How to Turn Sea Water Into Fresh Water Without Pollution | Earth Explained!
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Published 2021-04-09
“The Line” is Saudi Arabia’s bold vision for the future of civilization: an ultra-modern city designed to house 1 million people and be entirely pollution-free. ↠Subscribe: youtube.com/c/TerraMaterOfficial?sub_confirmation=…
But there’s one problem – it’s in the middle of the desert. And cities require a lot of water.
Enter the Solar Dome, a new desalination system built on existing technology. It’s supposed to be a low-cost, efficient, and carbon-neutral way of turning saltwater into fresh water. With water scarcity already threatening the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is the world leader in desalination, but the process does pose problems. We take a closer look at the environmental costs of desalination, and how new innovation like the Solar Dome is trying to tackle these issues.
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Story by Philip Jaime Alcazar: youtube.com/user/philipalcazar
Voice-Over: Julian Nightingall
Motion Graphics: Joerg Eisenprobst
Producer & Editor: Philip-Jaime Alcazar
Script Editor: Eleanor Updegraff
Sound Design: Hubert Weninger
A Terra Mater Factual Studios GmbH Production
Contact: social (at) terramater.at
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Sources:
1 - Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone in 2007
• Steve Jobs introduces iPhone in 2007
2 - Svetlana V Boriskina et al.: Nanomaterials for the water-energy nexus. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MiT), 2019.
3 - WIRED: "What’s inside this giant ‘solar dome’ coming to Saudi Arabia" July 2017
4 - Aondohemba Aende et al.: Seawater Desalination: A Review of Forward Osmosis Technique, Its Challenges, and Future Prospects. University of Leeds, 2020.
5 - Edward R Jones et al.: The state of desalination and brine production: A global outlook. Utrecht University, 2019.
6 - Ashraf Sadik Hassan et al.: PV and CSP solar technologies & desalination: economic analysis. Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, 2015.
7 - NEOM official website: www.neom.com/
8 - WIRED: "What’s inside this giant ‘solar dome’ coming to Saudi Arabia"
July 2017.
9 - Construction Week: NEOM inks deal to construct first 'solar dome' tech desalination plant. February 2020.
10 - Chris Sansom: Sun, Salt and Saudi Mega Cities. Featured News Article at Solar Water Plc. December 2020
11 - Malcolm Aw (Founder, Executive Chairman & Chief Technology Officer of Solar Water Plc) - Solarwater the Movie. • solarwater the movie
All Comments (21)
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🌍 Watch our entire Earth Explained! series: ▶ youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ3CjNbCdQe956XnnhX6Nxg…
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Why not just pump the brine into large pools and let the rest of the water evaporate and they can sell the salt.
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I just did a project about desalination and we found another method called microbial desalination. It uses bacteria to exrtract the salt while generating electricity! Its amazing! There is supposed to be a pilot of this in spain if I remember corectly!
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Being a retired working historian, I've had to do my share of reading about water, water rights, water wars, water sales, water shortages and the impending water crises. Your video was a grim reminder of an ever more critical future.
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This concept makes a lot of sense to me, I always wondered why variations of it are not already in use. The brine can be fed to an artificial lake to evaporate and the salt deposits harvested for other uses.
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I really hope that this works and won't harm the sea more. If it works then this could help so many places.
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This is such an underrated channel. Please don't stop. I have shown multiple video's to my students in class. Some were fascinated and gave lectures about some subjects to their fellow students, I was so proud! Kids hold our future!!!
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And we still can't seem to realize how much we need each other
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I love this!! Start saving all water during wet or rainy season, that added to the desalination program would help tremendously! Back in the 60’s Buckminster Fuller wanted to put a geodesic dome over a city! To help lower carbon footprint, to help decrease energy use, promote year round growing season! Why not try it-as well as build cities underground like Derinkuyu.
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water in holland comes from sea water that is pumped into dunes. and inland, from rain water that is collected in nature reserves and lakes.
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Fortunately I live next to one of the Great Lakes in the US so having fresh water isn't a problem yet but this tech is fascinating.
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I want to thank you for the amazing information you provide to your viewers. This is fascinating material. I appreciate all of your efforts. Many thanks!
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I literally thought if this as a child. Nice to see my ideas weren't just daydreams.
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Egypt should flood the Qattara Depression. That would increase rainfall over the country and allow natural ecosystems to do the work of desalination for it.
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I thought of this idea 4 months ago and started to develop it to use it in Malta where there's plenty of sun.....I am really proud I thought of something like this on my own and thats actually possible to make it.
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Being a retired engineer, I would like to see these many water projects work across the globe since they offer a promise of solving more problems besides water. How do engineers get involved in such projects?
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First time i see video about my country in English without involving politics Thank you
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I remember reading about a simple project that made tiny windmills planted offshore. The wind would turn the blades which flicked up droplets of water which would then evaporate and be absorbed into the air. When the wind reached the land and hit the local mountains it would condense as rain.
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I live on Long Island in NY, USA. we are surrounded by (undrinkable) water. The abundance of seawater is so extreme it's difficult to understand just how much salt water covers the earth. I'm sure that the components of the brine can be reduced to their most basic elements and used to fill a need for other products etc. if the brine is just evaporated in an open field, the water vapor will go into the atmosphere, and the salt and minerals can be broken down (with solar and wind energy)
