Well, they did say this was going to be a green Olympics...

desalination requires considerable energy, which creates waste heat energy and adds to greenhouse gas emissions (or has some other environmental impact if, say nuclear is the power source) and creates a concentrated waste product. On a scale necessary to provide water for a big chunk of northern China? Could help, but can't solve the underlying problem and creates new ones.

I'm not an expert on water supply strategies but couldn't countries turn to desalination when other sources of drinkable water is depleted?

yangrouchuan got the "sofa",it's his showtime again.

Or it could end up on your table the next time you're at some Japanese restaurant. Hah!

Something tells me someone out there is going to collect this mutant seaweed and then:

barely wash it (b/c already from "freshwater")

dry it

sprinkle some salt

wrap it 3 times

package it

then sell it as either an invigorating tea, vitamin soup subsitute, or an aphrodisiac.

Beijing 'running out of water'

By Richard Spencer in Beijing

Last updated: 6:45 PM BST 27/06/2008

Beijing is running out of water, an environmental group has claimed in a report

which raises more questions over the costs of China's rapid development.

Such is the extent of the shortage that the city might have to start shutting

down industry and moving population out within the next decade.

Six weeks before the Olympics, the report said preparations were making matters

worse despite claims that they would be the first "Green Olympics".

Water was being diverted to new expanses of greenery and waterways around the

city even as rivers across central and northern China were being diverted to

the capital to provide basic supplies.

The report, Beijing's Water Crisis: 1949-2008 Olympics, said the Games would

consume 200 million cubic metres of water, a million people's annual supply at

current rates of reserves.

"With each new project to tap water somewhere else, demand for water only

increases, and at an ever greater cost to China's environment and economy," the

report, by Canada-based Probe International, said.

Probe has previously questioned China's approach to water management, which

focuses on mega-projects such as the Three Gorges Dam and now the South-North

water diversion scheme.

This huge proposal could see three canal networks bringing water up from the

River Yangtse and Tibet to replenish the Yellow River south of Beijing, and

ultimately the capital itself.

The first phase of the project, a 200-mile northern arm of the central network,

is almost complete.

Beijing has no major rivers and draws much of its water from underground, mining

deeper every year, and by diverting supplies from rural areas of the

surrounding province of Hebei.

Grainne Ryder, Probe's policy director, said studies predicted that even this

could prove inadequate within five to ten years.

"I would imagine it would be a phased shut-down of its economy, an economic

collapse," she said.

Chinese officials acknowledge the extent of the problem, but have been reluctant

to implement one of the major reforms recommended by the report – raising

prices to encourage efficiency – at a time when urban populations are facing

rising food and petrol prices.

Story from Telegraph News:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/2206744/Beijing-%27running-out-of-water%27.html

China is a big pile of filthy rubbish. And it is our fault for exposing the rest of the world.