Wi:US funds flooding the Qattara Depression 1957

[knightdepaix]

I would like to chip in another two ideas.
Before the discharge, the seawater with the wasted thermal heat is desalinated by thermal methods. After the desalination, the warmer-than-seawater processed but much saltier water is discharged into the Depression. In this alternative end, the warmth still help the saltier water evaporate as in the original plan in the Youtube video.

Then what to do with the desal water, one can ask?

I would use the desal -- still saltier than freshwater --- to grow cotton. So this is not the common desal water but more similar to slightly salty water. I would imagine cotton is more salt tolerant the food crops. As this processed water is not the common desal water, the demand and thus cost on the desalination process are less than common. (Thus from now on, I am calling it processed water.) Please note all plant -- cotton and food crops -- needs potassium and magnesium so that desal process can seive specifically potassium and magensium from the warm wasted water from the nuclear plant into the processed water. Then the Nile irrigation can go back to its original function about food crops. In the end, Egypt would have cotton, food crops and electricity to supply domestic and regional demand and market. Common sense suggests that all three productions are going to raise the national economical power.

Plus if the Mediterranean mineral salt -- sodium, chlorine, potassium, magnesium and other minor ones --- from the much saltier water are sold, there is a fourth revenue but as the nearby Dead Sea between Israel and Jordan are selling minerals already, this revenue is both a blessing and a ticket for issues. On one hand the original environment of the Dead Sea has been hurt by evaporation salt mining but on the other hand the desal effort is working on seawater: the Lake Qattara does not exist originally. So the market share of Egyptian Qattara salt mining is going to help save the Dead Sea because a lesser demand for mineral product from the Sea and hence less exploitation.
However, on that national scale of filling the Depression with saltwater to generate economic values for the Egyptian nation, politics of international affairs are bound to happen. For history, please look at recent how Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt quarrel about damming the Nile.

A fifth but much less profitable revenue is the selling of sea salt -- the sodium chloride from evaporating the discharged processed water... how much is a bag of salt in a market....

 

[Arkenfolm]

In this scenario, it would still make sense to pump the water into the Depression to create a hydro power source so you'd have that as well. But I'm not sure it makes sense to create a hypersaline lake. Even if you get the benefit of the improved climate (locally cooler, the deserts downwind get a little more rain) it seems like a lot of effort for just some extra desalinated water. Why not go a further step and keep desalinating to get a lake fish can live in? You have hydropower and the nuclear plant in the area after all. Or best of all, get a freshwater lake.

However, on that national scale of filling the Depression with saltwater to generate economic values for the Egyptian nation, politics of international affairs are bound to happen. For history, please look at recent how Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt quarrel about damming the Nile.

The Qattara Depression is entirely within Egypt, the only potential international issue is causing salination of groundwater in Libya (it's uncertain how much or to what extent this will occur, assuming it does, but it won't be anything more than a few border oases, the Great Manmade River won't be harmed).

 

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Just a question.

Has the information about the fellow who tried to build solar powered stills on a huge scale back in the 1800's been mentioned?

All I can remember before a Googlefoo search is that the economic crash around that time put paid to his moneys/investment which wiped out the idea.

Cheers.

 

[Kevin C. Smith]

A (probably) naive question here...but so many projects that talk about flooding below sea level areas have talked about pumping water to the lower areas if the intervening topography makes canals prohibitively expensive. But, could not the pipelines work as siphons? I.e. not needing to operate pumps once the flow was established.

 

[Belisarius II]

sA (probably) naive question here...but so many projects that talk about flooding below sea level areas have talked about pumping water to the lower areas if the intervening topography makes canals prohibitively expensive. But, could not the pipelines work as siphons? I.e. not needing to operate pumps once the flow was established.

And could you use simple sand filtration to desalinate the seawater? Could Israel recharge the Dead Sea the same way?

 

[knightdepaix]

In this scenario, it would still make sense to pump the water into the Depression to create a hydro power source so you'd have that as well. But I'm not sure it makes sense to create a hypersaline lake. Even if you get the benefit of the improved climate (locally cooler, the deserts downwind get a little more rain) it seems like a lot of effort for just some extra desalinated water. Why not go a further step and keep desalinating to get a lake fish can live in? You have hydropower and the nuclear plant in the area after all. Or best of all, get a freshwater lake.

The Qattara Depression is entirely within Egypt, the only potential international issue is causing salination of groundwater in Libya (it's uncertain how much or to what extent this will occur, assuming it does, but it won't be anything more than a few border oases, the Great Manmade River won't be harmed).

Thank you for your time reading my post. However, I believe you may have understood my post differently? According to what you typed, if some extra desalinated water takes a lot of effort, going a further step to keep desalinating is going to take even more effort, likely to the points of drawing all the hydropower and nuclear power. If taking the cotton plantation into account, it needs magnesium and potassium from the seawater for plant growth and what is left is sodium chloride. In regards to causing salination of groundwater, selling mineral salt like what Israel and Jordan have done with the Dead Sea water is going to a crucial and integral part of the whole enterprise, not a sideshow as in the original video. The video actually did not show this aspect per se but a mechanism for selling mineral salt can be guessed: salt needs to go somewhere.

Or the warm seawater from the nuclear plant is going to be desal thermally to low saline water for irrigation. The resulting hypersaline, sodium chloride enriched, dischargeable water go back to deep water of the Med. The cotton plantation and other plantation are going to use some of the low saline but magnesium and potassium enriched desal water. The plantations can be vertical farming. In the end, the desal water without the magnesium and potassium salt go to the Depression. Sodium chloride still need to be sold to regulate the salinity of the hypersalinity of the discharged water: in other words, the extra sodium chloride salt content that cannot go to the Med must be sold.

Mediterranean Sea water masses: vertical distribution

Please note, there are often market for potassium and magnesium metal. For example, China buys potassium chloride from the Dead Sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium#Uses_as_a_metal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium#Uses_as_a_metal

Magnesium is the third-most-commonly-used structural metal, following iron and aluminium.

So if the salt extraction from the discharged seawater from the nuclear plant is profitable, it can help recover the Dead Sea, or can it? The Med is connected to the world's oceans so there should not be shortage of water.

 

[TimTurner]

This video suggests using the Mediterranean seawater as the working fluid in a second cycle of coolant in a nuclear power plant near the thin landmass between the Depression and the Sea.

1. The seawater goes downwards through the turbine of hydroelectricity and generates power.
2. The seawater enters the nuclear power plant and as the video suggests, it functions and becomes heated.
3. The heated seawater drives the turbine for electricity
4. and then the heated seawater is discharged to the Depression as its thermal now wasted energy help evaporate itself.

Thanks for watching

Would this be possible using modern technology?

 

[knightdepaix]

In this scenario, it would still make sense to pump the water into the Depression to create a hydro power source so you'd have that as well. But I'm not sure it makes sense to create a hypersaline lake. Even if you get the benefit of the improved climate (locally cooler, the deserts downwind get a little more rain) it seems like a lot of effort for just some extra desalinated water. Why not go a further step and keep desalinating to get a lake fish can live in? You have hydropower and the nuclear plant in the area after all. Or best of all, get a freshwater lake.

The Qattara Depression is entirely within Egypt, the only potential international issue is causing salination of groundwater in Libya (it's uncertain how much or to what extent this will occur, assuming it does, but it won't be anything more than a few border oases, the Great Manmade River won't be harmed).

On your idea, I support to create a freshwater lake so specialized fishery can exist. I do not really know. Biological and genetic technologies have advanced enough nowadays to tell which multiple species of fish and marine animals and organisms could have thrived in the artificial lake. In essence, forecasting a marine ecology in advance before that ecology actually would exist. Or can the forecasting be done?
In the end, the salt content from the Mediterranean seawater need to be dealt with. Mining them help ease the exploitation of their kinds from the Dead Sea. The Med is connected to the world's ocean so in terms of amount of water, the Dead Sea is not going to beat the Med. So how efficient the Med sea mineral mining is is going to be important.

1. On available technologies, can coupled reverse osmosis and reversed electrodialysis select potassium and magnesium ions out of the Med water? RO uses hydro and nuclear power to select ions into the desal water stream and RE lets sodium and chloride ions go to the saline water stream with wasted heat from the nuclear plant and recovers some power.
2. The salinity of the processed water out of the RO and then RE shall be more or less the same as the original Med seawater. In my opinion, I would have another set of pipes going from the water level of the thin landmass between the Med and the Depression into deeper parts of the Med. While going downwards, the processed water is losing energy from the wasted of the nuclear plant. This energy shall be captured. In other words, this processed water goes through another set of turbine for electricity before going into deeper parts of the Med. In all, there are three set of turbines, two hydroelectric and one nuclear for energy recovery and that third set is related to that one gain of energy from the nuclear reaction; at last one drain of RO and RE to desal the seawater. Common sense suggests there is a surplus of energy.
3. Cotton plantation could benefit from the desal freshwater. Even vertical farming in greenhouses are possible.
4. In the end, whatever extra freshwater is not needed, it goes to the Depression. After going through numerous steps of the whole process, I guess the wasted thermal energy from the nuclear plant has dissipated at this step but I never know. Regardless, any thermal wasted energy in the discharged water help evaporate itself in the depression, as that original YouTube video suggests.
   Here, Arkenfolm's idea follows up with improved climate and a fresh artificial Lake Qattara.
5. 85 subscribers on those YouTube videos so the issue is not about not having enough brains thinking about the issue but the awareness, I guess.

 

[Puzzle]

There’s a reason we aren’t desalinating everything, and it’s because it’s hugely expensive. A desalination plant that does 50 million gallons a day cost a billion dollars to build five years ago, maybe if you skipped all the environmental stuff you could get equivalent performance at the same price back when the ideas were being mooted, but 50 million gallons isn’t a lot. It’d fill one acre to 150 ft, which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s just 50 Olympic pools. I can imagine filling the depression, but desalinating it seems difficult.

 

[knightdepaix]

There’s a reason we aren’t desalinating everything, and it’s because it’s hugely expensive. A desalination plant that does 50 million gallons a day cost a billion dollars to build five years ago, maybe if you skipped all the environmental stuff you could get equivalent performance at the same price back when the ideas were being mooted, but 50 million gallons isn’t a lot. It’d fill one acre to 150 ft, which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s just 50 Olympic pools. I can imagine filling the depression, but desalinating it seems difficult.

My original idea only desals to an extent, good enough for cotton plantation and selecting only magnesium and potassium ions. Then after poster(s)' input, a couple of RO and RE selects those ions and recovers some energy.
To the credit of previous posters and mine, as the discharged water help evaporate itself in the Depression. There are two ways to deal with the discharged. Either discharge the warm water (heat from thermal waster energy from the nuclear plant) to the Depression (YouTube video) and mind years later the sodium chloride which is going to be the majority of mineral salt in the discharge.
Or discharge the sodium chloride solution into deeper parts of the Med and let the nature of the Sea, and due to its connection to the world's oceans, let the nature of ocean take care of the solution. As magnesium and potassium ions were extracted, the amount of water that makes up the same oceanic salinity for the two ions is desaled out of the Med seawater input.
Here related to the credit of Puzzle's idea, after the use of desal water for cotton plantation, the rest of it goes to the Depression. As only that amount from the magnesium and potassium solutions were desaled, we aren't desalinating everything.
May I suggest, I see amount of solution. Puzzle sees concentrations of stuff --- ions included --- in the water

 

[knightdepaix]

There’s a reason we aren’t desalinating everything, and it’s because it’s hugely expensive. A desalination plant that does 50 million gallons a day cost a billion dollars to build five years ago, maybe if you skipped all the environmental stuff you could get equivalent performance at the same price back when the ideas were being mooted, but 50 million gallons isn’t a lot. It’d fill one acre to 150 ft, which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s just 50 Olympic pools. I can imagine filling the depression, but desalinating it seems difficult.

Using the magnesium (Mg) as an example. 1.5g of Mg/35.5 (g of salts in 1kg of seawater) *38(g of salts/1kg of Med seawater) * 1 kg/1000g *189270589.2 (kg/50 million gallons of water per day) *1 tonne/1000kg *2500 pounds sterling per tonne of Mg = 1,065,237.39 usd of Mg out of 50 million gallons of water per day.
Five years from then to now, the USD money accumulates to 1065237.39*365.25*5=1.94538978 trillion U.S. dollars.
I just show the numbers.... no idea if the numbers ever make sense.