This reads like hyperbole:

> The brine byproduct wreaks havoc on sea life when it’s deposited back into the ocean by raising the salt level and lowering oxygen in the water.

Managing return of concentrated brine should be entirely tractable in the literal ocean.

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rconti 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, but typically desalination plants are located in a single physical place, so a discharge pipe dumping brine 24x7 is bad for all of the things around it, as the local concentration is extremely high.

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joshred 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Seems like you could run a long perforated tube to diminish that effect.

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dieselgate 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wonder what the linear diffusion gradient would look like for that. Like the perforated garden hoses or whatever for soaking soil. Aquatic organisms grow so quick though very curious on the constraints for something like this.

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dylan604 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I liked the idea of loading it up on a ship that sails out releasing as it goes out and back. Make it solar powered or even go old school with literal sails.

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sgc 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I thought they tend to pipe far out and discharge as far below the surface as possible, since there is a lot of surface life and it is less damaging this way.

Ships (with long submerged pipes) would be prone to weather events and generally less reliable than an installed pipe. Perforation would be prone to clogging from build up so a nonstarter I would expect. Adding flex tubing and a relocation robot would be a maintenance headache as well. Not sure there is an easy optimization.

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scythe 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you want to be really clever about it, maybe the ship is powered by the brine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_power

	▲	gibspaulding 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I like this! Though I’m not sure the math works. That page says ideal efficiency for that system would be something like 0.75 kWh/m^3. Compared to 4000 to 5000 kWh/m^3 of diesel. Now we don’t need to be efficient since the point is to use up our “fuel” and we don’t need to cary cargo for this to make sense but with numbers like that, I don’t think our boat will be able to make enough power to move at all.

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01100011 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And it doesn't even need to be a rigid pipe. A flexible pipe made out of, say, waterproof fabric, could be cheaply made to extend miles while remaining open due to the pressure of the water pumped into it.

	▲	dylan604 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Things left underwater tend to collect things on it which would make this much less porous over time.

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bilsbie an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The brine thing is just a way to shut down conversation and let people feel superior for claiming there are no solutions to our problems except to reduce our standard of living.

It’s obvious you can safely put salt back into the ocean with enough dilution. I bet a middle schooler could design a system to do it.

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gausswho 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It kinda depends where it's deposited, right? The expected AMOC collapse is fundamentally about salt imbalance.

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wolfi1 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

depends of course, how easy does the brine dissolve, how long does it take that it is so diluted that it can't do any harm, without that information it's not easy to tell

	▲	dylan604 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		These are often built near shallower parts along the coast where changes are more pronounced.

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boxed 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean.. we really want to permanently desalinate the ocean somewhat too so putting the brine back seems kinda stupid. Put it on land, let it dry, sell some as table salt and dump the rest into abandoned mines.

	▲	wizzwizz4 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Excellent idea! The largest abandoned mines I'm aware of are salt mines, which… hang on.