Desalination: Drink a Cup of Seawater? By: Howard Perlman 3/9/12
Picture:
This picture shows the process of desalination. This what goes on to make seawater drinkable. There are many of desalination plants in the world.
Summary:
Humans are only able to drink fresh water. However, out of the water in the world only 3% of it is fresh water. Soon there will be no longer any fresh water in the world and there needs to be another source of water we can drink. This issue will affect our population and world stability. Fortunately, there is a solution which is making salt water drinkable for humans. This process is called desalination.
97% of the world is made up of salt water and that is plenty of water to last a very long time. To be exact the ocean water contains 35,000 ppm (parts per million) of salt. It may seem like desalination is a new process but it was actually used long ago when people would travel using ships. We just upgraded their way of doing it. Now we have factories for it. The factories actually use a similar version of the hydrologic cycle. Water evaporates from lakes, rivers, streams, and other surface water from the sun and is turned into water vapor where it interacts with cool air. This makes it re-condense and make rain. That is what is tried to be duplicated in factories. In 2002 there were 12,500 desalination plants in the world. This shows that we've taken some action to try to prevent from having no fresh water to drink. There places in the world that are considered major users of desalination which are the Middle East and North Africa. The Middle East has 70% of the worlds population and North Africa has 6%. With more than 76% of the world using desalinated water, it should not be long before more starts to use it.
Opinion/Reflection:
I did not know that there was more than 76% of the world using desalinated water. I honestly didn't realize how severe of a problem this was. It would be scary if there was no more fresh water in the world and I hope that day never comes. I also didn't know that there is desalination in the hydrologic cycle. A lot of this information is new to me and gives me a new insight on the availability of our drinking water. I hope that desalination doesn't lead to any problems. If this is what we need to have fresh water I am all for it.
Questions:
1. Do you think desalination could lead to any future issues? Explain.
2. What do you think would happen if there was no longer any fresh water?
3. How much of a problem is the availability of fresh water to you? Explain.
4. Do you feel this is a waste of money? Why?
Opinion/Reflection: I have heard of the process of desalination, but I never knew exactly what it meant. Now that I have read this article, I am more informed about the process. It is surprising that there were 12,500 desalination plants in the world in 2002, because there is probably more plants in the world right now. When I drink water from my refrigerator and a bottle, I never think about whether it is desalinated or not, but there is a strong possibility that there is based off this article. The fact that 76% of the world uses desalinated water is crazy! This really shows the lack of fresh water availability there is in the world. In class, we talked about the lack of fresh water compared to salt water, but I never realized it could cause a problem like it is beginning to create. I agree with Grant when he says that if it desalination is what needs to happen to have fresh water, then he is all for it. Also, I am glad that we are starting this process now instead of waiting for the fresh water to be a major threat. I hope that this process will help humans in the future by giving them a plentiful amount of fresh water to drink from.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to Question #2: If there is no longer any fresh water, there could be a major problem. Now that there is the desalination process is being used, I don’t think there will be much of a problem though. It will create fresh water by turning salt water into it. I have a feeling that more and more people will have to turn to this process as we continue to use the rest of our fresh water sources. As long as the desalination process continues to help many people and not cause any problems, it could be used for a long time before there is no water left to drink.
Opinion: I knew that the world was mostly salt water but I never knew it was that much. I have been hearing about desalination, like in class we talked about it. I was really surprised that 76% of the world are using desalinated water. This shows that there is a low availability of fresh water around the world. I really never thought that this would be a problem but now that I read this article, it opened my eyes and made me realize this an ongoing issue. I found this article very interesting and it taught me a lot about the process of desalination and the lack of fresh water.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to question 4: I do not feel like this is a waste of money. People need fresh water to live. Since the world is lacking fresh water, there has to be an alternate way to get it. It may cost a lot of money, but it is very worth it.
I am glad that there is a solution to make salt water drinkable. There is so much salt water in the would do it is great that we are now able to use it. I was also surprised that 76% of the world is using this for their water. I never thought that water availability was a problem. It is good that there is a solution for this problem. I am very happy to see that there will always be water for me.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to question 4: I do not think this is a waste of money because who would want to run out of water. Water is mandatory for humans to live and if people see that freshwater availability is an issue then something needs to be done. I think it is very cool how desolation works and I believe it is not a waste of money.
Opinion/reflection: I have never heard of the process of desalination before but it sounds like a great idea. I know the fresh water in the world will eventually run out so it is good that we are looking for other ways to obtain drinking water. I never realized that there were over 12,500 desalination plants in the world in 2002 but that is so cool that we are using it. Also I find it very interesting that the desalination process was influenced by the hydrologic cycle. I can really relate this to what we learned in class about overpopulation of humans in the world. A limiting factor of humans is water. If we run out of fresh water in the world then the population of humans will drastically decline. So by being able to use desalination we can save a lot of humans and take away a limiting factor.
ReplyDeleteAnswer To question 1: I don't think it could lead to any problems. I think it would actually benefit us greatly. By being able to use desalination we could help the human kind survive when fresh water runs out. By being able to take away a limiting factor it will let humans survive much longer. So I think it will greatly benefit us in the future.
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