News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by ceejayoz on Friday June 05, 2026 @04:34PM (#48417844)
Brine doesn't necessarily behave the way you imagine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinicle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool

Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by jaggederest on Friday June 05, 2026 @04:52PM (#48418117)
Blue Planet video of a brinicle, content warning for kind of horrifying death of sea creatures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAupJzH31tc
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by ianthehenry on Saturday June 06, 2026 @12:10AM (#48421301)
And a Blue Planet II video of a brine pool, stronger content warning for much more horrifying death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by threwrfaway on Friday June 05, 2026 @06:00PM (#48418928)
You can dilute the brine in a facility before disposing.
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by wlesieutre on Friday June 05, 2026 @07:27PM (#48419704)
With fresh water, we’ll get it from desalinization! Hey wait a second…
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by threwrfaway on Friday June 05, 2026 @10:07PM (#48420698)
Sarcasm aside, your comment actually works: you can use the freshwater from desalination!

Just wait for the saltwater to come back around in the sewer.

Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by wlesieutre on Friday June 05, 2026 @11:12PM (#48421022)
Globally about 70% of freshwater is used for agriculture so less than a third of it will come back around, if it's exclusively for residential/commercial use you might do better but overall not a strategy that balances out
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by threwrfaway on Saturday June 06, 2026 @08:22AM (#48424322)
70% of desalinated water wont ever go to agriculture because its too expensive to use for corn. Only very high value crops need apply.

But, so what? 30% sewage is still a strong dilluant... especially when mixed with more seawater

Im shocked how many people cannot grasp that you can dilute brine's salinity arbitrarily close to seawater's with energetically cheap pumps.

Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by ceejayoz on Friday June 05, 2026 @06:50PM (#48419356)
Go on. With what?
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by asdff on Friday June 05, 2026 @08:49PM (#48420252)
Seems like you could just dilute it with seawater at like 100:1 ratio and it would be negligible done offshore. We already dump our shit 5 miles out.
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by threwrfaway on Friday June 05, 2026 @10:01PM (#48420649)
100:1 is overkill and energetically very wasteful. It's a fairly straightforward chemical engineering problem.
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by pasquinelli on Friday June 05, 2026 @08:54PM (#48420286)
gasoline
Re:New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without... by threwrfaway on Friday June 05, 2026 @09:54PM (#48420613)
...sea water. You take 10 units of sea water for every unit processed and you'll get a slight increase in salinity.

A phase diagram tells you exactly how far you need to go.

You know this makes more thermodynamic sense than carbon capture, right?