Posted on 04/05/2015 4:32:53 PM PDT by BenLurkin
We are talking about highly concentrated brine, not seawater. Big difference.
As for your assertion that merely dispersing the toxic brine into the vast ocean has negligible impact, you should be embarrassed. Every desal plant has a dispersed effluent that has poisoned the seabed in a delta region around the discharge. What would you suggest? Barges to run the brine further out to sea?
And it’s more than just high salinity that is the toxic agent, it is manganese and a host of other toxic agents.
You’re barking up a tree that has nothing for you to gain. There are water engineers with enormous amounts of experience more than you. That’s evident from your postings and I counterpost to show any of them reading that Conservatives are not so dumb.
Answer this question: if desalination was so successful and compatible with the seabed, then why isn’t Saudi Arabia a huge greenbelt that exports agricultural products to the world? They have trillions of dollars and they could build a desal plant every 500m along their coastline, but they don’t do it, why? There’s no question they need the water, like yesterday.
Israelis are in the same boat and have actually built desal plants but they use them very sparingly in emergencies only, why? The answer is they know about the brine impact and they know it’s a political hot potato.
Conservatives should NOT support desal plants in California. They should support challenging liberals in California with their failed water development and management. Desal discussions are riddled with landmines; avoid them. Stick with failure to pursue water sourcing and management as a budget priority.
It does not drop off to an abyss. It runs deep but there is still a vibrant seabed from its shelf into its deep water.
There are a lot of fish that swim in that deep water. I know, I’ve caught quite a few.
The Israelis barely use their desal plants because they are aware of the problems. It’s a political hot potato. They are not stupid. They will only turn their desal plants on when faced with an emergency like a prolonged drought.
How concentrated the brine is depends on how much fresh water is removed per unit volume of seawater. Lower levels of salinity could be released, but that would require removing the same amount of fresh water from a larger volume of seawater, which would require more energy for pumping and filtering.
Not true. Within a year, desal will account for HALF of Israel's water consumption.
The seabed between San Pedro and Catalina Island is 3000 ft deep. Do you really think such a tiny amount of water with double total dissolved solids would mean anything to such a vast amount of water? It wouldn't even equal a tiny fraction of the water concentrated through natural evaporation.
What would the problem be in taking all of the water from the brine and putting the solids back into salt mines?
Better yet, process the solids such that the salt is separated from the minerals like manganese, etc.
Is it the cost?
Also, can’t prefiltering, preheating, or even the use of centrifuges, etc. deal with this brine issue?
I have to believe that if we can render crude down to recover all but the pentane as products, processing salt water into products that are either sellable or benign is within our technical grasp.
It ain’t so vibrant at 3000 ft.
Not at all necessary. Run a long pipe out into the vast Pacific Ocean where it will harmlessly disperse into the existing brine.
Of course the concentrated brine fans out into volumes of less salinity but it’s not a static problem; the brine keeps getting pumped in so the seabed within 5 to 10 miles of coastline gets wiped. This is a problem in Iraq, Kuwait, the Gulf States, etc. as well as large portions of the Mediterranean where new desal plants have now been outlawed.
Unfortunately advocacy of desal plants is a tact that Conservatives cannot win and will make them appear as true destroyers or ignorant.
There are water solutions via transport. For example, there are hundreds and hundreds of beauful islands off the coast of Croatia. I’ve visited many of them. They all have water shortages. But on the Croatian mainland there is no water shortage as the inland mountains provide an adequate source. So the solution for the islands was undersea piping of water from the mainland. It works.
California could have made it a state priority to solve water (which they did in generations past with the diversion of Colorado river water) but as they grew they needed to put budget into solving water and they didn’t even though their water authorities requested it again and again.
California has some of the best water engineers in the world but they were deprived of priority budget to get the problem solved. This is where Moonbeam and his band of morons should be attacked.
Forget desal advocacy.
I’ve already posted many articles to the Israeli desal problems. It is not used widely because of the problems with destroying the seabed. They have acknowledged the brine problem but say they have no choice when occasional droughts leave the population without adequate water.
Do the searches, you will find what I say is true.
So . . . supplying 50% of their water is not wide usage. Umkay.
It’s obvious you are no expert on water or desalination. Yet you post on a forum as if you alone have the solution when in fact it’s no solution at all. The problem with water is very complex and has even the best of water engineers stumped or grasping for solutions.
Read and make yourself smart enough to post with a degree of sophistication on this forum for Conservatives:
It does not provide 50% on a daily basis. It has a capacity which is not used because of the problem of poisoning the seabed which the Israelis have acknowledged.
http://www.ibtimes.com/water-sea-risks-and-rewards-israels-huge-bet-desalination-723429
So you’re a comedian?
Absolutely; as soon as possible.
[OH - - forgot about obanana announcing today -the govt. is going to start flying in illegals from various countries because these countries aren't providing enough jobs, food and water for them; and we the citizens will provide all flight payments. :(
Oregon has offered to sell Kalipornia billions of gallons a day by building pipelines, water that flows right into the ocean right now.
How stupid of these politicians, they had something and could have been using it all these years and saving water.
Could they use the salty brine water and refine it for golf courses and irigation?
It won’t hurt Kalifornia, but I suspect Brown and the rest of the Leftists will find a way to keep it from being truly helpful...
No they need the money for fast rail transit...to heck with the water supply.
Nonsense. There is no such problem. Read up on the Tampa Bay desalination plant.
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