A Clever New Approach To Desalination 128
jbeaupre writes "The Economist reports on progress by a company called Saltworks on using saline gradients to do the heavy lifting of desalination. In essence, Saltworks uses solar energy or waste heat to concentrate sea water. They then use the ionic gradient between the concentrated brine and two sea-water streams to pull ions from from a 3rd sea-water stream. It appears to work with entropy by trading the reduced entropy of the desalinated water against the increased entropy of 'mixing' the brine and the other sea-water streams. The article only discusses Na and Cl, but even just removing these ions is a step in the right direction."
Oh no! (Score:0, Funny)
This could create greater access to fresh water. That could reduce the likelihood of a water based we're-all-going-to-die situation. What if we have to find some other end of the world catastrophe to whine about?
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Dr. Flammond: "A year ago, I was close to perfecting the first magnetic desalinization process. So revolutionary, it was capable of removing the salt from over a million gallons of sea water a day! Do you realise what that could mean to the starving nations of the earth?"
Nick Rivers: "My God, they'd have enough salt to last forever!"
Re:Anyone else think... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, pretty much, for all practical purposes, but not quite, because sooner or later the fucking sun will in fact burn out.
Or get bought out by Oracle after giving away all its energy for Free.
Re:It's probably the wave of the future (pun inten (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Maybe (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Funny)
True. Too bad greenhouses are impossible.
Re:Maybe (Score:3, Funny)
(to the music of Queen) - Black-bottomed pool you make the salty ions get found!
Sorry, couldn't resist
Why would the Poles want more ice? (Score:3, Funny)
The winter in Poland is already plenty cold enough...
:-P
Cheers,