Saturday Engineering for Everyone

Saturday Engineering for Everyone is an open and free lecture series aimed at non-engineers of all backgrounds who are interested in learning about engineering.

Speaker:

Illinois ECE Professor Jont Allen

Overview:

Prof. Allen is proposing an innovative approach to desalination that uses thermodynamics to separate ocean-water into potable water and salt.

The basic concept of his proposal is to take cold ocean water, and using sunlight as the sole power source, separate the pure water from the salt by evaporation. Potable water is essential for growing plants (trees, grass, food, etc.) on a massive scale. Given sufficient plant life, the CO2 will be naturally absorbed. Given enough water, plants will grow, making this is a feasible long-term desalination solution.  But it will take at least several decades before it can be functional. In the meantime, we need to directly deal with reducing CO2 in the ocean, where it is presently causing the greatest damage to the environment.