Comment by dpc050505

3 days ago

Fresh water in a reservoir above a water treatment plant is not the same as salt water in the ocean even if it's the same molecule in the same cycle.

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dpc050505

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FredPret  3 days ago

If it's the same molecule but downhill and mixed in with some other ones, it's just x number of joules and y number of dollars' worth of infrastructure away from being among its own kind and uphill from your tap again.

We get blasted with an uncountable number of these joules from above (the sun) and below (nuclear). Our economy is generating an exponentially increasing number of dollars.

I understand wanting to be careful with resources, but not to the point where frugality becomes a goal in and of itself.

  • Manuel_D  3 days ago

    That's like saying fossil fuels don't actually pollute or emit greenhouse cases, because we're just X joules away from sequestering it back from the atmosphere.

    Desalination, and pumping water over thousands of miles is extremely expensive. Sure, you're not wrong, but the values of X and Y are uneconomical.

    • FredPret  3 days ago

      I don't think they're uneconomical. Fresh, clean water is astonishingly cheap; of course people are using it to grow almonds and alfalfa in the desert.

      Just charge people what the water is worth and they'll stop, or water companies will be able to afford much more treatment capacity.

      You have a point about sequestering CO2 molecules, but:

      a) I'm sure this will get cheaper over time, just like every other technology

      b) we should be using solar and nuclear for everything

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