River Recycler Systems compared to Building More Dams

This system has been developed because of the environmental concerns associated with building more dams. When we try to compare the two different methods of impounding water, we find it is not a fair fight. Dams take up valuable space, destroy habitat, and interrupt the natural flow of a river. The River Recycler salvages freshwater that has already left the river, just seconds before it becomes salt water. The dams stop the free flow of silt down the river and therefore impound less and less water over time. This also prevents the silt from reaching the beaches where it replenishes the beaches. The River Recycler does not take any water from any river, allowing them to remain wild. This system only salvages water that is floating on salt water that has already left the river. The cost of building dams is tenfold the cost of building an in-ocean reservoir that will hold the same amount of water. When we dream of using solar energy to power our lives, it is important to remember that is where freshwater comes from. If not for evaporation of water from the oceans by the sun, all water would be salt water. Therefore, to let all freshwater turn back into salt water is the single biggest waste of solar energy on earth. Most of the earth is salt water and this system stores freshwater in salt water that would have been in the ocean anyway. So if there was a failure in the system, the water would be released in the ocean where it was going in the first place.

River Recycler Systems compared to Desalination

Obviously, there will always be room for desalination in some situations. However, to allow freshwater to turn into salt water and then 50 miles away have a desalination plant would be a double waste of energy. First, it wastes the solar energy that it took to turn the freshwater into saltwater , then it uses more energy to turn the saltwater back into freshwater.