Comment on When Humans Use Water for Something, Is it Gone For Good or Does It Return To the Water Cycle?

Ib_dI@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• jetsetdorito@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  What about something like electrolysis where it’s separated?

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  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    If you keep them separate sure, but the moment you burn hydrogen it just turns back into water.

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    • Instigate@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So then the truth of the matter is that we can create water from hydrogen and oxygen and we can also destroy water by reducing it to its elemental compounds. As such, water can be created and can be destroyed, meaning that the overall level of water available on earth can change over time, however our commonest uses for water have it not be destroyed and eventually return to the water cycle.

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      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Technically, yes.

        Realistically, any amount we split/convert is so small as to not matter to anything. The amount of water on the planet is absolutely ridiculous. 1233.91 quintillion liters to be more specific.

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• Lonnie123@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That was kind of my arm chair guestimate of how it worked, that it wasnt truly lost for good but transferred around

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  • Spazsquatch@lemmy.studio ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The bigger issue is that while the water still exists, it may no longer exist in a useful location. It could be pulled from a reservoir in a drought stricken area, evaporate and drift to some other area where it causes a flood.

    That’s an extreme example, but I hope it makes the point that the location of water is just as important as its existence.

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• wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If everyone on earth died at once and decomposed, how much water would be returned to the environment?

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  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Very little, tiny fractions of a tiny fraction of a percent of the water on the planet.

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  • silver@lemmy.brendan.ie ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Maybe a few years, once the ISS crashes down to earth as that is one of our greatest of planet reserves

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