This seems like a terrible use, since these plants work by mixing fresh water with seawater (or in this case the brine leftover from desalination). I guess the catch is they can use treated wastewater instead of potable water.
This method gains very little net energy compared to other renewables.
“While energy is released when the salt water is mixed with fresh water, a lot of energy is lost in pumping the two streams into the power plant and from the frictional loss across the membranes. This means that the net energy that can be gained is small,” said Kentish.
treadful@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Using it to run desalination is confusing.
thann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
I created fresh water using nothing but sea water, a membrane, and fresh water.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
Fresh water doesn’t mean drinkable water, it just means not salt water. The desalination plant produces drinkable water.
frongt@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
It sounds like they’re not quite using fresh water, but waste water. I presume it’s been treated, but even if it’s not 100% back to potable, if this also helps solve the problem of what to do with the brine after desalination, I think it’s a win all around.