#389: Solar + Desalination = !!!
.........................
In a recent blog post Casey Handmer describes an ambitious plan whereby the Salton Sea (now a toxic wasteland) is transformed into a Lake Tahoe-like attraction using solar energy. Most importantly, he claims this can be done at little cost, as the water from desalination, minerals from brine, and land appreciation involved would cover most of the expense.
Furthermore, he identifies solar power as the answer to Earth's water shortage, and by extension, it's shortage of arable land.
Can this be possible? It all does sound appealing, and something will have to give, eventually, since water will only get scarcer in places like the US Southwest.
Handmer seems to be what one could call a techno-optimist, and judging from his blog, is deeply into space exploration, terraforming Mars, and so on. He also recently posted a defense of the owner of X (formerly Twitter).
So, are there unlikelihoods to his plan? Would the industrial development of the area (where California, Arizona and Mexico come together) be a deal breaker? What about all those solar panels in the desert? Would the necessary international cooperation be possible (the plan envisions all brine effluent being piped to the Gulf of Mexico and mixed with seawater for disposal).
I'm guessing these are the questions that would have to be sorted out before people could start getting on board. But, that's what experts and government panels are all about.
Perhaps a shortcut to rehabilitation would be (as one commenter opines) desalinating water on the California coast, using that fresh water to substitute for the Colorado River water currently being piped to LA, and instead piping that river water to the Salton Sea in order to refill and desalinize. This would avoid the matter of effluent being piped into Mexican waters (as well as the other two unlikelihoods referenced above). That's because resettling the area could begin immediately, while desalinization could occur over several decades (once the Salton Sea is filled, its air-borne toxicity would be no more, and the area could be used for recreation, industry, housing and so on). A gradual desalinization would allow for the occasional truckload of effluent to be shipped to the coast, as well as a much reduced need for solar panels.
... or so it would seem to my mind, without the necessary expertise involved.
