Rising sea levels, and decreasing dam water..cant we use sea water as drinking water to solve the problem?
so why can we use the sea water for consumptions via desalination?
just as we(the country at large) got used to drinking treated water from rivers and rain-- than why cant we get used to desalinated water???
i PRESUME that if we use sea water as well, we will be not be harming anyone or anything. also while doing this we will be able to save low lying islands, such as maldives, from dissappering forever.
what do u think??
Answer:
Yes an important question, however desalinisation is not as appealing as it looks when you look into it...
Firstly...the technology is very energy intensive. The reverse osmosis process to remove the salt from the water requires a lot of energy and therefore more electricity to run the plant. This is likely to contribute to the global warming problem if the electricity is sourced from fossil fuels to run the plant which in effect is causing the sea levels to rise. Any desalinisation plants should be powered by green sources such as wind and solar to mitiage this.
Secondly...The process to remove salt and impurities out of the sea water or 'brine' requires disposal somewhere and in most cases it is discharged back into the ocean. Although the salt has come from the ocean, when it is discharged it is more hyperslaine which can cause damage to localised ecosystems at the discharge points affecting species and habitat.
Thirdly...it costs a lot of money! Billions of dollars are required to get the plants running and to keep them operating. This is further increased when green power is generated to run the plant through new infrastructure to offset emissions.
Although desalinisation has it's drawbacks, if designed correctly (and as efficient as possible) and considering the environment in mind it can be part of the solution but probably shouldn't be the only solution. Water efficiency should be a number one priority and also capturing stormwater from our catchments should also be other priorities depending on the geographic location. Cheers
we can, they have developed low energy desalinization plants using nothing more than cool seawater pumped through pipes where freshwater condenses into a pool at the bottom
Yes but it costs a lot of money to get the salt out of it, its like oil there is a lot more out there but it cost more to get it out of the ground then you can sell it for.
Even if we drank nothing but sea water, we could not drink enough to counteract the effects of the rising sea levels.
i think it is because desalinization by the most well known method, reverse osmosis, is too expensive to be utilized in many areas. but what is the price that we put on human existence? this is a tough question indeed.
I agree with you. We all can deal with change its just a matter of getting used to something. Everyone could drink desalinated water and we would all be fine. Ideas like this are thought about everyday with the nationalist world reserve committee's and will probably be done in the future. Good thinking.
I've personally worked on designing a desalination plant and there are a number of reasons why they are not preferred.
The biggest issue is energy consumption. As simple as it sounds, most desalination plants use the method of evaporation of salt water (salt doesn't evaporate with the water). The water is converted to fresh-water steam which is cooled and collected. Imagine how much water is used by a typical city. The main water lines into cities carry enormous amounts of water that would have to be evaporated. It's not like it's not possible, it's just very expensive to build, maintain and operate.
Another big issue is sanitation. Lakes and wells are preferred because their feeder rivers can be controlled. Compared to the ocean where many areas still dump large amounts of raw sewage. Could you imagine drinking out of something mixed with water from Boston Harbour, Halifax Harbour or the Nile River? Again, not that it can't be done, it just makes you appreciate how simple a lake or a well is in comparison.
This year, in America, the lakes are overflowing with water. We've had so much rain, most of the lakes are full. When the atmosphere gets warmer, evaporation increases and the air holds more water. The constant cold fronts from the north have created perfect conditions for lots of rain.
All we have to do is get this up and running and we can have all the energy we need do with as we wish for practically nothing
www.first-molecule.com
We don't have to use all those expensive technologies and desalination plants. I can positively prove to you that we can desalt deserts and that everybody can live in a resource rich environment. We can do it with few resources, a bit of equipment, just loads of manual labour and trees/plants.Watch it on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohi6vnwz... Also take a look at the Yeoman's keyline system and the work of Peter Andrews on the Australian story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7pmdhj1s... the father of all these is Bill Mollison on Permaculture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vur4upe9w...
Nature's desalination process works just fine. If we did a better job of harvesting rainwater and utilized our fresh water more effectively (such as by processing our "greywater" on site), we would all be better off.
Instead of battling nature at every turn, we need to find better ways to live along side it. Despite all of our knowledge and technology, today's civilization is worse off in may ways than we were 300 years ago.
no we can't i don't think but surly if we boiled it we could don't u think?
To do this on a massive scale requires large amounts of energy. With the demands for water as they are, this would require increased electrical generation. And you wouldn't lower the sea level noticably as the water used either evaporates or goes back into the water table. Unless you create large storage pools, and I mean large, you won't lower the ocean. Besides, prove the ocean level increase. It's only a predicted increase.
Desalinisation can be very expensive - my home city of Perth has jsut build one plant and another is on the way. It's possible, but not recommended.
There is a gentleman here in Perth who has invented a self-powered windmill that condenses water vapor out of the air. One of these windmills can create about 5,000 litres of fresh water a day - so if your climate has regular wind, this may be part of the answer.
We can, it is very expensive, and we all end up paying for it by a doubled water bill that incidently will NEVER get any cheaper.
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