3 million tons of fresh water

35 kg of salt per ton of sea water. That means there are 105 million kg of salt or about 115,000 tons of salt. That is a lot of salt.

win/win :)

in a few hundred more years -- after the surviving civilizations figure out how to navigate the nuclear fallout -- the salt mounds that were the byproducts of this process will make a whole new class of rich people. :p

Yeah, I like fresh water and salt for sure. The issue is that would be 115,000 tons of salt per day. It becomes a problem dumping it back into the ocean and storing it is expensive.

there are plenty of uses for salt in industry https://maxisalt.com/major-uses-for-industrial-salt/

can use it on freedom fries

Once again that is per day which would be just under 42 million tons in one year. To put that in perspective, it is about 7 great pyramids.

This is just one desalinization plant. Producing fresh water from saltwater has this unfortunate and insurmountable side effect. Dumping back into the ocean is the most realistic solution, but it severely damages the ecosystem.

And to put that into perspective, industrial salt consumption in China was over 110 million tonnes in 2024. While all the new salt produced won't likely be used, it's not as insane as it might seem at first glance.

That is just one plant that produces almost half of what a country of 3 billion uses. That is a lot of salt.

Damn, that's almost as much salt as lemmy produces on threads about China

I'm not saying it's not a lot of salt, but uses can be found for it. And also it means that just one plant can replace all the other salt mining which is presumably an energy intensive industry as well.

This is very impractical for a population of 3 billion people. Luckily, China has access to a lot of fresh water.

The reason I mention this is someone was suggesting they could use desalinization plants on the West Coast of the US to help with fresh water. Providing some supplemental water is one thing, but providing the majority of water is extremely problematic in not just energy usage, but also the incredible amount of salt that is produced.

Yeah, I would imagine this is supplemental type of tech, the situation in the US is very different. And I was discussing it in the context of China.

You're doubling China's population

You are correct 1.4 billion. Thank you.