You still have the potential to fuck up marine and littoral ecosystems if you're discharging concentrated brine back into the ocean willy-nilly, though.
My (admittedly very limited) understanding is that we can extract fairly valuable lithium from seawater. Wouldn't it be at least somewhat useful, rather than discharging the brine back into the ocean, to keep it in evaporation pools where we can then collect the lithium?
Barring that, surely there are other ways we can handle the brine than just discharging it right back to the ocean, even if they make the desalination process somewhat more costly. Ultimately, water is infinitely more valuable than money.
Barring that, surely there are other ways we can handle the brine than just discharging it right back to the ocean, even if they make the desalination process somewhat more costly. Ultimately, water is infinitely more valuable than money.