Treasure from the Deep: Drinking Water

BusinessWeek ^ | MAY 1, 2003 | Jane Black

[Willie Green]

Concern over fresh water supply is becoming increasingly common in our nation due to pressures from drought and population growth. Our coastal states are frequently evaluating the viability of desalination systems to provide their fresh water needs. Desalination is an energy intensive process, so it is quite common for these facilities to be built in close proximity to electric power plants. For this reason, it is also reasonable to consider the use of nuclear desalination as a potential option.

[jimkress]

As the technology continues to improve, experts say it'll fast become a solution not only for municipalities but for hotels and resorts, corporations, and, someday, homeowners.

I already have a Reverse Osmosis unit in my house and have had for 4 years. There's nothing new here.

[liberallarry]

Drastic times call for drastic measures

It's time to stop population growth. We're obviously stressing our environment in a thousand different ways. Maybe we can continue to do so for awhile. Maybe technology will allow us to continue. But meanwhile we're putting more and more pressure on limited resources.

[Pylot]

Colorado only uses 5% of its available water.

The effects on the population caused by the drought are self imposed.

[glorgau]

mean desalination can produce one gallon of fresh water from every two gallons of seawater

And where does the resulting brine get dumped?

[jrushing]

It's time to stop population growth

How do you propose to do that? I have thought that population growth was the #1 problem but I can't think of a reasonable way to slow it??!! Any ideas?
http://www.luzianne.com/

Luzianne, not Lipton!

[Consort]

What happened to the toilet-to-tap program?

[general_re]

And where does the resulting brine get dumped?

They've set it up so that they'll dump it at your house - didn't anyone tell you? ;)

Engineers have also cut energy costs by locating desalination facilities next to coastal power plants. This provides both a source of power and an existing infrastructure to draw water in and release it back to the ocean because power stations use seawater as a coolant.

So in the future, they could combine that with brine from a nearby desalination plant and release both back into the ocean.

[Willie Green]

Back from whence it came.

[jrushing]

And where does the resulting brine get dumped?

I hope that's the Sea Salt sold in health food stores. Also, I hope it's what they sell in the pet stores for sea water aquariums.

http://www.luzianne.com/
Luzianne not Liptons!

[tubebender]

How much of annual precipitation runs back to the seas ?

[gitmo]

In 1964, when Castro cut the water pipe at Guantanamo, the Navy installed a desal plant. Tasted pretty awful, but it kept you alive.

[liberallarry]

...but I can't think of a reasonable way to slow it??!!

What's reasonable depends on the context.

Even a cursory look at history reveals that peoples have always sought cheap land and plentiful resources (colonized). This has meant extirmination of increasing numbers of "natives" as world population has grown. Most recently WWI and WWII were explicitly fought for "lebensraum", resulting in the deaths of some 150,000,000 people. Nobody complained that this was an "unreasonable" way to control world population.

Today the first and former second worlds have their populations pretty much stabilized. Population growth is largely occuring in the third and fourth worlds...but it is transferred to the first world by immigration.

But even in those parts of the first world with no population growth people are still "developing", i.e. destroying natural habitat and replacing it with homes, roads, mines, etc. And the oceans and their fish stocks are under terrible pressure.

What seems reasonable to me is to do everything possible to increase public awareness, encourage birth control, restrict immigration, and prevent destruction of any more of the natural world.

Very large numbers of people do not agree...partly for religious, partly for economic, partly for cultural, partly for racial reasons. So we're in an ever more desperate situation - hoping that technology will make enough new resources available to us before population pressure drives us to even more destructive wars.

It's easy to point out how often environmentalists have been wrong, how often they're motivated by jealosy and weakness, how long cranks with long beards and robes have been predicting the end of the world.

But it's also easy to see how fast the natural world is being gobbled up.

[WOSG]

Depopulation is a far more serious problem in Europe and the US than overpopulation - populations are starting to decline. This makes it harder to support the growing elderly with a smaller base of workers and ennervates the whole society.

IT"S TIME TO RESTART POPULATION GROWTH

[Steve Eisenberg]

It's time to stop population growth.

Well, as documented in zillions of articles all over the internet, world-wide birth rates are in free-fall in most places. In Western Europe, and in all America's liberal headquarters (Berkeley, Ann Arbor, etc.) the birth rate is below replacement. So, liberallarry, not only is population growth slowing, the absolute numbers of liberals worldwide will soon be going way down. Good news for you, better news for us.

[aught-6]

Very nice thought liberal. But exactly what restrictions are you proposing? Restrictions on ILLEGAL immmigration? That might be intelligent.

[liberallarry]

world-wide birth rates are in free-fall in most places

Wrong.

[Jesse]

"It's time to stop population growth. "

Can't, liberal larry. You see, liberals keep voting for more entitlements, which are a Ponzi scheme. The population must keep expanding to provide more workers to pay the entitlements voted for by liberals, instead of having people provide for themselves.

Liberalism is a bankrupt philosophy which causes most of the problems it purports to solve. Just add anti environmental to the list.

[aught-6]

IT"S TIME TO RESTART POPULATION GROWTH

Please elaborate. Are you saying that our population density in the U.S. is not high enough yet?

[Slicksadick]

At present the reproduction in third world countries is 3.1 children, or already less than that of the US or Australia in the early 1960's.