Jethro_uk wrote:
On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 11:24:42 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

Jethro_uk wrote:

Especially the possibility for desalination - plonk a few of these
around the parts of the world that need water and consider the
electricity a handy by product

Isn't the electricity /used/ to do the desalination?

Humour fail

Although, come to think of it, no. Well, not necessarily.

Nuclear reactor. Shedloads of serious heat (i.e. 100C) might as well
just distil the seawater. Unless you want to extract metals by
electrolysis I guess ?

It is possible to reclaim desert (or so I have been told) if you can
irrigate and foliate enough area to start releasing water. Although it
has to be *very* big.


The original way salt was extracted from sea water was by natural
evaporation but that was to collect the salt. In theory you could probably
use the heat from the cooling system to power a still and collect the fresh
water and possibly the salt and other solids. Whether it would be economic
to process the solids further I dont know. Previously work was done on
extracting various this from sea water including gold but it wasnt
economic. Gibraltar has or had a desalination plant.