GIGANTIC AQUIFER UNDER THE ATLANTIC

Holy crap, this could be huge.

While reading up on this, I've read that scientists now wonder if there are more such aquifers. I wonder how they would get the water out safely.

This is truly a magical planet.

I'll go along with that--new stuff every day.

This is great news — now we can continue to pump millions of gallons of fresh water and chemicals into the ground for fracking!

Yay! The energy industry wins again!

Huh, I had bet that someone else would be the first one to politicize this. Thanks a lot.

Okay, if you aren't concerned with the exploitation of water resources you can hide your head in the tar sands. What you don't seem to see is that attempting to deny the legitimacy of political concerns is itself a political act.

As long as some billionaire is making more billions who cares about the political aspects of government and industry?

, Columbia must be tryin to sell another textbook. This is really old news. Ground-water scientists and engineers have been drilling along coastal edges for nearly 75 years and we know the discharge points of several regional aquifers. This one is probably the Potomac /Magothy/Raritan aquifer system.

Theres an old principle called the "Ghyben Herzberg" rule ( its been modified by the M King Hubbert rule tht says that the elevation of ground water is controlled by its thickness and how it lies wrt the underlying salt water wedgie. Theres about a 40:1 ratio of wt elevation to the depths of the salt. (Fresh ground water lies atop the salt water underground)
We were finding underwater springs and other aquifer discharge points in theMEd for more than 100 years. In the 80's Israel had planned to develop these aquifers under the med but found that its cheaper to desalinate using electro osmosis.(Now weve got even bbetter osmosis tech to really treat sea water fast)



Its never really been publicized much for the very reason that hightor brought up as a joke. Developing sea front water will drop the heads of water wells on shore as the pressure/head is reduced by massive offshore development. Lots of shore side communities in NJ had studied the **** out of dumping their tertiary treated sewage effluent) onto the salt water wege and thus "pushing it deeper "> This would allow development of fresh water BEHIND the discharge point (yet on land). They never opted to do it when they had an opportunity because several of the casino developers did NOT want to spend any money in "useless research" .

Im sure Georgeob's company has been involved in offshore development of aquifer discharge. The scientists who wonder whether there are more such aquifers must have missed the memo sent out about 1950.

The United Arab Emirates, especially Qatar, would pay billions to come pump that fresh water out from under the sea bed. Best we do it for them--I wouldn't trust them not to dump millions of gallons of fresh water into the ocean.

Thanks for that info farmer.

Some places, sub-oceanic fresh water discharge doesnt happen. Im not sure about Persian Gulf. Im not aware of any Wu or USGS studies UAE does have a pretty good geological survey for the Gulf but I dont know if thyeve done anything like Israel or Saudi Arabia. There ws some data on the area around the Yemens about 15 years ago. Thats a whole nother age when it comes to such studies.

I was just kind of kidding around about selling water to the UAE. Qatar has become the very avatar of emissions responsibility. They are nearing carbon emissions neutrality, if they haven't gotten there already. Every building in Qatar is now required to have solar collectors. Their forest of glass highrises are now required to have reflective glass whenever the glass is replaced for any reason, and in all new construction. All housing projects, public or private, are required to have solar collectors as well as shaded courtyards.

Desalinization plants are the big energy consumers in that increasingly solar-powered city. They were working on finding a way to use solar for desalinization, and they can afford to bring in the best engineers from around the world. I haven't checked it out recently, but that was where they were headed. Of course, they're not trying to make the desert bloom--just getting enough fresh water for the population is a gigantic project.

The Emir there has built up what is arguably the most advanced country on earth. I don't believe they are actually any longer a part of the UAE. Al Jazeera was founded by the Emir and it is state funded to whatever extent it fails to generate enough advertiser revenue. Qatar blows away the stereotypes about Arabs.

yeh. It was the Israelis who took Dupont's PERMACEP RO process nd totally redid it by increasing pore spaces in the RO cylinders. It lowered energy requirements by double digits. The old style RO was one of the high end ways to produce pot. water . Now, almost any seaside town can make it work fairly economically.
Down-side, I think the Chinese hve gobbled up the mfr technology and, just like solar cell costs, hve driven it to a point where the system installation is the profit center.

Well, it's not as if the Emir can't afford it. For private individuals and companies, AC is the biggest energy budget item. For the government, it's desalinization. I imagine that every drop of water they use comes from the Gulf.

Nestles is negotiating on it as we speak.

not bad tasting either, lots of other minerals still left because many of the alkalis are NOT conservative ions as much as sodium.