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Comment by hasmanean | Hacker News Reader

Wow, most people never consider the dead-zone around desalination plants. Us landlubbers just think of it as manna from heaven, “free freshwater.”

The way we discuss technical solutions is woefully inadequate. Everything is still presented as a miracle-cure for our problems. We should have a more mature understanding of how these things are constructed and maintained.

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The ocean is pretty big. That's why fish poop and pee in it. Not much of a problem. And if you weren't already aware, did you know plants also excrete waste through their roots? I only found out recently. But yes, all waste needs to be spread out and able to diffuse into the large atmosphere or it causes dead zones.

Plant wastes are a part of an eco system. They are cunsomed and transformed into other wastes. Actually, only human beings see wastes as a definitive lost. For every sustainable cycles, a waste is going to be transformed into you will consume again.

Yes.

One piece of poop in the forest—nature.

A sewer pipe discharging a river of poop from an entire city into a forest—a toxic waste dump.

The entire surface of the sea is evaporating fresh water and the resulting brine is slinging constantly. It’s not creating a dead zone because it’s distributed. A river of brine in the oceans would be like a toxic cloud of ammonia that kills anything it touches…until it mixes sufficiently.

Which was my point. As long as the outtake is distributed, it would be fine. I think everyone is aware of that..even the landlubbers..

We kind of figured it out 150+ years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink

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