The brine that is produced is mixed back in with the three quarters of seawater that the buoys pull in but hasn’t gone through the membrane. This is then released back into the sea. “It’s only about 25% saltier than the original sea water,” says Ms Hunt. “It’s a much lower concentration of brine compared to traditional desalination methods.”
My limited understanding of the process lets me assume that it is an open system on the ocean side and thus there is not really a way to capture the concentrate.
However I also doubt that this is a real issue. These are rather small units that even in large scale deployments would be spread over a large area that is highly agitated by waves.
Compared to the total volume of the ocean this concentrate is really insignificant and with other systems it is really more of a mixing problem than that the concentrate is actually harmful at the location it is produced.
On the other hand, on land salt brines can be very environmentally damaging, so the idea to take them out of the ocean is rather misguided.
Compared to the total volume of the ocean this concentrate is really insignificant and with other systems it is really more of a mixing problem than that the concentrate is actually harmful at the location it is produced.
Thats what they said about co2 as well…
On the other hand, on land salt brines can be very environmentally damaging, so the idea to take them out of the ocean is rather misguided.
Yes i don’t meant for it to be just piled up somewhere, you could put it in old mines, especially salt mines, or at least put in some wear houses where it can’t just go into the ground or get washed away
Yes but there is always more salt being added naturally and artificially, if we take out water as well and leave the salt it will make it more salty over the years, shure, not from one year to the next, but over long therm it will be problematic.
The water we take out also flows back into the ocean for the most part and currently a lot of non-salty water is entering the oceans from melting glaciers, so making the oceans too saltly is really the opposite of what is a problem right now.
That’s great but we need to take the salt out of the ocean as well, otherwise it will be bad for marine life
Thats still bad, just take the saline solution out as well in a different pipe and make salt from it, you can just sell it or store it somewhere.
My limited understanding of the process lets me assume that it is an open system on the ocean side and thus there is not really a way to capture the concentrate.
However I also doubt that this is a real issue. These are rather small units that even in large scale deployments would be spread over a large area that is highly agitated by waves.
Compared to the total volume of the ocean this concentrate is really insignificant and with other systems it is really more of a mixing problem than that the concentrate is actually harmful at the location it is produced.
On the other hand, on land salt brines can be very environmentally damaging, so the idea to take them out of the ocean is rather misguided.
Thats what they said about co2 as well…
Yes i don’t meant for it to be just piled up somewhere, you could put it in old mines, especially salt mines, or at least put in some wear houses where it can’t just go into the ground or get washed away
Main difference being that this is not about mining salt and dumping it in the ocean…
Yes but there is always more salt being added naturally and artificially, if we take out water as well and leave the salt it will make it more salty over the years, shure, not from one year to the next, but over long therm it will be problematic.
The water we take out also flows back into the ocean for the most part and currently a lot of non-salty water is entering the oceans from melting glaciers, so making the oceans too saltly is really the opposite of what is a problem right now.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just keep the melting glacier water clean? (or frozen at best)
And as said, its not a right now but a long therm problem wich we should fix before it even becomes a problem.