Vanishing Sea

[Black Mamba]

Wave Energy is being funded, developed and pretty close to being online:

http://www.alternative-energy-news.i...ro/wave-power/

so if we're talking about offshore desal the main issue is probably the excess salt and of course the cost to build a plant large enough to adequately supplement SoCal's ever growing thirst.

I think Tampa Bay is currently using desalination but not sure how theirs is set up.

Haven't heard about towing icebergs, sounds a little bit like the episode of the Beverly Hillbillies when some scammer want's Jed to invest in a giant fan set in the Santa Monica mountains to blow the smog away... unrealistic and temporary at best.

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Black Mamba

Wave Energy is being funded, developed and pretty close to being online:

Not to be repetitive, but... well, maybe. All of these alternative power technologies have been "funded and about to go into service" since about 1965... at least, so cover after cover of PopSci, PopMech et al. kept assuring me through my goggle-eyed tens and teens. And twenties, thirties, forties...

It's like Paul Moller's flying car, about to go on sale in showrooms everywhere since... 1962.

so if we're talking about offshore desal the main issue is probably the excess salt

Load it on flatboats. Trundle it out into the ocean a few miles. Dump. Problem solved. It's not toxic waste; that's where it came from and as long as the water is deep enough and the dumping is spread a little, I don't think any human-scale effort could change ocean salinity a meaningful amount, even for short terms.

It all boils (heh, heh) down to a helluva lot of electrical power (or equivalent) or a helluva lot of square miles of solar/ocean/wave/wind power plants. I'd go so far as to say the only really workable option for the foreseeable future is nuclear desal.

Haven't heard about towing icebergs...

I believe it's actually been done on small scale (UK in the 1970s?) It's actually more practical, in terms of energy used, than many alternatives. If you tow the berg to a warmish climate and park it in a giant floating drip cup, natural solar heat will keep the flow of extremely pure water coming without any hassles. But yeah, it's pretty, uh, weird.