A few years ago I saw a You-Tube video of a company from
So, to sum it all up:
We are running out of fresh water -- 60% of the world will be in crisis by 2050. But our oceans are rising, and full of salt water. If we invest the money now in Desalination plants on a large scale, we can turn rising sea levels into fresh, drinkable water. And in my mind, these plants could almost power themselves.
With energy channeled from the ocean waves we could create even more power. For some more fun, we can set up some wind turbines there too, and maybe even cover the roof with solar panels. I read about a new solar panel that is super thin and can be "painted" on.
And with Cogeneration, we can create more desalinated water with the waste heat from our other power plants.
In my opinion, there will not be one cure-all for our energy problems. Oil, Coal, and Nuclear power are not the long term answer. We will have to think outside of the box and use a combination of everything we can think of. We will have to be smart, and think about long term costs and effects, not just what makes or saves us the most money now.
What often gets forgotten in our cost-effectiveness analysis is the fact that once Renewable Resource plants are built, there isn't anything else you need to buy. You don't have to keep buying oil or coal or uranium to power the plant. You don't have to mine, frack, "Drill baby, Drill!" or separate atoms.
With Renewable Resources, you just turn it on, and make sure it keeps working. And you are not left with all the waste or pollution that will cause more problems in the future. From what I've read, the main problem of using water from the ocean is that some of the ocean life can be pulled in with the water. But if we can make a fiber an atom thick that separates salt from water, surely we can figure out how to keep the ocean life out. And using ocean water for Cogeneration at any plant not along the coast would require pipelines to be built and energy to pump the water. But where that isn't feasible, waste water and ground water can be desalinated and purified too. This article is long enough already, I'll let you look up what those are. In my little fantasy, all you are left with is enough fresh water so that no one has to ever go thirsty again, rising sea levels that are at least more controlled, and maybe even enough fresh water left over to fuel our cars. Not too shabby, or that expensive, eh? And if we can figure out how to keep the salt, we could sell that too. Sea salt is currently considered the "gourmet" kind:)
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