A green desert
Only mineral-poor water is needed to grow a desert. As strange as it may sound, there is enough nutrition and there are enough seeds available. To make this, often due to heat, dry soil green again, only water is needed. But where do you get the water from? Seawater contains too many minerals and there are only a few plants that live on land and use seawater. All other plants need mineral-poor water, which we know as rainwater or drinking water.
Solar power plants
The question remains where do we get the water from? As already indicated, these areas are dry due to the heat of the sun. These are the places where large solar power plants can be placed. These solar power plants work by collecting the heat from the sunlight. When the steam, generated with the heat from the sun, leaves the turbine that makes the electricity, it is still hot. The steam contains so much heat that it can easily heat seawater to over 100 oC.
Seawater
When seawater evaporates, it leaves behind the salt, the minerals,
A green desert
Only mineral-poor water is needed to grow a desert. As strange as it may sound, there is enough nutrition and there are enough seeds available. To make this, often due to heat, dry soil green again, only water is needed. But where do you get the water from? Seawater contains too many minerals and there are only a few plants that live on land and use seawater. All other plants need mineral-poor water, which we know as rainwater or drinking water.
Solar power plants
The question remains where do we get the water from? As already indicated, these areas are dry due to the heat of the sun. These are the places where large solar power plants can be placed. These solar power plants work by collecting the heat from the sunlight. When the steam, generated with the heat from the sun, leaves the turbine that makes the electricity, it is still hot. The steam contains so much heat that it can easily heat seawater to over 100 oC.
Seawater
When seawater evaporates, it leaves behind the salt, the minerals,
that it contains. Normal seawater contains between 3.5 and 4.5% of minerals. That is, 1 kilogram of seawater contains about 35 to 45 grams of salt. Minerals is a collective name for all kinds of substances, molecules and elements. Often in ionic form.
In Japan they once removed 1 gram of uranium from seawater. They used a lot of water and energy for that. That was very expensive and it became clear that this was not the way to get uranium.
The distribution of the minerals also depends on where the seawater comes from. For example, the seawater that comes from rivers where gold is mined will have a higher gold content.
One of the options that could still be worked out with this plan is whether it is interesting to split the minerals. If enough can be extracted from this to reduce mining, this is certainly interesting. Otherwise, the salt can be used with our food. Possibilities of whether it can be used as a building material in one way or another are also interesting.
The residual heat from the solar power plants
The process of evaporation and condensation is called distillation. Heat is used to heat a liquid to its vaporization point. The vapour then passes through a tube that is usually cooled, which in turn costs energy. Cooling is done with cooling towers or with seawater. In both cases, this also costs energy.
It's different when you can use the rest of the heat from a solar power plant. When the seawater is left for heating at the condensing part of the installation, the energy is used for the second time. As such, this installation does not use any energy to distil the seawater. Energy is only needed for pumping the seawater and the mineral-poor water. That way we get it where we want it. Energy must also be used regularly to remove the salt from this installation.
Heat is like a liquid that is not bound by gravity and always flows to those places where the temperature is lower. This makes it possible to remove a lot of minerals from seawater. The less energy that is released into the environment, the more seawater can be evaporated. Because the vapor, originating from the heated seawater, condenses on a wall through which cold seawater flows, the seawater is preheated. The more energy that is transferred from the condensed mineral-poor water to the seawater, the less additional heat that must be added for evaporation. The flow of heat through the installation determines the speed and amount of seawater that can flow through such a macro distillator.
To provide a country like the Netherlands with 18 million inhabitants with energy, a solar power plant of 2000 km by 400 km is needed. Then the Netherlands is 100% supplied with environmentally friendly energy. The solar power stations are then of a 24/7 type, which means that much more than 150 m3 of clean water can be produced per second. On an annual basis this is more than 4,730,400,000 m3. The amount depends on the degree to which the installation is insulated.
What can be done with all that water?
Such solar power plants only occupy 30% of the soil. So there is still enough space in between for agriculture to take place. Part of the water can be used for this. Having vegetation in between the installations ensures that there is less free sand, which is good for the mirrors, which wear less as a result. There is also the chance that the plant will become less efficient, but it is expected that it will not be more than a few %.
Another part can be used to irrigate an uncultivated part of the desert. When water is regularly given for a longer period of time, a change will slowly take place. Having a jungle is good for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. It not only binds carbon dioxide but also water and can therefore counteract the rise in sea level.
Other issues getting smaller
Sea rise is a major problem for many coastal cities. If we want to do it really well, more than 1000 of this surface area of power stations must be built to provide the world with enough clean energy. Then the effect of water binding takes shape and the seawater rises less and perhaps no more.
By placing the solar power plants in areas where there is little work and a low standard of living due to the harsh environment, economic growth will take place. As a result, people living there will have less need to come to Europe and America.
The stability of the crustal position will increase as more mass is concentrated at the equator. This is also the place where most of the heat on Earth comes. Having jungles in that location reduces the chance of “global displacement”.
What is also possible is that the mirrors are not aimed at the heat collectors of the towers, but at a point outside the earth. Then an oncoming large meteorite could be pushed out of its orbit or, if it is a small one, it could be vaporized. There must already be a very good security in place to prevent the towers from being incorrectly exposed. The towers do not have more mirror aimed at themselves than they can withstand heat.
There are already plans to install large solar power plants in the deserts. However, these are not equipped with seawater distillers. In this post, you can take note of the opportunity to change the world. The risk of 10,000,000 people is €100. They invest this €100 in a new business type based on social/democratic/capitalist foundation. Recent developments show that this is the only way to really change the world. The title of this post is “10,000,000 views will start the change”