I remember looking into this years ago, desalination is a reasonable solution (for houshold usage in developed nations) at only a few times the ridiculously low water cost we have now. Agriculture is the issue because it currently depends on insane amounts of cheap water dispite there being more water efficient methods of growing crops (indoor hydroponics).
Which is mostly an issue because dealing with the brine inadequately is way cheaper than doing so properly. It’s much easier to just dump the concentrated sludge back mostly as is than it is to build the necessary infrastructure to dilute and distribute it safely.
I remember looking into this years ago, desalination is a reasonable solution (for houshold usage in developed nations) at only a few times the ridiculously low water cost we have now. Agriculture is the issue because it currently depends on insane amounts of cheap water dispite there being more water efficient methods of growing crops (indoor hydroponics).
first result https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/how-much-energy-does-desalinisation
Desalinisation is not an ideal solution. That hypersalinated waste water gets pumped back into the ecosystem, and it does incalculable damage
Which is mostly an issue because dealing with the brine inadequately is way cheaper than doing so properly. It’s much easier to just dump the concentrated sludge back mostly as is than it is to build the necessary infrastructure to dilute and distribute it safely.