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Desalination pours more toxic brine into the ocean than previously thought
Technology meant to help solve the world's growing water shortage is producing a salty environmental dilemma.
Desalination facilities, which extract drinkable water from the ocean, discharge around 142 billion liters of extremely salty water called brine back into the environment every day, a study finds. That waste product of the desalination process can kill marine life and detrimentally alter the planet's oceans, researchers report January 14 in Science of the Total Environment.
"On the one hand, we are trying to provide populations — particularly in dry areas — with the needed amount of good quality water. But at the same time, we are also adding an environmental concern to the process," says study coauthor Manzoor Qadir, an environmental scientist at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health in Hamilton, Canada.
I would take some salt, but it probably contains microplastics.
The state of desalination and brine production: A global outlook (DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.076) (DX)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday January 20 2019, @04:47AM (10 children)
Doesn't matter what percentage of the ocean the salty residue is. The issue is this very salty stuff is being dumped locally, so for x kilometers around everything dies.
To be honest, the guy that brought up population is 100% correct. The planet can't support this many humans, and it's telling us so. Climate change, mass extinctions, and hell, the price of housing where anyone would want to live are all indicative of too damned many people.
/ why do I see a troll mod in my future?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday January 20 2019, @06:25AM
> / why do I see a troll mod in my future?
Because SNers are a generous sharing crowd!
I think you're spot-on and I've felt that way for many years. But I'll qualify it: the planet won't support this many humans being so wasteful and abusive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @06:57AM (1 child)
but but Japan has a shrinking population so it is going full on gungho to get more people !
wtf?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:28AM
That is because it is still mainstream economic teaching that populations must keep on increasing exponentially or else profits will not be maintained. The process should only finish when all the matter in the universe has been turned into human biomass - the economists trust that science will find a way to do that, and solve all the other problems on the way too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @07:15AM (1 child)
>>>/ why do I see a troll mod in my future?
Because of your poor English?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @07:33AM
Or maybe it is the projection of what other people think and being a jerk? Nah. IT HAS TO BE 'those other people'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @07:37AM (2 children)
The planet can't support this many humans, and it's telling us so.
Then you path is clear. Build a rocket and fly to the moon. You should not have to live around the rest of the filthy humans who are polluting your precious bodily juices.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:44AM (1 child)
He did not say he cannot stand other humans, he said the planet cannot sustain this number of humans. Given the rate of expansion of the human population, his going to the moon will make little difference. In fact hundreds of millions of people re-locating to the Moon* will make little difference to the problem which I don't think people like yourself (or most people) even begin to grasp.
By the time Earth is completely covered in, say, 20-storey accommodation, which would not be long if present rates are maintained, settling on the moon in the same way will only allow the human race about one generation's worth more time. World population has doubled since about 1970 and does not look like slowing up.
* And Mars if you like - Moon and Mars are the only two candidate additional living areas until near-light-speed travel is a thing.
for us
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @03:06PM
Then periodically deflat said airships.
Do it fast enough and it will have no problem solving your population crises :)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 20 2019, @04:03PM
I agree on all points but this one:
If you look in places like SouthEast Alaska, there aren't too many people, not by a longshot, but the pretty towns like Sitka are ultra-expensive. Supply and demand. Supply is restricted there by the national parks, demand from retirees and others who don't need any income is higher than the supply.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @02:07PM
This is the theory which has been said and restated for literally hundreds of years. See Malthusian Catastrophe [wikipedia.org], when the world population was something like 1/100th of what we have now. I'll fully agree there is some limit to the number of people the world can support, but why are any of the things you cited clear evidence of this?
If somebody were to grab an axe and kill everybody else in their house, is that evidence that having 5 people in a house is just too many? Or is it evidence that something went wrong situationally?
We may or may not have too many people in the world. However, one thing I was surprised to learn is that you can fit the entire world population in the US state of Texas, and still have enough space to give each family quarter acre lot of land. Obviously people couldn't live in such a situation, but the point still stands... there is a LOT of land and resources out there.
Take this political website link with a grain of salt, but there are some thought provoking ideas here: https://overpopulationisamyth.com/ [overpopulationisamyth.com]