Reply To: Cap and Trade

[JimmyT]

Aeronaut wrote:

I easily see the US’s environmental laws making us the last country to adopt the desalination plants. And that’s along the coasts.

What about the ecological effects of the brine concentrate that you have to dump back into the ocean?

Do I believe that this is a major concern? Emphatically no! But there is always some issue that can be used to block new technology.

Water extraction from the atmosphere? What about the decreased rainfall in the water-diminished-plume downwind? Shouldn’t the adopters of this technology have to pay the rest of the world some sort of “environmental sin tax” for the horrors of ecological disruption this causes?

It never ends folks.

No need to dump it back into the ocean, Jimmy. We use it on roads all year around- and that’s just part of the salt industry.

http://en.wiki.org/wiki/Calcium_chloride%5B/quote

Brine, or no brine. It depends on what method you use. I think reverse osmosis is the best current technology, and It makes brine. I really don’t think it is a significant problem.

Nature makes brine too. Its just not as localized as a big reverse osmosis plant would be. As one of my professors put it: “The solution to the problem of pollution is dilution”.

“Give me an equation with five variables and I’ll draw you an elephant” – Dr Skidmore professor of chemical engineering at The Ohio State University.