Polluted, drought-stricken China eyes sea water - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Polluted, drought-stricken China eyes sea water
Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:09PM EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China, where hundreds of millions
lack regular access to drinking water due to drought and
pollution, plans to build a huge sea water desalination
plant south of Shanghai, state media said on Wednesday.

Adding to widespread drought, factories have ignored
pollution hazards and dumped toxic industrial waste into
rivers and lakes in China, home to one-fifth of the world's
population but only 7 percent of its water resources.

In late May and early June, the country's third-largest
lake, Lake Taihu in the eastern province of Jiangsu, was
struck by a foul-smelling canopy of algae. It made tap
water undrinkable for more than 2.3 million residents of
the city of Wuxi and prompted a run on bottled water.

The desalination plant, to be built in the neighboring
province of Zhejiang, awaits final approval from the
National Development and Reform Commission.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSPEK17046120070613

[Bobbieo]

1. The world should think about desalination plants!!!

[driver8]

2. There you go -- put people back to work!!

Build and operate desalination plants all over the country!!

These jobs couldn't be outsourced, at least...

[Eugene]

4. Desalination takes lots of energy.

It should also be noted that China is trying to produce
its way out of water shortages while not protecting
existing bodies of fresh water.

[NNadir]

7. Excellent point.

Everybody forgets that.

Any desalination that uses coal (the preferred form of energy in China) will make the long term problem worse, not better.

[cliss]

3. Interesting.

thankx for posting.

[NickB79]

5. What, no mention of what will power that desalination plant?

Who wants to bet their plan goes something like this:

-CO2 from coal-fired plants is causing global warming and drying up our country's water resources
-We need to build desalination plants to replace that lost water with seawater
-We'll power those desalination plants with coal-fired plants

Problem solved, right? Right?

[Systematic Chaos]

6. That, and the resurrection of the Beanie Baby.

:puke: