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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

yes you can https://www.nature.com/articles/s41929-018-0218-y the brine left behind is just not salt but many other minerals like lithium which require a lot of energy to separate out. But when you have free energy/electricity a lot of other things become viable.

Most people so far don't comprehend the kind of huge change free/extremely cheap electricity would bring to the world. We have the tech to do a lot of stuff but it is not cost effective cheap electricity will change that.

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Well, money is, in essence, an exchange for energy, so if energy is free we'll see a significant change in our economy system and my guess it's gonna be a wild ride

Yes, and that free energy will be seeking an equilibrium (where excess energy converts back into liquid capital) through clever uses and previously non-economical activities like separating lithium from brine. The great news is that each niche is a business opportunity. We, the clever ones, can spot those opportunities, build the tech to make them possible and build the companies that live in those new energy niches.

I'm not a chemist nor have access to the paper. Can you summarize what happens to the seawater salt if that's applied? Surely it will still need to be deposited somewhere.

Apparently seawater has 3.5% salinity. So desalinating enough to water crops/supply cities leaves you with a lot of salt.

A lot of this is possible already but not economical as most of the process to extract minerals from sea water require a lot of energy/electricity where as it is extremely cheap comparable to mine them directly. But free energy electricity would change that.

Metals that can be extracted from seawater include:

Sodium (Na): One of the most common metals found in seawater, sodium can be extracted through solar evaporation or electrolysis.

Magnesium (Mg): A metal that can be extracted from seawater.

Calcium (Ca): A metal that can be extracted from seawater.

Potassium (K): A metal that can be extracted from seawater.

Lithium: A metal that may become more important in the future as demand for lithium batteries and fusion energy increases.

Copper: A high-value metal that is often present in seawater.

Nickel: A high-value metal that is often present in seawater.

Cobalt: A high-value metal that is often present in seawater.

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