The desalination plants aren’t generating salt per se, points out IDE Technologies, Israel’s biggest desalination company.
They are redistributing the salt: They take in seawater (or other) and produce distilled water and concentrated brine.
Not a very efficient process Producing one liter of fresh water produces about 1.5 liters of brine, though there are big differences in the “recovery ratio” (freshwater to brine) between plants, based on the salinity of the source feed water and desalination technology used, Jones explains.
Their UN-backed paper didn’t focus on the nature of desalination’s environmental impacts, but Jones tells Haaretz that, generally speaking, the largest salinity increases are observable in the immediate vicinity of the outlet.
Saudi Arabia alone is responsible for 15.5 percent of the global desalination capacity and produces 31.5 million cubic meters of brine a day, or 22.2 percent of total global production, according to the paper.
Israel produces 2.18 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day (2.3 percent of total global desalinated water) and 2 percent of the global brine, Jones says.
One problem with brine dumping is that it depletes the oxygen dissolved in the receiving waters around the plant, explains Jones.
The brine can be used to cultivate the protein-rich algae, which is being touted by some as a possible solution to feeding the10 billion people the world is expected to have by the year 2060.
“There is a possibility that this technology could be used along the Red Sea of Israel,” Missimer tells Haaretz.
Saudi Arabia is looking at possibly developing hot dry rock geothermal energy, he adds.