<p>Growing food in deserts with seawater seems to be a way to feed people and revitalize a ravished landscape. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvV-iPdORLc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">They appear to be doing it already</a>. Why can't We pipe some ocean water inland from the West Coast to do the same?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-12T05:30:55.493Z
I can already see a waste disposal problem. Eventually the cardboard panel will get saturated with salt. How do they get disposed of?
Fred
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-12T08:23:25.380Z
West coast of where?  Europe, Africa, Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, North America, South America, somewhere else?
gerrit
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-13T02:51:15.580Z
The idea seems to be the same that was used in graduation towers for hundreds of years to concentrate brine for the purpose of producing salt. The cost (structures, energy) per human-consumable kcal produced (e.g. via wheat, corn, rice, sorghum, potatoes, cassava) would appear to be prohibitively high.
njuffa
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-13T22:41:07.790Z
Fred, Obviously they sell off the salt at a profit to offset costs. It is a usable product, you know. None of these comments even tried to answer the question asked.
Steve Armstrong
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-14T06:13:00.917Z
it is not clear to me how the evaporated water is cooled and condensated to liquid water for the plants,what wil the energy need be to pump seawater,condensate and distribute freshwater to the crops and what is the status of this project now 4 years later?.will selling the salt cover the running cost of operating this system?.
trond hansen
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-15T16:38:38.290Z
As mentioned by Njuffa - it's about economics. How much does it cost per kilogram of crop produced, versus how much does it cost to grow the same crop somewhere with fresh water and ship it in? Whenever I have seen real-world calculations the answer is almost always, ship the crop, not the water.
Andy M
<oceanography><agriculture><desertification>
Has this Science improved since 2018
Steve Armstrong
# Has this Science improved since 2018

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-08-12)

Growing food in deserts with seawater seems to be a way to feed people and revitalize a ravished landscape. [They appear to be doing it already](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvV-iPdORLc). Why can't We pipe some ocean water inland from the West Coast to do the same?

**Tags:** oceanography, agriculture, desertification

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I can already see a waste disposal problem. Eventually the cardboard panel will get saturated with salt. How do they get disposed of?  
> **username_2**: West coast of where?  Europe, Africa, Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, North America, South America, somewhere else?  
> **username_3**: The idea seems to be the same that was used in graduation towers for hundreds of years to concentrate brine for the purpose of producing salt. The cost (structures, energy) per human-consumable kcal produced (e.g. via wheat, corn, rice, sorghum, potatoes, cassava) would appear to be prohibitively high.  
> **username_0**: username_1, Obviously they sell off the salt at a profit to offset costs. It is a usable product, you know. None of these comments even tried to answer the question asked.  
> **username_4**: it is not clear to me how the evaporated water is cooled and condensated to liquid water for the plants,what wil the energy need be to pump seawater,condensate and distribute freshwater to the crops and what is the status of this project now 4 years later?.will selling the salt cover the running cost of operating this system?.  
> **username_5**: As mentioned by username_3 - it's about economics. How much does it cost per kilogram of crop produced, versus how much does it cost to grow the same crop somewhere with fresh water and ship it in? Whenever I have seen real-world calculations the answer is almost always, ship the crop, not the water.  

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## 0 answers

