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Japan has opened its first osmotic power plant

(www.theguardian.com)
301 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 25 Aug 25 02:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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krunck ◴[26 Aug 25 18:20 UTC] No.45030298[source]▶
So let me get this straight:

1. I take a shower and produce non-salty waste water

2. That waste water and brine from a desalinization plant can be used in this plant.

3. The result is concentrated waste water and less salty brine and some power

4. The power can be used to (partially) power the desalinization plant produces fresh water from sea water and brine.

5. I get fresh water for my shower.

And the diluted brine from step 3 goes to the sea? Or can it be run through the desalinization plant again? Does concentrating the waste water in step 3 also help with the eventual treatment of it

replies(2): >>45031778 #>>45032072 #
1. jfengel ◴[26 Aug 25 20:43 UTC] No.45032072[source]▶
The diluted brine goes out to sea. It's less harmful than dumping the concentrated brine you had before, with the bonus that you got some power out of it.

The concentrated waste probably gets disposed of rather than trying to get the remaining water. You treat it like the results of a waste treatment plant. You might dehydrate it a bit, just so you don't have to ship the water, but you probably won't try to recover any more water than you already have.