> “So the brine becomes a profit center rather than a cost waste center.”
> “There are already a number of companies around who are doing parts of this. But more R&D needs to be done.”
The throughput processing for brine slurries backs up. Desalination volume is therefore limited to the time it takes to process the brine.
Your statements are ‘wishes’ and ‘thoughts’ that are not backed up by practical engineering. Your statement that “more R&D needs to be done” is decades old. Plenty of research has been done on treating and processing brine. Do you really think you are announcing something that isn’t more than 100 years old? Think Man, if the brine problem had been solved or was solvable, there would be desalination plants everywhere.
Don’t be so cavalier in thinking all that is needed is “more R&D” for brine.
There are other solutions in work but current desalination tech is not on that list.
Again, think if desalination had a solution to brine, don’t you think it would have been solved by now? And you should know that the best water treatment scientists and engineers have tried to solve this important problem.
The author of this writing is sophomoric in conceptualizing but he does at least draw attention to the fact that cheap essentials lessen dependency.
Again, think if desalination had a solution to brine, don’t you think it would have been solved by now?
...............
Absolutely not. The best chemical engineers are are not in the desalination industry. They’re in the chemical industry.
The chemical industry doesn’t give a rats ass about the desalination business—nor would they want competition from desal based chemicals.
There is in short a industrial structural problem here. I’ve talked to guys at the Bureau of Reclamation the San Dia labs and elsewhere in the desal community. They were told 15 years ago by the chemicals industry that brine wasn’t useable. So they simply gave up. They put no effort into it. Only in the last 5-6 years or so have they begun to put more effort into turning brine into useful products.
.............
Your statements are ‘wishes’ and ‘thoughts’ that are not backed up by practical engineering.
..................
You’re stone dead wrong here. This stuff going to happen. I’ll show you what the first generation of brine reuse looks like. I wrote an article on this a couple years ago,
http://www.rdwaterpower.com/carbon-sequestration-and-desalination/watereuse-foudation-symposium/
And you will be quite correct to say that its not enough.
That’s what R&D is about.
..............
The author of this writing is sophomoric.
It does sound like you’ve had your butt burned. I’ll agree that indeed the desal biz moves at a glacial pace.
If you knew your history however, you’d know that government funding for the desal business was nearly 200 million dollars a year for 30 years from the 50-70’s—in 50’s to 70’s dollars. That work produced RO membranes. Then the US government gave up and the technology and industry mostly went overseas.
Presumably you do not work for an foreign company.