually find a way to desalinate sea water cost and energy efficiently?
But when we do - what shall we do with all of the salt?
The sea has an approximate salt-content average of 3.5%. At the amounts of water we would be 'making', we would have a huge amount of salt leftover.
The salt is toxic to most land plants, and although an important part of animal life, humans could only eat the salt produced sparingly (reccomended dose is around 4g a day). So - we still would have all this salt. What would we do with it?
According to 2002 statistics; total salt production was already estimated at 210 million tonnes. Sure, we could always ask people to 'lay off the salt production; desalination is making all the salt we need, thanks' - but it would be unrealistic to say the companies would be happy to just drop their income (as well as create a massive amount of unemployment in the process) because we 'just don't need that much salt.'
It isn't as if the large companies have ever been known specifically for their generous, environmental streak.
Chucking the salt into the sea would only generate more problems as future desalination will just take the salt out of the water again. A continuing salt cycle. Anyway - high salinity in the sea would only kill off the flora and fauna of the sea. One Dead Sea seems enough.
So yeah what are your thoughs on desalination and, well, the massive amounts of salt we will potentially produce?
Comment
© 2024 Created by Alchemy. Powered by
You need to be a member of Urgent Evoke to add comments!
Join Urgent Evoke