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[Michaelangelica]

Positioning for When Water Runs Out: Part II 54 comments
. . . It is nothing less than amazing to me that somehow 6 billion people sustain life on the roughly 1% of the earth’s water that is not salt water or brackish water (comprising about 97.5%) or encased in polar and glacial ice (about 1.5%).
. . .
We have not yet reached the point of recycling all waste water like the Fremen of Arrakis in Frank Hebert’s brilliant novel Dune, but if we are consigned to endlessly squabble over that fixed 1% in a world where population is anything but fixed, many will die and many more will suffer.

Already, lack of water (or dirty water) is by far the largest disease problem in the world; only 20% of the world's population enjoys the benefits of indoor running water; and every year, the amount of global water polluted equals the water consumed.
. . .
Salt water in ocean and sea is composed of all kinds of elements and minerals we call “salts”: epsom salts, potassium salts, iodine salts, and lots more. Ocean water is about three times as salty as your blood.
. . .
Man is a wily creature and every now and again uses his brain for something besides figuring out how to destroy his nation’s economic system or finding new ways to destroy other inhabitants of the planet
. . .
It may not be too big a stretch to suggest that desalination may prevent more wars than the United Nations ever has. (OK, that would be a single digit, so let us say, the UN, all the world’s religious leaders and all the world’s political leaders…)
. . .
Couldn’t we just once plan ahead of a known catastrophe?!!

+ lots of stock market tips.
Positioning for When Water Runs Out: Part II -- Seeking Alpha

Theoretically the salt mineral value of the discharge brine is up to A$250 million per year.

The hyper-saline brine returned to the sea contains valuable salts including:

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NaCl (sodium chloride)
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MgSO4.7H2O (Epsom salt)
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KCl (potassium chloride) and MgCl2 (magnesium chloride)
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Br (bromine) and Li (lithium) salts.

Value-added products from waste brine

Salts extracted from seawater are widely used across many industries, including the minerals and chemical processing industries.

. . .
Potentially salt may be extracted from the hyper-saline brine left after desalination. This could significantly reduce the area of land required for salt evaporation pans.

Hyper-saline waters can be converted into higher value products such as:

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caustic soda – for the alumina industry
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sodium cyanide – for the gold industry
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sodium hypochlorite – bleach
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polyvinyl chloride – PVC
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titanium tetrachloride – for titanium pigment and titanium metal production
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hydrochloric acid – a common minerals acid widely used by all industries.

Bitterns – the liquid remaining after the salt has been removed from the sea water – can also be converted into valuable products for use in:

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waste water and sewage treatment
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scrubbing sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide
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making light-weight flame retardant panels and boards
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Epsom salt production for horticulture
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refractory bricks for industrial furnaces
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magnesium metal production.

Bitterns also contain valuable potassium, bromine and lithium salts.

Bromines are essential feedstock for many fumigating agents, petroleum products and medicine whereas lithium is mostly used in the making of lithium batteries.

‘Australia has the potential to co-establish a brine processing industry with chemical industries around desalination plants,’ says Dr Aral, ‘which may lead to zero brine discharge back into the sea and increase the value of the salt industry.’.

http://www.csiro.au/science/ZeroBrineDischarge.html