上期告诉大家海水是有办法喝的。那到底是什么办法呢？
Last time I mentioned that there is a way to drink sea water. So what is the solution?原理很简单，把海水中除了水以外的东西去掉不就好了吗？老祖宗们几百年前就通过煮沸海水的方式获取冷凝水了。但是这种方式太落后了，耗能极大而效率又极低。现代社会自然有更高科技的玩法。It’s easy actually, remove anything but water from the sea water. Our ancestors got condensate by boiling seawater hundreds years ago. But this method is really low-tech, huge energy consumption and pretty poor efficiency. There surely are some hi-tech methods in this modern society.目前全球海水淡化技术超过20种，包括反渗透、低温多效、多级闪蒸等。其中反渗透海水淡化技术发展最快，工程造价和运行成本持续降低，成为全球海水淡化的主流技术，占总产能的65%。At present, there are more than 20 desalination technologies in the world, including reverse osmosis, low temperature multi effect and multi-stage flash, etc. Among them, reverse osmosis seawater desalination technology develops fastest, within the decrease of project cost and operation cost, it is the mainstream technology of seawater desalination, accounting for 65% of the total production capacity.
在很多国家和地区，海水淡化已经是最大的淡水来源。如果你有机会去沙特阿拉伯或者以色列等国家旅游，当地人会自豪的告诉你，你在酒店洗漱用的水，在餐厅吃饭喝的水，在超市买的瓶装水，甚至那些使得原本是沙漠，如今已变绿洲的灌溉水，都是从海水淡化而来。
In many countries and regions, desalination is the largest source of fresh water. If you have chance to travel to countries like Saudi Arabia or Israel, the locals will be proud to tell you that the water you use in hotels, drink in restaurants, bottle water bought in supermarkets, and even the irrigation water that has turned desert into oasis is desalinated from seawater.This is the power of technology!
