[hughdbrown]

> Saudi Arabia’s desalination plants produce about 31.5 million cubic meters of contaminated water each day. That volume of liquid, most of which is pumped back into the ocean, is equivalent to about 20 million barrels of oil a day, or, double the amount of crude it currently produces

I don't understand the math.

31.5e6 cubic meters * 1e3 liters/cubic meter = 31.5e9 liters

31.5e9 liters / 3.78 liters/gallon = 8333333333 gallons

8333333333 gallons / 42 gallons/barrel = 198412698 barrels

So it looks like this calculation is off by a factor of 10. Did I miss something?

[Johnny555]

I don't understand the equivalence to oil at all -- are they saying that one barrel of this contaminated water has the same environmental impact of dumping a barrel of oil in the water?

I don't really understand the relevance of equating water waste to exports, if it were a nation known for pork exports, would they put the water volume in terms of hogs?

[paulcole]

It's an analogy. The average person knows Saudi Arabia exports a LOT of oil. This is 2x a LOT. So a WHOLE LOT.

[Johnny555]

I dunno if that's a good analogy if the desire is to make it sound huge. If it's a small enough quantity that it can be shipped by tankers (even huge super tankers), that doesn't sound like a lot compared to the size of the ocean.

[paulcole]

The average person doesn't know how much a tanker holds.

They know Saudi Arabia = Oil.

[yesenadam]

  bash$ units
  You have: m^3
  You want: barrels
        * 6.2898108
        / 0.15898729

It seems you're right, yes, should be 200. (Gee, so a cubic metre is ~6 barrels? A 'barrel' is tiny, if that's right, 160 litres or so, much smaller than I imagined.)