Fweethawt Posted July 29, 2016 Share Posted July 29, 2016 Israel Proves the Desalination Era is Here -- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ July 19, 2016 — Ten miles south of Tel Aviv, I stand on a catwalk over two concrete reservoirs the size of football fields and watch water pour into them from a massive pipe emerging from the sand. The pipe is so large I could walk through it standing upright, were it not full of Mediterranean seawater pumped from an intake a mile offshore. “Now, that’s a pump!” Edo Bar-Zeev shouts to me over the din of the motors, grinning with undisguised awe at the scene before us. The reservoirs beneath us contain several feet of sand through which the seawater filters before making its way to a vast metal hangar, where it is transformed into enough drinking water to supply 1.5 million people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daffodil Posted July 29, 2016 Share Posted July 29, 2016 Very cool! What does this mean for our oceans? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Not sure... Possibly getting worse? I don't know. It sounds like whatever it is they're filtering out gets pumped back into the main supply. Unless I'm mistaken. At least I thought it said something like that anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantheory Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 Very cool! What does this mean for our oceans? The ocean is so vast in water volume compared to the relatively inconsequential brackish water being pumped back that I expect it would never make any difference in the salinity of the over-all ocean for I would expect many thousands of years. In the very distant future I expect they will have to invent a use or disposal method for the salt byproduct of desalination other than pumping it back into the ocean. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 I imagine a problem that could arise is the salinity in the coastal waters could rise which could cause a problem in those ecosystems. Overall, the oceans could likely handle the rise in salinity but that would assume an equal distribution of waste water being returned to oceans as opposed to simply dumping it back in the easiest and most cost-effective way which would be dumping it back at the coast like we do pretty much all our waste. And even when we send these things "far out" it's still relatively close to shore as far as oceans are concerned. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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