Wait, why can’t we drink it anymore? Do you really think there’s no way to purify and remove things like salt from water? Please tell me I missed the satire.
It’s not that we can’t remove the salt, it’s that electrolysis to remove salt from the water is very expensive from an energy perspective, which makes it expensive from an economic perspective too. A massive spike in the price of water would cause a widespread crisis impacting every corner of the economy.
Also, building out the infrastructure required to do electrolysis on that scale would take a lot of time and resources on its own.
The word you are looking for is electrodialysis. And that’s not the only method. Reverse osmosis, distillation and nanofiltration are other options. Also, you mention having to build out infrastructure. You must not be aware of the 16,000 desalination plants around the world already.
Wait, why can’t we drink it anymore? Do you really think there’s no way to purify and remove things like salt from water? Please tell me I missed the satire.
It’s not that we can’t remove the salt, it’s that electrolysis to remove salt from the water is very expensive from an energy perspective, which makes it expensive from an economic perspective too. A massive spike in the price of water would cause a widespread crisis impacting every corner of the economy.
Also, building out the infrastructure required to do electrolysis on that scale would take a lot of time and resources on its own.
The word you are looking for is electrodialysis. And that’s not the only method. Reverse osmosis, distillation and nanofiltration are other options. Also, you mention having to build out infrastructure. You must not be aware of the 16,000 desalination plants around the world already.