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Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

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Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

#41

Post by philipkglass »

Retric wrote: post #19
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is not ocean-level damage through the salt directly but in localized ecological system destruction. The mangrove forest encompases a tiny portion of the ocean overall but removing this forest affects a large portion of sealife. The creation of 'deadzones' through salinity will have knockoff effects elsewhere that cannot necessarily be predicted.

At worst these dead zones would be tiny. They could dilute the waste stream by dumping it into the local sewage system, but I don’t think that’s going to change much. It’s on the order of building a mall parking lot. Sure bad for the local ecosystem, but we have vastly larger issues.

The local sewage systems can't deal with volumes this large. The sewage systems of the entire UK, population 66 million, deal with about 11 billion liters per day:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Saudi Arabia, with a population of only 33 million, isn't going to have sewage systems sized to accommodate 31.5 billion liters of waste brine.

Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

#43

Post by SolaceQuantum »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #39
sp332 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be dumped near the shoreline, where sea life is very different from what is supported in the open ocean. If the shoreline is made uninhabitable, the marine life there might not have anywhere else to go.

There are over 7500km of shoreline in Saudi Arabia, so marine life can move along the coast away from the salt water outlets.

Shoreline is also highly variable and localized, and effects to the shoreline have staggering effects even if the region affected is small. I'd recommend looking at mangrove forests, coral reefs, and the mouths of rivers.

Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

#46

Post by Johnny555 »

paulcole wrote: post #37
Johnny555 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the equivalence to oil at all -- are they saying that one barrel of this contaminated water has the same environmental impact of dumping a barrel of oil in the water? I don't really understand the relevance of equating water waste to exports, if it were a nation known for pork exports, would they put the water volume in terms of hogs?

It's an analogy. The average person knows Saudi Arabia exports a LOT of oil. This is 2x a LOT. So a WHOLE LOT.

I dunno if that's a good analogy if the desire is to make it sound huge. If it's a small enough quantity that it can be shipped by tankers (even huge super tankers), that doesn't sound like a lot compared to the size of the ocean.

Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

#47

Post by paulcole »

Johnny555 wrote: post #46
paulcole wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an analogy. The average person knows Saudi Arabia exports a LOT of oil. This is 2x a LOT. So a WHOLE LOT.

I dunno if that's a good analogy if the desire is to make it sound huge. If it's a small enough quantity that it can be shipped by tankers (even huge super tankers), that doesn't sound like a lot compared to the size of the ocean.

The average person doesn't know how much a tanker holds.

They know Saudi Arabia = Oil.

Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

#49

Post by foobiekr »

gpm wrote: post #42
foobiekr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the copper will be an issue.

So call it a copper mine instead of a salt flat?

it's not a copper mine except in the sense that it has contaminated, zero-value output as a side effect.

Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem

#50

Post by cronix »

ricardobeat wrote: post #3

Unless they are adding chemicals to the water before desalination (which I don't see mentioned anywhere), that sounds like the 'brine' is just ~1.5x concentrated seawater, which will get diluted back again? What am I missing?

> which will get diluted back again

Also raising the concentration of salts in the oceans, especially in the immediate area where they're dumping it back into the ocean in the gulf that has weak ocean currents (due to being a gulf). I can't imagine the wildlife will enjoy that much. It also makes it harder for future desalination, as it's having to desalinate an ever increasing percentage of salt since they just dump it back into the ocean.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desalination-brea...

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