Climate Research

The Biotic—Thermal Vapor Pump: a Phased, Transboundary Framework for Salton Sea Dust Remediation and Critical-Mineral Recovery Through Brine-Free Solar-Thermal Evaporation, Halophytic Silviculture, and Closed-Loop Geothermal Energy

Authors: Brent Hartshorn
Comments: 22 Pages.

This paper introduces a phased, trans-boundary framework for arresting the public-health dust hazard of the desiccating Salton Sea while recovering critical minerals from imported marine water. Decades of "Sea-to-Sea" proposals to import water from the Gulf of California have foundered on three obstacles repeatedly identified by independent state review: tens of billions of dollars in cost, multi-decade timelines, and the ecological damage of discharging concentrated brine back into the Gulf. We propose the "Biotic—Thermal Vapor Pump" (BTVP), sited in the below-sea-level Laguna Salada basin of Baja California, Mexico, whose central innovation directly removes the brine-discharge obstacle. Phase I couples a scale-asymmetric halophytic canopy (Avicennia germinans and Rhizophora mangle) to a recently demonstrated additive-free, brine-discharge-free solar-thermal evaporator (laser-textured superwicking black metal) that recovers nearly all dissolved salts—and, via embedded hydrogen-titanate nanoparticles, lithium—as solid product rather than as toxic concentrate, converting the terminal-basin salt-disposal liability into a managed resource stream. Phase II incorporates deep, closed-loop downhole heat exchangers to safely tap the underlying 187◦ C geothermal reservoir without phreatomagmatic or halite-hydrolysis hazard, and to access the lithium-rich (∼100—300 mg/L) native geothermal brine of the "Lithium Valley" resource. Phase III integrates a DNA-inspired pyrimidone Molecular Solar Thermal (MOST) matrix asa timing actuator for on-demand vapor pulses. We present coupled mass, salinity, thermodynamic, andatmospheric models, and—critically—bound each subsystem against the relevant physics. The dominant, defensible benefits are dust suppression, brine-free salinity management, and critical-mineral recovery; we show by moisture-budget and recycling-ratio analysis that the local atmospheric contribution to down-wind precipitation is a small, bounded effect rather than a primary water-supply mechanism, and we present it as such. Finally, we frame the design as Stage 1 of a two-stage program: an independently beneficial Mexican-basin installation that proves the brine-free zero-liquid-discharge desalination chain and thereby makes credible a Stage 2 in which the same technology—answering the decisive brine-discharge objection that ended prior state review of Gulf importation—enables direct stabilization of the Salton Sea itself.
Category: Climate Research