Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: DU: Beware the Water Desalination Movement and it's Lies. [View all]NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)First, all the water we use is going to end up back in the sea no matter what we do with it.
And, even if what we used went someplace else forever, all of humanity's water use in one year is something like 0.02 inches of the oceans. I did the calculation, it wasn't much.
Worse, the energy needed to run these plants is considerable and, in the short term, requires massive new generation capacity, which would likely be Natural Gas powered plants.
And, thus, we worsen the climate problem.
I'm sorry if my broad generalization sweeps in innocents, it could have been phrased more carefully.
To clarify, under today's government and corporate climate, such large scale plants would only be build by the private sector. Water would become even more of a commodity used to grow profits.
If we had to do this, it should be done like a municipal public utility, but I don't see that happening.
Thus the R W Corporatist pipe dream if it gets done in the current corporate friendly climate.
Now even if we could do the public utility approach, I worry that people would continue to waste water and we'd just be promoting more waste.
I prefer that we all look in the mirror and accept that we have been wasteful and look to ways to live within our environmental means rather than look to more large scale projects to solve problems.
Take care!