
Qattara Depression Project: Time to Revisit? - curtis
http://www.theenergycollective.com/roger-arnold/2385012/qattara-depression-project-time-to-revisit
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etimberg
This is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure of the feasibility. Wouldn't the
salt water lake simply keep increasing in salinity as the water evaporated? I
know that desalination is mentioned in the article, but it's unlikely to be
efficient solution to this since it is either very expensive to build (reverse
osmosis) or requires lots of input energy.

Also, salt water is more corrosive so pipeline components probably won't last
as long changing the economics of the project.

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peletiah
If there's constant evaporation which drives the inflow, wouldn't the new sea
and the surrounding soil become very salty, like several large-scale dam-
projects?

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hprotagonist
didn't we do this accidentally in california in the 1920s? the Salton sea
isn't in good shape.

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jcranmer
The problems of the Salton Sea are largely caused by the intensive agriculture
of the surrounding watershed combined with the tendency in the past 40 years
to horribly overuse fertilizers and pesticides (it turns out that agriculture
is just as bad a polluter as industry, but it's more diffuse and thus harder
to target with regulations. Also, the farming lobby is probably the most well-
protected in politics). If Qattara avoided such fertilizer practices, it could
probably avoid such a fate.

On the other hand, I'm more worried about the sustainability of aquifer
withdrawals. The Nubian aquifer hasn't had significant recharge for thousands
of years. As Ogallala shows, "a lot of water" is not the same as "limitless
water" (some of the aquifer in Texas has completely run dry).

