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Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

al-monitor.com

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Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#21

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

daniellarusso wrote: post #19
nicoffeine wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycling water as well as very targeted irrigation of crops, along with new technology such as the Sorek desal plant. The second generation may be up and running by 2023 [2]. There's an interesting paper [3] about building 40,000 Sorek style plants to sequester exce…

Evaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?

Already there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#22

Post by mmanfrin »

mattkrause wrote: post #12
mrfusion wrote: post #10

This says the humidity of the Sahara desert is 25%. I wonder if you could devise some kind of system to collect water from the air? (Taking advantage of the big difference in day and night temperatures) https://saharadesertinfo.weebly.com/humidity.html

Gonna need some Freman to operate it....

The Appendix of Dune is what solidified it as one of the best books I've ever read. I remember him going in to detail about how the planet had a type of desert flower that would grow at the bottom of dunes that acted as a catch for the morning dew, concentrating it and preventing it from evaporating away and thereby making pockets of water for the local animals.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#23

Post by azeirah »

mrfusion wrote: post #10

This says the humidity of the Sahara desert is 25%. I wonder if you could devise some kind of system to collect water from the air? (Taking advantage of the big difference in day and night temperatures) https://saharadesertinfo.weebly.com/humidity.html

I recall from a documentary I viewed that dew drops form on the ends of cactus needles, which is a large part of how they get enough water.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#25

Post by foota »

daniellarusso wrote: post #19
nicoffeine wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycling water as well as very targeted irrigation of crops, along with new technology such as the Sorek desal plant. The second generation may be up and running by 2023 [2]. There's an interesting paper [3] about building 40,000 Sorek style plants to sequester exce…

Evaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?

Isn't seawater like 3 or so percent salt? The amount of salt produced seems like it'd greatly exceed demand. Although maybe this would be a better alternative to salt mining, not sure if that's clean or not.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#26

Post by pstuart »

daniellarusso wrote: post #19
nicoffeine wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel already gets the majority of its water, including for irrigation, from desalination.[1] They achieve this through a combination of conserving and recycling water as well as very targeted irrigation of crops, along with new technology such as the Sorek desal plant. The second generation may be up and running by 2023 [2]. There's an interesting paper [3] about building 40,000 Sorek style plants to sequester exce…

Evaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?

I think this is more appealing:

https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-h...

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#28

Post by headmelted »

Is this a good thing?

I mean it’s certainly interesting but as others have pointed out the desert is a natural ecosystem and it makes a lot more sense to reforest areas of previous growth than doing this. That’s not really my problem with it though.

Surely from a climate change perspective this is really just introducing a fairly large carbon sink that will eventually release the carbon in short order if the irrigation stops or political will blows in a different direction?

We’re way beyond the point of just planting more trees to combat climate change, although we definitely need to do that too, we need a plan to sequester greenhouse gases permanently, and I’m not sure this does that.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#30

Post by el_oni »

josefx wrote: post #14
mrfusion wrote: post #7

My idea would be to flood lower than sea level deserts with ocean water and then start a mangrove forest. (They thrive in salt water) Of course the evaporation might raise the salinity above what they could handle. Perhaps a monthly flush out somehow?

Wasn't there even a plan that involved using up the nuclear stockpile to 'dig' a channel and drain the Mediterranean Sea? Of course there might be some opposition to that currently.

indeed, project plowshare. Which came from the Atoms for Peace idea
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