Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on September 29, 2016
Peak salt: is the desalination dream over for the Gulf states?
Gulf states are among the most water-scarce in the world. With few freshwater resources and low rainfall, many countries have turned to desalination (where salt is removed from seawater) for their clean water needs.
But Gulf states are heading for “peak salt”: the more they desalinate, the more concentrated wastewater, brine, is pumped back into the sea; and as the Gulf becomes saltier, desalination becomes more expensive.
“In time, it’s going to become impossible to use desalination in a way that makes economic sense,” says Gökçe Günel, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona. “The water will become so saline that it will be too expensive to desalinate.”
The Middle East is home to 70% of the world’s desalination plants – mostly in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Tens of billions of dollars, $24.3bn (£18.8bn) in Saudi Arabia alone, are being invested over the next few years to expand desalination capacity.
The process is cost and energy intensive; it pumps seawater through special filters or boils it to remove the salts. The resulting brine can be nearly twice as salty as normal Gulf waters, according to John Burt, a biologist at New York University Abu Dhabi.
But the 250,000 sq km Gulf is more like a salt-water lake than a sea. It’s shallow, just 35 metres deep on average, and is almost entirely enclosed. The few rivers that feed the Gulf have been dammed or diverted and the region’s hot and dry climate results in high rates of evaporation. Add in a daily dose of around 70m cubic metres of super-salty wastewater from dozens of desalination plants, and it’s not surprising that the water in the Gulf is 25% saltier than normal seawater, says Burt, or that parts are becoming too salty to use.
Peak salt, says Günel, mirrors the concept of peak oil, a popular concept in the 1970s used to describe the point in time when the maximum rate of oil extraction had been reached. “Peak salt describes the point at which desalination becomes unfeasible,” she says.
And studies have shown that the Gulf will only get saltier in the future. Raed Bashitialshaaer, a water resources engineer at Sweden’s Lund University, says that the growth of desalination plants in the region is happening far faster than his own 2011 study estimated.
With groundwater sources either exhausted or non-existent and climate change bringing higher temperatures and less rainfall, Gulf states plan to nearly double the amount of desalination by 2030 (doc). This is bad news for marine life and for the cost of producing drinking water – unless something can be done about the brine.
Farid Benyahia, a chemical engineer at Qatar University, believes he has a solution. He recently patented a process that could eliminate the need for brine disposal by nearly 100%. The process uses pure carbon dioxide (emitted during the desalination process by burning fossil fuels for power) and ammonia to turn brine into baking soda and calcium chloride. Whether the process is cost-effective remains to be seen but Benyahia believes it could be, especially if markets are found for large volumes of the end products.
Other efforts are also under way to reduce desalination’s country-sized carbon footprint which globally accounts for 76m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – nearly equivalent to Romania’s emissions in 2014.
The Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance was formed in 2015 to tackle this problem by increasing efficiencies and shifting to renewable energy sources, such as solar-powered desalination. Saudi Arabia expects to have a commercial-scale plant operational by 2017 and in California, a proposed solar-powered desalination plant combines innovation, efficiency and design.
Water pricing, says Günel, is also becoming critical to improving water efficiency in the Gulf.
“Climate change policymakers in the region are pushing for water pricing and awareness campaigns around consumption to explain to governments and citizens that they can’t continue to use water in the same way.”
86 Comments on "Peak salt: is the desalination dream over for the Gulf states?"
dave thompson on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 5:30 pm
To many people going after to few resources with populations growing world wide, what could possibly go wrong with our capitalistic never ending growth paradigm mindset ways?
Anonymous on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 5:53 pm
“Farid Benyahia, a chemical engineer at Qatar University, believes he has a solution. He recently patented a process that could eliminate the need for brine disposal by nearly 100%. The process uses pure carbon dioxide (emitted during the desalination process by burning fossil fuels for power) and ammonia to turn brine into baking soda and calcium chloride. Whether the process is cost-effective remains to be seen but Benyahia believes it could be, especially if markets are found for large volumes of the end products.”
Sounds good. Except…….. Im pretty sure the markets for baking soda and calcium chloride is fairly mature. I mean, what does this guy think would happen if, say, the supply of those two compounds went up by …hundreds of thousands, or more?, tons a year? Just think, wed have the baking soda we’d ever need….
Problem solved.
Then plantatard could remind us how were in a Baking Soda glut 24/7 like a fooking retarded parrot.
Hawkcreek on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 6:12 pm
Well, we could use the calcium chloride for de-icer on the roads. That would probably be enough to keep all the ice off Canada’s roads forever.
And maybe we could use the baking soda in donuts to feed starving policemen?
Anonymous on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 6:22 pm
Canadians can barely drive competently, on ice-FREE roads, let along icy ones. Maybe there is a upside to all this after all.
Well just dump millions of more tons of Co2 and polluants into the atmosphere processing and shipping all that Cal-Chloride pulled from the gulf so the residents of Edmonton and Tar-sands workers in Fort Mac can drive on ice-free roads year round in their gas-powered 3 ton SUV’s. (De-icer spread by eco-friendly multi-ton diesel de-icing trucks of course).
Problem solved (x2!)
Roselio Palma on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 6:35 pm
The Saudi’s could sell and donate calcium chloride to county’s of the north were they have problems of snows clogging their highways and streets like Russia,Baltic state, etc.and the baking soda will remain in the mid east countries for breads and donuts foods and make them obese Muslims unable to lunch terror throughout the world.
Roselio Palma on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 6:41 pm
Why not just let the Saudis people come to these snow, ice and flood prone countries for them to collect melting ice ,snows and flood water and exchange and trade it with their oil instead?
Mike J on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 6:46 pm
A quote and opinion from an anthropologist? Seriously? How about talking to some engineers? Where does deep/disposal well injection fit? Land application?
ghung on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 7:01 pm
I’m sure there’s a big desert basin somewhere they could pump the effluent to. Just let the water evaporate and create a huge salt flat. A bonus would be that they are sucking seawater in from the Indian Ocean/Gulf of Oman through the Straits of Hormuz. Might help the fishing 😉
I spent a lot of time floating the Gulf and Red Sea. Both pretty salty without all of these desalination plants.
Apneaman on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 7:28 pm
No mention of the effect on the other sea life besides plants. They have externalized the gulf. Turned it into a ME Superfund site. The humans are turning the planet into a superfund site. Not even looking and new (to me) stuff keeps popping up.
The Most Toxic Place in America : A Chilling Apocalyptic Ghost Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8awCKdJVag
makati1 on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 7:40 pm
Ap, Americans have no idea what their country is really like. Few know anything about the real world. They could drive past those toxic piles and not give them a thought. They have no idea of what is really in their food and water. And, if they cannot smell anything, they believe their air is pure. Ignorance is bliss. So is denial. They want “safe areas” where their delusions will not be challenged. They will soon find out that there are no “safe” places, only the banquet of reality.
Davy on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 7:53 pm
I am so glad I don’t live in Asia where there are no superfund sites and we know why.
Anonymous on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 8:20 pm
Yes,exceptionalist, Im sure you are glad you have all those ‘superfund’ sites, ~ 1700 of them or so.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/superfund/
only 1700 out of a possible 47000 sites have been designated so. And both the number of ‘superfund'(locations that should be listed) sites, and the gross number of contaminated site are likely grossly understated.
According to this site
http://www.mnn.com/health/healthy-spaces/photos/10-superfund-sites-where-are-they-now/toxic-turnaround
An merikan would have ~ 3-4% chance or so, of living within 1.6 km of one lol.
But!, according the exceptionalist, amerika is not only morally exceptional and pristine, but chemically and radioactively exceptional as well. Well, more exceptional than those filthy ‘Asians’* at any rate. In the glorious race to see whose (least) dirtiest, as usual, amerikas shit doesn’t stink, or stinks far less than every other place on Earth. OR so the story goes…
Amerika the bootiful indeed.
*Cuz ya know, mak lives there and the exceptionalist would love to imagine (or hopes)maks apartment was built directly on top of an an old un-remediated lead mine, or something lol.
makati1 on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 8:45 pm
Anon, I had to laugh about your last * comment. Actually, I live on reclaimed swampland. The concrete and steel piles go down to bedrock, some 100 feet below the surface. I watched them build a new tower a few years ago.
There are a few ‘super sites’ in the Ps, mostly in the mining districts in the south islands, but the new prez is shutting them down. Of course, they are foreign owned by ‘exceptional’ corporations.
Davy is a perfect example of US brainwashing success and he doesn’t even see it. Or refuses to. His loss. lol
Davy on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 8:47 pm
Wow, a double dose of dumbass.
GregT on Thu, 29th Sep 2016 11:00 pm
“Wow, a double dose of dumbass.”
Nowhere even remotely close when compared to Hillary vs The Donald™.
Benedikt MORAK on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 1:01 am
pump it into the death sea. the lake is dwindling at an alarming rate. put a pipeline there and the problem is solved. so simple and easy. but than the Saudis and Israelis must co ordinate. and THAT for sure will not happen. maybe scientists can do what politicians do not want to do.
Expat in the ME on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 1:13 am
The author is right. Lack of water is the end of the ME and they waste is like crazy now !
Mike on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 1:21 am
No problem, the middle east need not built more desalination plants all they need is buy thousands of SUN TO WATER machines and problem solved..
Lee Kontoro on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 2:25 am
I suggest them to drink oil instead of water.
Cloggie on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 3:03 am
How about filling these mega-oil tankers in Rotterdam with water from the Rhine river? Flow rate Rhine 2200 m3/s, so there is enough for all. Needs back home only to be filtered from traces of oil, which is cheaper than desalinization.
Takes about 300k seconds to fill the largest tanker or 100 hours. Water that otherwise would be wasted in the North Sea.
Transaction can be accomplished with “closed purses”. 😉
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/SIMHONM/
carl mosconi on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 3:30 am
This is great news!
CharlieK on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:06 am
The mohammedans, in the ME, can import water from Israel.
They can perchance have water imported from Scandinavia too, the Scandinavians have many rivers that flow into the sea.
fred on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:18 am
If it gets salty enough, they could rename it the “Dead Gulf .”
fred on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:19 am
Might have to cut down on the birth rate there. Gelding ?
Buraydah on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:33 am
So far so good for Gulf states, BUT there are many problems associated with desalination, including the fact that it’s associated with the existence of abundance oil and gas in the states, once these diminish the desalination loses its cost effectiveness in the states. In addition, the desalination plants are easy targets in case of wars, with Iran for example.
Louise Cea on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:36 am
I say go ahead and POLLUTE the Gulf States — too many humans!
Davy on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:37 am
Good one Greg! This will be my first year I don’t vote. I am going to do a George Carlin. Those of you who know George know what I am talking about. If I hope for a winner it would be Trump. Not for the soundness of his policies or especially his personality but his disruptive change. We need disruptive change to precipitate destructive change. If we can’t have real leadership doing the right thing in the right way then we need destructive policy. Tacitus said “A bad peace is worse than war. I am not referring to a shooting war. I am referring to a political war. Milton Friedman said “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change.” In crisis there is change at the civilization level. At the political level it is with disruption there is change.
One Trump policy I am for is his anti-immigration stance. This is strictly a doom and prep position. When you are over your carrying capacity don’t import more people. I am saying this with an Italian wife. I had a Mexican girlfriend in the early 90’s. We had a blast down in Phoenix. I have no problem with immigrants already here. I am not racist although I have had enough of the black gangster culture. To be fair to the poor blacks who chose to be gangsters, our white upper class are banksters. The gangsters are killing themselves the banksters are killing our culture. I see a die off coming so no more pro-immigration policies.
I am for the end of NATO and détente with the Russians. I am not sure Trump will do any good with the deep state and corruption although his disruptive policies will reduce their parasitic effect. If Trump gets in there will be new blood because of the bad blood with the old blood. I am for his anti-Trade policies especially with Asia. It would be wonderful to end the flow of landfill material we buy from the Asian’s. These policies will disrupt globalism and force localism. These policies will not make America great again but they will make America smaller and more focused. America is no longer great. Let’s salvaging what we have that is still sound.
I am not voting for Hillary because she is an example of the saying by Lord Acton “power tends to corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He also said “great men are almost always bad men” for you Putin lovers. Trump is not smart enough to be president. He is the poster boy of a rich guy who is stuck on himself. I can’t stand dumb narcissistic rich guys with no class. His jet says it all and it is decadence. Human decadence is killing our planet. He is a climate denier which means he is a liar or uneducated.
Trump will be a powerful force if elected just because he will feel a mandate for his people against those people. This will not be about bringing together it will be about tearing apart. This will be an American existential civil war. Since the US is so large on the global stage this will be about tearing apart the global fabric. It does not take much tearing to do the needed damage. The damage need only be disruptive to set great forces in motion when the world is already teetering on the cusp of destructive change. Trump will be the butterfly effect of a building storm. Hillary is the mechanization and the stasis of the status quo of corruption and human destruction.
Ron Van Der Maarel on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 4:58 am
Sure not the expert here, but, I do believe that (everything in excess can be bad for you)! There is an old saying in the Army, the 6P’s “Prior Planning Prevents Pi$$ Poor Performance”! IF we destroy the critical balances in our oceans then what is the plan for fixing that? For US, in the U.S.A. it boils down to the fact that we, all of us, are going to have to make some hard decisions, ASAP!!!!
Cloggie on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 5:53 am
It is enough to see who Trump’s enemies and friends (Putin) are to know that Trump would be a disrupter, as Davy says.
To say the least.
And perhaps the Donald has a mega-surprise for us in store:
http://www.unz.com/ldinh/trump-and-911/
I happen to think that they had not only a plane, but they had bombs that exploded almost simultaneously, because I just can’t imagine anything being able to go through that wall.
Trump said that on the day of 9/11.
Setting up a new independent 9/11 inquiry is the perfect tool to get rid of precisely the people you want to get rid of and blow a dent in the sanhedrin Vladimir Putin-style.
https://kendoc911.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/zakheimwanted.jpg
https://www.darkmoon.me/uploads/xLarry-Silverstein-with-quote.jpg.pagespeed.ic.qUKl-EgWlp.jpg
http://911truthawakenings.org/FrancescoCossiga.jpg
Putin was a big friend of the Russian sanhedrin as well, to the tune they made him president. And only then he showed his true colors. Trump could do the same thing, regardless of whom his children chose to marry with.
soledo on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 5:56 am
Water in the Gulf States will become more expensive then oil.
bahram on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 6:27 am
i think these states to shift to their tradition way,it means collecting water fm rain n reserve in special places,the hv large land n can establish ponds/pools to do this …
Charles Watson on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 8:58 am
I can’t remotely imagine that we have desalinated enough water to make the Gulp of Mexico unusable, or are even close. That would be an unbelievably vast amount of water.
ghung on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 10:04 am
Charles Watson said; “I can’t remotely imagine that we have desalinated enough water to make the Gulp of Mexico unusable…”
Gulp of Mexico? Funny that, though what does that have to do with this discussion?
rockman on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 10:06 am
Charles – “I can’t remotely imagine that we have desalinated enough water to make the Gulp of Mexico unusable”. Save your breath, buddy. Lots of folks here with little appreciation of scale or concentration factors. Personally I’m more concerned about folks peeing when swimming in the GOM and increasing the risk of another big flood in New Orleans. LOL.
regardingpo on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 10:10 am
Charles apparently doesn’t know the difference between the Gulf of Mexico and Persian Gulf.
He probably thinks the Gulf War was fought between Texas and Florida.
RMS3 on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 11:00 am
200 years of Malthusian arguments over everything from crops to energy to seawater and the only common thread that binds them together over the ages is just how ridiculous they appear looking back after a few years.
Does the author really think that the Arabian peninsula will exhaust the water in the oceans? Did it every occur to the author that maybe when the cost of desalinizing local gulf waters increases they’ll simply source the water from the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden, which is open to the Indian Ocean? Morons.
ghung on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 11:04 am
Rock said; “Lots of folks here with little appreciation of scale or concentration factors.”
And a lot of folks here haven’t been to the Persian Gulf, haven’t run a ship’s desalination plants there, and haven’t dealt with the Gulf’s already high salinity due to it’s shallowness, virtually non-existent inflows of fresh water and high evaporation rates…
speculawyer on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 11:30 am
“I’m sure there’s a big desert basin somewhere they could pump the effluent to. Just let the water evaporate and create a huge salt flat.”
The can then collect and sell the salt.
And better yet . . . they can collect the lithium carbonate and used it to build electric vehicles! 😀
ghung on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 11:31 am
RMS3; “Did it every occur to the author that maybe when the cost of desalinizing local gulf waters increases they’ll simply source the water from the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden, which is open to the Indian Ocean? Morons.”
I can make a long list of the accelerating and very real environmental and economic consequences of moronic dismissals like yours, RM, but I’m sure it would fall on deaf ears.
You’re running out of planet to fuck up, especially the parts that matter to a growing human population.
Piasa on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 12:20 pm
Wait! If ice is melting and oceans are rising then salt should be diminishing! Someone is full of it!
ghung on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 12:28 pm
Wait! All bodies of ocean water aren’t the same. Not even close. Someone is revealing their simple mind.
Maybe you can tell us how much of that fresh water from melting ice makes its way into the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
peakyeast on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 1:21 pm
dont forget all the platinum and uranium they can collect from the salt…
In a day not too far away the concentrations in seawater will be competitive.. Only a little extra tech will do it. Its not difficult like fusion power – this will only be 1 year away …..
forever.
Brik on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 2:49 pm
pspeculawyer said it right with his idea of just pump the water into a deep basin. Or, alternatively dig a large open pit similar to an open pit iron or coal mine. pump the water into it. large volumes of water content would evaporate from the intense solar energy at that latitude. Eventually it would become like the Dead Sea in terms of salt content or would just leave huge solid deposits for use or to just leave as is. I can’t imagine why this is such a crisis or why they are dumping the desalination effluent back into the ocean. That’s like dumping your waste sewage into your drinking water supply. Do they not have a vision for this or can’t cooperate to get it done?
robert Maikisch on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 3:16 pm
The waste brine solution can be pumped into the older oil fields to enhance recovery of oil. The waste brine can be further processed to recover salt which can be used as a heat storage and transfer mechanism for energy storage from solar arrays. There are other simple cost effective solutions, people are just not smart or practical in this modern era.
RandyP on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 3:30 pm
Trade, a gallon of water for a gallon of oil.
nutter2612 on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 3:44 pm
3 things which demonstrate this as false.
1) All the water removed via desalination in a thousand in not significant when compared to the thousands of quadrillions of gallons of water in the oceans.
2) More purewater is removed routinely via evaporation by orders of magnitude.
3) there is nothing that says they must return the brine to the ocean. the could easily pump to an open field area and allow for solar evaporation to make a nice 2nd product called sea salt,
One more example of too many writers (like too many lawyers) and not enough worthwhile material – so they create stuff and if it helps add to the case for global taxation to “save us from ourselves” even better…
nutter2612 on Fri, 30th Sep 2016 3:46 pm
This along with anything ever written by Chris Mooney show that we are way past
“peak objective journalism” and
“peak independent thought”
Will on Sat, 1st Oct 2016 2:09 am
Reading all the previous comments, I would just say: “Lets be smart or have some good sens”.
A big plan for these Golf countries could be:
1. Increase price of water locally to reduce individual water consumption by stopping subsidizing it.
2. Use supertankers to ship back river water (Rhine…) and start an Oil/water international trade.
3. Invest in desalination R&D to reduce energy consumption of a factor 2 and increase by at least 50% desalted sea water output, by removing salt out of saline water instead of removing water out of saline water as it is done today.
4. Results from 3 will allow economic use of Solar renewable energy for sea water desalination and the production of a higher salinity brine for easier valorization and increased water output.
5. Sea salt is 70% mass NaCl and 30% of Quinton Salt.
5.1. NaCl combined with CO2 capture and electrodialysis can produce valuable products which are Na2CO3, also called Soda-Ash (50 Mt/year market), used for 50% in the world to produce glass, and HCl used in chemical industry (to have a co-production of CaCl2, CaCO3 must be imported – see the ammonia Solvay process used in Europe and Asia to produce Soda-Ash).
5.2. Quinton salt are all the other minerals which can be used to mineralize the overexploited agricultural soils of temperate countries for better food quality. 100% of this salt can be valued on the world markets.
6. As all coproduced NaCl can’t be valued on the market, NaCl should be stored in there deserts by the use of Solar ponds.
Rashid Ahmed on Sat, 1st Oct 2016 2:16 am
Not a valid fear because more or less 90% permeate after usage is also returned to the same source seawater for desalination plants. Permeate or desalinated water being dilutent should dissolve the brine again, keeping the salt content almost constant provided brine disposal is not too close to the shore providing intake of desalination facilities.
ffkling on Sat, 1st Oct 2016 6:54 am
My family knew Bill and Hillary on a somewhat personal level and the one takeaway was Bill and Hillary are cruel backstabbers. They are all about what can you do for me today. Yesterday means nothing. The only reason they are married and the only reason Chelsea was conceived was due to political expediency. Chelsea has undergone and continues regular plastic surgery to slowly modify her appearance as she is being groomed to assume her “rightful” position among the political governing class.
The last US president to embody principles and character was Jimmy Carter. Carter refused to play the Washington game and for this the political inteligencia demanded his removal, at any cost. Thus we discover after the fact that the Reagan campaign met secretly with the Iranians and a deal was hatched in which the Iranians hold the hostages until Reagan wins the election, and the Iranians in turn will receive military hardware (i.e. Arms for Hostages Scandal). So Carter loses and the hostages were released on the same day of Reagan’s inauguration,
If the Dems. wanted to win with another principled candidate, than Dick Gephardt was the answer, but once again the powers conspired to bring down Gephardt after he won the Iowa caucuses, then Gephardt won big in the second contest in North and South Dakota, and although Gep. was not expected to beat Dukakis in New Hampshire due to the proximity of the two states, Gephardt came in a strong second. That’s when the others conspired to bring Gep. down on Super Tuesday via the most extensive blitz of negative advertising ever. It worked sadly.