In reply to Mike Carrell's message of Wed, 3 Jan 2007 10:02:20 -0500: Hi, [snip] >A quick look at Hydro Hub suggests that the focus of the interest is >essentially reverse osmosis for purifying sea water. Already large scale >plants provide fresh water for the desert oil empires. Fresh water is going >to be a major issue in this century, as important in the Great Game as oil, >and it requires lots of energy to produce. China's 500 coal fired electric >plants can be new targets of environmental worrry instead of the US. winds >will ship the air pollution eastward but will not provide drinking water >which Hydro Hub might provide from seawater with electric power from >polluting coal. [snip] Reverse osmosis may superficially appear cheaper than distillation, but in fact it isn't if one uses one's brains. When coal is burned, 1/3 of the energy goes into producing electricity, and 2/3 goes up the chimney. Then part of that 1/3 is used for reverse osmosis. If the 2/3 were used for distillation instead, then the fresh water yield would be higher, the water would be purer, and you would still have all of the 1/3 available for other purposes.
Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
