8 April 1954
Mr. Walter E. Quigley
2317 Humboldt Avenue South
Minneapolis 5, Minnesota
Dear Mr. Quigley:
I am sorry not to have much to give you in answer to your letter of 29 March, about the problem of conversion of sea water into fresh water. Several years ago I mentioned the possibility of using nuclear energy for this purpose. I did not, however, prepare a paper for publication, and the figures that I quoted were taken from the A.E.C. literature. I have not kept a file of material on this subject, and in particular do not have anything that is up to date.
The California Institute of Technology has, not, so far as I know, been awarded any federal money for experiments on the sea water-fresh water problem.
There are 136O tons of water in an acre foot. I think that there probably are parts of the world in which fresh water made at sea level from salt water by use of nuclear power, and at a cost of 5 cents per ton, would be economically profitable. There is still some uncertainty about the cost, however, and it may be several years, perhaps a decade, before information about nuclear power plants and the cost of their operation will become available.
I think that the answer to your question about the salt removed from the sea water is that it would simply be dumped back into the sea. It is, of course, possible to remove bromine, magnesium, and other constituents from the sea water, and possibly some by-product of this sort could be profitably separated in the course of the manufacture of the fresh water, but the business would probably not be a great one.
Sincerely yours,
Linus Pauling:W
April
8, 1954
