this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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yeah from what i understand the desalination technology is there, the problem is what to do with all the salt. you can dump it on the ocean, creating a dead sea zone. or you can dump somewhere on land, creating a dead land zone.
the only solution is the gene mod humans so we can eat larger and larger intakes of salt.
Would it really create a dead sea zone? I mean to desalinate, you're pulling the water out, extracting salt. So effectively taking water from the ocean without the salt. Surely putting it back isn't going to be massive issue as currents will push out more salty water to less salty areas until it is back to where it was.
I guess the art of it would be the rate of returning it to the sea, and the surface area over where it is put back. Longed pipes to deeper water will probably make a less horrific situation, as more water = less salt concentration.
Though, we shouldn't rule out make a deal with social media, the share level of salt involved probably needs replenishing.
it seems that the sheer amount of salt we accumulate when desalinating for scale consumption is so large that there's no easy way to spread it. yeah, the ocean will take care of it eventually, but we aren't gonna ferry salt across a large body of water to dump it gently into the ocean. we'll pipe it somewhere, and wherever it is it will create a pocket of dead ocean water. it's a matter of choice and water regulation, really.
Yeah just looked this up. So the numbers ay not be perfect.
But at 3.5% salt in sea water. 6l of water will produce 210g of salt.
6g is the max recommended per day intake. So let's round down to 200g a day. X 365
76kg of salt per person per year. A small sea side village (1000) would be a dead-sea side village in a few years.
Also worth noting. While the dead sea is about 33% salt so 10x most living seas.
It would take well under 2x the salt level for fish to start dying in large numbers. So making the sea dead. Just as a fresh water fish would dehydrate due to excess salt drawing water from its cells in sea water. It would only take a small increase in the salt water vs cell salt content for sea fish to die.
PS 2l worth or 70g of salt will kill most humans without drastic care.
Just found looking that up interesting so thought id share.