96
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
96 points (98.0% liked)
World News
39032 readers
2215 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Huh? Plenty of desalination going on already. Brine gets diluted back into the ocean.
The reason it's limited is that desalination requires a lot of energy and is therefore too expensive for most agricultural use
Where I live, the prices would be for about €1/cubic meter. That is very low. And it wouldn't hurt farmers to be a bit more conscious on how they use water. There are still to many people that irrigate by flooding, which is demontrated as a bad practice.
The brine problem I really don't understand it.
Nowadays, industry buys salt, processes it to remove rare metals and elements and sells back the purified sodium cloride we buy from shelves (don't buy it; go for raw salt if you can) or ship it to other industries to be used as a filler (like powdered laundry soap).
The brine can be as easily processed into these same end uses.
He's wrong that energy is the issue. Yes it's expensive, but we can do it safely.
The brine, you cannot just throw back into the ocean, it will instantly cause a natural disaster if done at scale. For one, a lot of chemical reactions during the desalination process cannot be diluted, they must be removed. These chemicals are also not just removed with energy, they are removed with other chemicals who then need energy and more chemicals for removal.
The salt we eat and the salt we use on our roads or in our batteries are all very specific kinds. Only a small portion of the brine is what you would actually consider safe for human use or consumption.
With enough energy and chemical processes, we can definitely handle the brine. But it is the expensive cleanup part that no corporation wants to do, and it won't mean that the byproducts are profitable to manage, despite them requiring to be managed. We'll get there, but knowing humans we will have to wait until we are well embedded in the disaster to start acting. Water should be sustainable worldwide, not profitable.
Call me skeptic but I'll risk there are a good number of industries that could use and profit from using that brine.
And you opted by the chemical process. Why not use reverse osmosis or pure and simple forced evaporation?
The issue is that even at scale, they won't be able to undercut the traditional ways other companies already acquire these materials. The energy is just that costly. So in a way it is the cost of energy that is prohibiting capitalism to save us, but that's not the underlying problem if we knew what to do with the brine cheaply.
I did not opt for the "chemical process" per se, concentrating the salt itself causes chemical reactions and compounds that are difficult to manage, without us adding any to the mix.
They also often add some chemicals for stabilizing the brine to make it more manageable until disposal that would be difficult to circumvent
Not doubting your word, something doesn't add up.
There are hotels in my country that already buy and install dessalination plants, in order to save costs, to fill pools and fountains and even irrigate gardens.
These instalations have steep requirements to be installed and the off products can't be dangerous for return to environment, as the return often goes directly to the sea, through beaches.
Concentrating the salt is also another intelectual itch for me. We naturally concentrate salt by evaporation. There are a few programs aimed at developing low energy/high efficiency processes to obtain salt from sea water. The few I was described involved using systems built around the pressure cooker working principle or purpose built enclosed systems alike to greenhouses to force the water out. I'd risk the processes would be useful to make use of the brines.