Would salt water be a viable solution to our so called "water crisis"?

Question

I was reading on HowStuffWorks.com that our water crisis might be more serious than we think. Would it be a possibility to us salt water in amenities like toilets and water our lawns. I don't know if that would rust our pipes or kill our lawn but is it?

Answer 1

I'm impressed that your at least exploring ideas.
While we could not use Salt Water directly there are such things as Desalination plants.
I have included a few links below for you. While this process is expensive perhaps it's time that we treated water like a precious commodity (look at what we pay for bottled water) like (let's say oil) and stop believing the world has a magic never ending supply.

Answer 2

Because AGW causes everything including male pattern baldness. They can't make their predictions stick, so they predict everything and even things they already know will occur and say its AGW. They are using the same line of logic as the fortune-tellers use, they don't really seem to care that this is not how the scientific method is done at all. The funniest part is if you actually look at the map they provided. Many of the "trouble" areas are in the part of Texas that tends to get a significant amount of precipitation if hurricanes hit the gulf. So if one of their predictions is an increase in hurricanes, then where are they? There are also portions of the map that are right along the coast line. So we have this clear, they are saying that the oceans will overtake this area and it will have a water shortage at the same time. What I really can not understand is how the peer review process for climate science has gotten so pathetic as to not catch any of this. I saw this within the first 30 seconds of looking at their map, yet peer review did not see the problems is their own logic? Its as if they don't even care anymore. They allowed the scaremongering piece about a 13 degree rise (when even the IPCC places the warming at 3 degrees) and the earth being uninhabitable by man. Seriously WTF? Someone just presented a piece saying that CO2 will cause poison ivy to flourish, seemingly ignoring all others plants that benefit. Are they going out of their way to demonstrate that their peer-review process is broken? Are they trying to demonstrate that their own bias has gotten in the way of true science? The warmers do not even notice this, but they don't notice their own hypocrisy. A poster extolled how well the IPCC model had done at predicting the current temps. He noted that 2010 was right on the money, but ignored that 2008 and 2009 were low, and that the only reason 2010 was correct was because of the large El Nino effect. Either way, the IPCC model is admittedly running a little high, but within the confidence intervals (this was a warmer saying this). The problem is that the IPCC is running a bit high, and this is the one the predicts 3 degrees of warming. The warmers on this site have constantly been trying to scare people with a model that predicts 7 degrees of warming. So they praise the ability of a 3 degree model to model the current temps, when it is indeed running high, but they turn around and say that the model is underestimating the heat rise and that a 7 degree models would be more appropriate. The saddest thing is that, they do not even care. They do not see this as scare mongering they do not see the contradiction. They just don't care. Pegminer, No I do not believe that we will have more hurricanes, just that a report outlining the effect of "climate changes" should at least have some internal consistency. So now you are only claiming that the "consensus" opinion of the consequences can be used. So you have scientists say that more hurricanes will arise, and when they don't, well thats alright it was not a "consensus" of scientists that beleived that. So tell me how this "consensus" works. How do we know what predictions have been vetted as being "consensus" in the scientific community? I personally love the strategy that you are employing. The whole well we weren't sure about that one occurring. Did you "scientists" have a meeting with palm readers to find out how to make anything look plausible?

Answer 3

Before salt water e.g. sea water can be used for the purposes we now use fresh water for, it would need to be desalinated. The salt is dangerous otherwise -- salt water cannot be drunk by humans or animals, it cannot be used to irrigate fields, it cannot be used in normal plumbing systems.

On ships they use salt water to flush the toilets, but they have special plumbing and don't have to worry about salt contamination in case of leakages.

In desert countries, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia, they are doing a lot of research on inexpensive ways to desalinate sea water. At present it is very energy intensive.

There is a water crisis -- it is a clean fresh water crisis in some parts of the world. There is plenty water in the world -- just not enough clean, fresh water in the places we want it.

Answer 4

You have an experiment, why not try it. To truly work towards relieving our water crisis we should be building large plants here in the US to remove the salt. We helped Saudi Arabia build their plant, why not here. The only reason I can think of is there is no profit, other then saving lives and that is not enough for big business.

Answer 5

There is no water crisis. Drought is part of the cycle and it moves from place to place , it is not permanent.

Water does not go away if we waste it, it all ends up somewhere and goes up into the sky, comes down over the ground and refills the supplies completely filtered. It does not disappear when we waste water, it follows gravity either underground or above and follows the cycle water has followed since the beginning.

Answer 6

one it would rust our pipes unless theres some sort of antirust coating in the pipes and two salt prevents the earth from growing because it sucks up the moisture similar to the effect of eating too much popcorn your lips become chapped and need rehydration
but if they used salt water and filtered it they might have a chance we are using up one of the worlds renewable sources what are the chances of that slim to none let me know if this helps bye

Answer 7

Salt water could not be used unless it was desalinized. This can be done, but it's expensive. So it is an alternative, just a very expensive one.

Answer 8

the salts would kill your grass and clog your plumbing

Answer 9

Also.....it might hurt the animals..and the birds and the ducks etc etc.