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Chapter 15.
Sea Water Desalination, Water Recycling, and Sterilization
Ample fresh water supplies are more important than Global Warming.

Unlimited Desalinated Fresh Water will be Nuclear's biggest gift to Mankind.        Nuclear Desalination pdf

Tampa's Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant Video   (History Channel, 7 meg big.)

People are already being forced to choose between using the water in their reservoirs for drinking or electricity. 
Nuclear's gift to Mankind is heat.  Heat to make electricity.  Heat to desalinate water for drinking.  Heat to recycle and sterilize water for re-use.
A pint of beer requires 20 gallons of water to make, a cup of coffee 35 gallons, and to produce a hamburger, 630 gallons of water.
I have seen estimates that a doubling in global population required a four-fold increase in water use.

         Sea Water Desalination, Index:                  
Introduction: Overview
Part  1    Multistage "Flash" Distillation desalination of sea water
Part  2    Reverse Osmosis desalination of sea water
Part  3    NDS - Nisan Desalination Services International
Part  4    Water Shortages, Recycling, and Sterilization

Desalination - Wind Driven RO .pdf

 NEWS ITEMS   for this subject. 

Proposed nuclear sea water desalination complex (India)
Japan alone has 8 desalination plants associated with nuclear reactors.

Like it or not, MEGA-CITIES and their MEGA-SUBURBS are the modern world.

MEGA-CITIES and their MEGA-SUBURBS inhale Fossil Energy and exhale Global Warming.

MEGA-CITIES and their MEGA-SUBURBS inhale Fresh Water and exhale Sewage.

Unlimited Desalinated Fresh Water will be Nuclear's biggest gift to Mankind.

Irrigation water has to be as pure as rain water or eventually water minerals will poison the cropland we are irrigating. 
Nuclear heat can make sea water rain water pure. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination  Excellent quick overview of desalination technology.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v36_1_03/article_09.shtml#top  India is already doing it.  Many Mideast countries are saying they're going to do it.  (97% of all water is salt and 2/3 of the fresh water is locked up in ice.)

http://www.carlsbad-desal.com/project_overview.asp  The Carlsbad, California, desalination project page on Poseidon Resources' web site.

http://www.inet.tsinghua.edu.cn/english2/academics2.htm    A 200MW Nuclear Heating Reactor (NHR-200) has been developed, and an NHR-200 demonstration plant is to be built as a heat source for seawater desalination.  Seawater Desalination Center:  The center's research focuses on the thermal desalination process, particularly high temperature multi-effect distillation technology with vertical tube evaporators (VTE-MED).  To commercialize the technology, a demonstration VTE-MED plant will be built in the center.

Sea Water Desalination, Introduction:

Desalination of Sea Water

"Desalination equipment is now in use in over 120 countries, including Italy, Australia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Japan, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Malta, Gibraltar, Cape Verde and Cyprus.

There are over 21,000 desalination plants worldwide, producing over 3.5 billion gallons of potable water a day. Overall, desalination plant capacity has increased exponentially over the past 30 years.

Saudi Arabia leads the world in desalination and relies on it to meet 70 percent of the country's drinking water needs." 
http://www.carlsbad-desal.com/desal_101.asp
 

Part  1:  Multistage "Flash" Distillation desalination of sea water

Fresh from the Sea By Mark Fischetti - From Scientific American, September, 2007
Notice the water is run through the boiler and sterilized before being allowed to vaporize and condense.
This process is so Mickey-Mouse simple.  Any reactor, of any size, can drive it nicely.

A combined electrical and desalination facility could be made by adding natural gas burning turbine generators. 

After spinning the gas turbine electricity generator, the gas turbine's hot exhaust is then also used to heat the heat recovery steam generators to make steam to drive the the flash desalination boiler.  There would be no environmental benefit from this arrangement.

See also the Shevchenko BN350 nuclear combined cycle electrical-desalination plant. (Below)

http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/DistGen/Tutorial/CombTurbine.htm   Source: TechPro DTE Energy Bob Fegan 2002

Boiled by oil

Shoaiba Desalination Plant, Saudi Arabia

This desalination plant currently ranks as the largest in the world and uses multi-stage flash (MSF) distillation.  Notice the multiple rows of condensate catchers.

(Notice those boiler house stacks pumping out massive amounts of CO2?)

The overall development at the Shoaiba site also includes an oil-fired power station, together with a port and tanker terminal for supplying boiler oil.
 

 http://www.water-technology.net/projects/shuaiba/ 

Russian Desalination:

Nuclear Heat Powered Multistage Flash Distillation

Shevchenko BN350 nuclear fast reactor and desalination plant situated on the shore of the Caspian Sea. The plant generates 135 MW_electric and also provides steam for an associated desalination plant. Above: View of the reactor hall.  Right: Notice the same funnel-shape condensate catchers as in the Scientific American sketch above?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_reactor  

Part  2:  Reverse Osmosis desalination of sea water

Electric Pump Reverse Osmosis Desalination
Reverse Osmosis desalination takes about 30% less energy than Flash desalination.

NEWS ITEM: Tampa Bay Water Leaders Considering "Drought Surcharge."
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (4/7/09, Pittman) reports, "Tampa Bay Water leaders are calling a 'drought summit' next month to gather local government officials together to figure out ways to combat the water crisis. Among the ideas they will explore: adding a 'drought surcharge' to water bills." The "region has been caught in a drought for three years, to the point where the U.S. Geological Survey reported this week that one of its gauges on the Hillsborough River has reached a record low," while "weather experts predict the dry spell is likely to continue until at least the start of the rainy season in June." The article notes, "Tampa Bay Water's 15 billion- gallon reservoir has already run dry, its desalination plant is struggling and the regional utility is being forced to rely on pumping water out of the ground - even though that practice is known to cause private wells, lakes and wetlands to dry up and may lead to sinkholes."
 

Tampa, Florida, already has a 25 million gallon-a-day reverse osmosis desalination plant that supplies 10% of the Tampa area water, assuring that a drought won't leave Tampa dry.  California has about 20 desalination plants in the planning stage.  There are over 1,500 oil-burning desalination plants in the mideast all burning oil.  Unfortunately, Reverse Osmosis Desalination technology has proven much more expensive and troublesome than Flash Distillation Desalination.

Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination:      (Article below is from the Tampa Bay Water web site.)

Reverse Osmosis is used to extract fresh water from Tampa Bay's salt water.

Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination uses a process called reverse osmosis (RO) to produce drinking water from seawater. RO has been successfully used in nearly 200 water and wastewater treatment plants throughout Florida and produces some of the highest quality drinking water in the world.

Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Power Station already withdraws and discharges up to 1.4 billion gallons a day of seawater from Tampa Bay, using it as cooling water for the power plant. The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination plant “catches” approximately 44 million gallons (mgd) of that warm seawater a day, separates it into drinking water and concentrated seawater.

The unused concentrated seawater is returned to TECO's cooling water where it is diluted with up to 1.4 billion gallons of water before it is discharged to the bay.

Desalination Process

There are basically three main treatment elements in the desalination process: pretreatment, reverse osmosis, and post-treatment.

Pretreatment

Pretreatment must be rigorous to remove sediment, organic matter and other microscopic particles to ensure efficient reverse osmosis operations.

Seawater entering the plant is first treated with chemicals to allow eventual settling of particles. It then goes through traveling screens that filter out shells and other larger debris. The screened water then goes through settling chambers. Similar to a traditional surface water treatment process, particles in the conditioned water clump together and settle out.

The next step in pretreatment is sand filtration, where smaller particles are filtered from the water. Next, diatomaceous earth filters eliminate microscopic materials before the water passes through cartridge filters, the last barrier before the RO process.

Reverse Osmosis

Reverse osmosis is what distinguishes a desalination plant from a traditional surface water treatment plant. During RO, high pressure forces the pretreated water through semi-permeable membranes, separating saltwater from freshwater and leaving salt and other minerals behind in a salty solution.

The size of each RO membrane pore is about .001 microns, which is about 1/100,000th the diameter of a human hair.

Post-treatment

The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant produces up to 25 million gallons per day of desalinated drinking water. Before that water is delivered to Tampa Bay Water, chemicals are added to stabilize the water. The water is then pumped to the regional facilities site, where the desalinated seawater is blended with treated drinking water from other supply sources before being delivered to Tampa Bay Water’s member governments.

Concentrate Return

At full capacity, the RO process will leave about 19 mgd of twice-as-salty seawater behind which will be returned to Big Bend’s cooling water stream and blended with approximately 1.4 billion gallons of cooling water, which will dilute it 70-to-1. At this point, its salinity will be only 1.0 to 1.5 percent higher, on average, than water from Tampa Bay. Environmental scientists say this slight increase falls within Tampa Bay’s normal, seasonal fluctuations in salinity.

This cooling water mixture then moves through a discharge canal, blending with more seawater, diluting the discharge even further. By the time the discharged water reaches Tampa Bay, its salinity is nearly the same as the bay’s. And, the large volume of water that naturally flows in and out of Tampa Bay near Big Bend will dilute it even further, preventing any long-term build-up of salinity in the bay.

Monitoring during the plant’s first year of operations showed no measurable changes in salinity, even when the plant was operating at maximum capacity.

For more information:  http://www.water-technology.net/projects/tampa/ 

Here is a small Australian reverse osmosis system partially powered by a windmill being offered by a startup:  http://www.windesal.com/how_it_works.html 

Coal2Nuclear ______________________________________________________________________  top 

Part  3:  NDS - Nisan Desalination Services International

NDS - Nisan Desalination Services International
 

Desalination Blog:  http://simon-nisan.com/  Dr. Simon Nisan on Nuclear Desalination.  Dr. Simon NISAN is the Chargé d’Affaire, Nuclear Desalination and Chief Engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)  CEA English

Nisan Desalination Services Int.

Expertise and innovative R&D for the production of low cost electricity and water

NDS is a group of world’s well known desalination experts, providing integrated services for the deployment of desalination systems at the lowest costs.

Why NDS ?

In almost all countries, wishing to deploy integrated desalination systems, the decision makers need to access immediately some basic facts and figures regarding main characteristics of the proposed systems, cost estimates, environmental impacts, etc.

By definition, since there are no on-going programs, the decisions have to be delayed until collaboration agreements have been signed with suppliers, engineers have been trained and numerous political discussions have taken place. Obviously this not only takes a lot of time but also involves considerable expenditure.

NDS is created to eliminate this very frequent problem. NDS is a startup whose main objective is to provide all essential services to organizations or countries, wishing to study or deploy integrated desalination systems.

Scope of Activities

A very unusual feature of NDS will be to train engineers / scientists in their own laboratories to realize the specific studies or tasks required. This would not only save considerable amount of time and money in negotiations and political haggling but it would also create the skilled manpower in the client countries with minimal costs, since travel and other expenses would disappear.

As the name indicates, NDS would be able to provide :

• Complete feasibility studies of integrated nuclear desalination systems for a given site

• Training of young engineers / scientists in their country of origin

• Comparative economic evaluations of nuclear and fossil energy based integrated desalination systems

• Planning and requirements for the implementation of nuclear energy programs

• development of computer codes for the economic evaluation of nuclear and fossil energy based systems

• Development of specific computer codes and simulators concerning desalination systems, etc.

• Safety studies of proposed nuclear desalination systems

• Liaison services between suppliers and clients

• Preparation of reports in English or French or Arabic or in any combination thereof

Experience from some international (or bi-lateral) projects and studies

• Site specific feasibility studies for Tunisia; the TUNDESAL project (technical coordination of a mixed team of enginerres from CEA, STEG (Tunisian utility), SONEDE (Tunisian water company). The final report led STEG to opt for the nuclear option.

• The EURODESAL generic study: included industrial companies such as ANSALDO (Italy); AREVA NP(France); CANDESAL(canada); EMPRESSARIOS AGRUPADOS (Spain); IRRADIARE (Portugal) and R&D organisations: University of ROME and CEA (France).

• Coordination and research for the Indo-french collaboration agreement in the field of nuclear desalination.

• Elaboration of the technical programme for the LIBNDP1 project (French-Libyan Collaboration programme) aimed at using the Tajoura reactor as a nuclear desalination demonstration plant.

• Contributions to several IAEA TECDOCS; preparation of TECDOCS 1524 (Status of Nuclear Desalination in IAEA Member States) and 1561 (Economics of Nuclear Desalination: New Developments and Case Studies).

 

Part  4:  Water Shortages, Recycling, and Sterilization

Water Shortages, Recycling, and Sterilization

WEB LINKS for this subject.

Desalination Blog:  http://simon-nisan.com/  Dr. Simon Nisan on Nuclear Desalination.  Dr. Simon NISAN is the Chargé d’Affaire, Nuclear Desalination and Chief Engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) CEA English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination       http://www.water-technology.net/               

NEWS ITEMS   for this subject.

Florida Desal Plant Scaled Down After Counties Withdraw From Project.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal (8/12, Fernandez) reported that the "Palm Coast's thirst" is "one reason the city must go ahead with plans for a downsized desalination plant to turn sea water into drinking water," according to Mayor Jon Netts. "Palm Coast and Leesburg -- and to a lesser extent DeLand and St. Johns County -- are continuing studies on a proposed desalination plant." But the project "has shrunk to a $200 million facility," said Scott Shannon of Malcolm Pirnie, who said the facility "could be expanded to produce 25 million gallons per day at a cost of $400 million." A more ambitious plan "foresaw an initial plant size of 25 million gallons per day at a cost of $539 million, which could be expanded to 80 million gallons per day for $1.3 billion." But "instead of 11 cities and counties, only three cities and one county are now involved," which "means fewer pipes are needed to move the water," Shannon said.

Colorado River Users Taking Steps To Avoid Water Restrictions.
The Arizona Republic (8/13, McKinnon) reports, "Drought-stricken Lake Mead (NV) has dropped an additional 10 feet since summer 2009, and now Colorado River users are scrambling to keep the reservoir full enough to avoid water rationing." By 2011, the lake will is expected to "sink to within 9 feet of the level that would trigger the first round of restrictions," which "begin with a reduction in water deliveries to Nevada and Arizona." Hoping to postpone this, "river users have built a reservoir west of Yuma, Ariz., to catch unused runoff, paid farmers to leave fields unplanted and are negotiating with Mexico to leave some of its allocation in Lake Mead while its farmers recover from an earthquake." While "none of the steps will yield significant amounts of water," taken together these measures "could keep Lake Mead from sinking below the drought triggers, buying time until a wet winter can replenish some of the water lost to drought."

Feasibility Study To Consider Piping Water From Papua New Guinea To Queensland, Australia.
The Australia Broadcasting Corporation (7/28, Fox) reports "successful tourism entrepreneur" Fred Ariel "has signed a deal with the Papua New Guinean government to look at piping fresh water 3,000 kilometres to Australia." Specifically, Ariel "signed an agreement with the PNG government to conduct a feasibility study." Although the plan "sounds crazy," Ariel argues that "despite the huge construction costs...it would be cheaper than desalination plants and water recycling." He explained, "The advantage that this project has is the sheer volumes of water available."
 

Saudi Arabia Launches Floating Water-Desalination Barge.
San Francisco's newsdesk.org (7/8) reported Saudi Arabia re-launched "the world's largest floating desalination plant, with another floating plant close behind." Each barge can produce "25,000 cubic meters" of fresh water per day. Since "the stakes are high, the costs are frequently prohibitive, the technology is controversial, the environmental impact is debatable...parched areas of the world, from California to Australia, are watching closely." Desalination "has had modest successes," but "it is generally regarded as a last resort for generating fresh water." The cost of the technology "has come down steadily, and it is becoming a more affordable means of meeting the world's growing freshwater needs, according to a new report from Pike Research." The firm anticipates that "global desalination investment will double from $8.3 billion in 2010 to $16.6 billion per year by 2016, representing cumulative spending of $87.8 billion during that period."
 

Utility Inaugurates First Large-Scale Desalination Plant In UK.
BBC News (6/3) reports the Duke of Edinburgh has inaugurated "the first water desalination plant on the UK mainland." The London plant "is part of Thames Water's plan to tackle water shortages in the capital. It said the £270m centre would deliver up to 140 million litres of water to 400,000 homes in a drought." The facility "will be run by using renewable biofuels such as cooking oil and waste fat in an effort to reduce its impact on the environment. Drinking water will be produced by treating a mixture of sea and river water from the River Thames."

Meanwhile, the Guardian (UK) (6/3, Jowit) reports opponents of "the first large-scale desalination plant" have argued the project "will use too much energy and the company should be doing more to stop leaking pipes and reduce the average water use of customers by installing more water meters and better promotions."

 

Power hungry seawater desalination adds to CO2 emissions: Reverse Osmosis at 1.78kg of CO2/m3 clear winner over thermal distillation

Posted by waterweek on 25 September 2007

Regarding the contribution of emissions to climate change, seawater desalination – in most cases the most energy intensive of potential water sources – would add in a significant way to an existing process, said the WWF’s Phil Dickie. A comparison of the emissions intensity of various desalination technologies – using an average European fuel mix for power generation – showed the great advantage of;

•  Reverse Osmosis (RO) (1.78kg CO2 per m3 of produced water); over

•  thermal distillation technologies of multistage flash (MSF) (23.41 kg CO2/m3); or

•  multiple effect distillation (MED) (18.05 kg CO2/m3).”

Huge water-processing demand-load: “Precise figures depend on the location,” wrote Dickie, “but to take one example, the Pacific Institute estimated that the water sector was responsible for 19 percent of electricity use and 32 percent of natural gas use in California in 2001. The Institute calculated that the then current proposals to provide six percent of the State’s water through seawater desalination would have increased water-related energy use by five percent over 2001 levels. Spain’s Carboneras desalination plant uses one third of the electricity supplied to Almeria province. In a general sense, the increased demand for energy for desalination implies a commensurate increase in the carbon emissions linked to climate change.”

Clear advantage of Reverse Osmosis process: “Worldwide, the electrical power generating sector is the world’s most significant single generator of carbon emissions, responsible for 37 percent of global emissions, Dickie wrote. “Always operating large scale desalination plants are also generally unsuited for variable power sources and tend to add to the base load power requirements most likely to be generated by burning fossil fuels.
Reference: Phil Dickie, WWF for a living planet, ‘Making Water – Desalination option or distraction for a thirsty world?’, June 2007.

23/9/2007

IBM, Saudi Arabia Research Center Partner In Desalination Project That Uses Solar Energy.
The CNet (4/8) "Planetary Gear" blog reported, "IBM and Saudi Arabia's national research group are opening a solar-powered desalination plant in the city of Al-Khafji." The pilot facility "will supply water to about 100,000 people and pump out about 30,000 cubic meters of potable drinking water per day. It will run exclusively on solar-powered electricity, and showcase two technology breakthroughs that were the result of a multi-year collaborative research agreement signed in 2008 by IBM and the Saudi research group known as the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST)."

Discover 's(4/8) "80beats" blog reported, "In the new desalination plant, the Saudis hope to slash energy costs by deploying a new kind of concentrated photovoltaic technology, which uses lenses or mirrors to focus the sun's rays onto solar panels." This "technology will concentrate the sun 1,500 times on a solar cell to boost efficiency. That's about three times the solar concentration of most concentrating photovoltaic panels currently in operation."

SmartPlanet (4/8, Dignan) noted, These desalination efforts are critical given that 97 percent of the Earth's water resides in oceans. If cheap desalination methods can be developed clean water would be more accessible in the developing world.

Saudi Arabia Building World's Largest Solar-Powered Desal Plant.
Technology Review (4/8, Patel) reports, "Saudi Arabia's national research agency, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), is building what will be the world's largest solar-powered desalination plant in the city of Al-Khafji." The facility "will use a new kind of concentrated solar photovoltaic (PV) technology and new water-filtration technology, which KACST developed with IBM. When completed at the end of 2012, the plant will produce 30,000 cubic meters (8 million gallons per day) of desalinated water per day to meet the needs of 100,000 people."

Monterey County, California, Supervisors Vote To Advance Desalination Plan.
The Salinas Californian (4/7, Hornick) reported, "Monterey County supervisors have approved construction of a 10-million-gallon-per-day desalination plant by 2014," which "would serve Monterey Peninsula cities. Tuesday's vote is contingent upon approval by the Public Utilities Commission." One of the supervisors, Jane Parker, "voted for the desalination project, but cast the lone vote against settlement and water purchasing agreements that her colleagues said were essential to making it happen." Parker argued "the project contains too few assurances for ratepayers about which costs will be passed on, and cited a rise in cost estimates from $2,300 per acre foot of water initially to $4,000 per acre foot." Parker "also distributed a list of 32 desalination plants worldwide, of which 28 had costs under $2,000 per acre foot."

The Monterey County Herald (4/7, Johnson) reported, "Praising unprecedented collaboration in the face of a looming deadline, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors conditionally approved a proposed regional seawater desalination project Tuesday." Supervisor Dave Potter, seeking "to defend the board's actions as necessary despite the concerns raised by Parker and several others," said "that it didn't make sense to risk implementation of the Carmel River water cutback order or the issue going to litigation and state control." KCBA-TV Salinas, CA (4/8), a Fox affiliate, also reported the story.

Malibu Wants Regional Water Board To Rethink Ban On Septic Systems.
The Los Angeles Times (4/8, Groves) "LA Now" blog reported, "Malibu has asked the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to reconsider its Nov. 5 decision to prohibit septic systems in the coastal city's civic center area, saying the ban's broad scope makes it technically unfeasible." City Manager Jim Thorsen said, "The current plan leaves the city with a whole lot of treated water and nowhere to put it." The city argued that "recent scientific studies support the city's conclusion that civic center septic systems, governed by strict rules regulating new systems, are not a significant source of groundwater contamination or a significant cause of reduced water quality in the ocean or Malibu Creek."

Global Water Crisis Prompts Surge In Desalination.
Johannesburg's Mail & Guardian (3/31) reported, "The world's unquenchable thirst for clean water drove a record increase in the desalination of seawater and reuse of sewage last year...as water-stressed countries around the world" are trying "to build their way out of trouble." "As rivers, lakes and aquifers dry up, rains become less reliable, and the cost of desalination has fallen, communities in all parts of the world" are relying on "plants to turn oceans, river estuaries, salty ground water and even sewage into clean water for factories, farms and homes." The annual report by Global Water Intelligence noted that "the rise in fresh water production was the biggest ever recorded at 9.5-million cubic meters a day" or "to about 10% of global capacity."

Professor Criticizes Public Perception About Recycled Water.
Australia's Illawara Mercury (4/1, Shaw) reports, "Attitudes to recycled water are hampering the community's response to Australia's water shortage," said Prof. Sara Dolnicar of University of Wollongong (New South Wales). According to Dolnicar, "the 2006 project in the Queensland town of Toowoomba, to draw 25 per cent of water from recycled effluent, had dramatically affected public opinion of recycled water." Even though "it is possible to recycle sewage water into safe, clean water for drinking and other household uses, the people of the town blocked the proposal through a referendum. ... Prof Dolnicar hopes more information might result in changes."

Canadian Startup Claims Its Desalination Method May Cut Energy Costs By 80%.
The Los Angeles Times (2/26, Cohen) "Greenspace" blog noted that "conventional approaches to desalination," such as distillation and reverse osmosis, "are too energy-intensive, and therefore too expensive," but "a Canadian startup, Saltworks Technologies, is promoting a new, innovative process that it claims will reduce desalination electricity costs by up to 80%. ... Saltworks' thermo-ionic desalination process" is based on "the chemical nature of salt, which is composed of positively charged sodium and negatively charged chlorine ions." The startup "has already won several Canadian government grants worth a total of about $2 million. The firm is operating a 1,000-liter-a-day pilot project in a Vancouver harbor facility."

Authorities Considering Desalination Projects In California, Mexico.
California's Desert Sun (2/18, Matheny) reported, "A number of major desalination projects are under consideration or actively in the works in California and northern Mexico." Although "none of the projects call for directly providing water to assist the Coachella Valley with meeting its future needs," Coachella Valley Water District General Manager Steve Robbins noted that "helping cities such as San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix has a ripple effect." Robbins said, "The less pressure there is to take water out of the desert and move it to the coast, the better off it is in the long run for the Coachella and Imperial valleys, and the Salton Sea." Meanwhile, the San Diego County Water Authority and other American water agencies in Nevada, Arizona, and California are considering "helping to build seawater conversion facilities in Mexico, providing a local water supply in exchange for a portion of Mexico's contractually obligated share of Colorado River water."

Report: Higher Water Prices Expected In Australia Due To Desalination Costs.
Bloomberg News (1/23, McDonald) reported on expected increases of "water charges...in Australia due to the cost of building desalination plants," according to the country's media. The Australian newspaper cited the Water Services Association of Australia as saying that Melbourne residents' water bills, for instance, "may increase by about a third over the next three years to A$904 ($814) a year, while Sydney residents may pay an extra A$103 a year by 2012."

Texas Desalination Facility Profiled.
The El Paso Times (1/7, Burge) reports on "a $91 million desalination plant" that is has produced for more than two years around four percent "of the drinking water for customers of El Paso Water Utilities." The Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant "converts brackish or salty groundwater into drinking water." The facility is "operating far below capacity... producing about 3.5 million gallons of drinking water a day," while it can "produce up to 27.5 million gallons a day." But the facility "could increase its production in a matter of minutes." Considered "the world's largest inland desalination plant," the facility also "includes a research center" to increase water efficiency. Currently, however, "it costs about $1.70 to produce 1,000 gallons of drinking water at the desalination plant." El Paso Water "estimates that it costs 85 cents to treat the same amount of surface water and 50 cents to pump 1,000 gallons of fresh water out of the ground and disinfect it."

California Coastal Commission Upholds Permit For Massive Desalination Project.
The North County Times (CA) (12/11, Fikes) reports that the California Coastal Commission denied "the revocation request" by the environmental groups San Diego Coastkeeper, the Surfrider Foundation, and the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, which "had argued that, in obtaining a coastal development permit, developer Poseidon Resources Corp., had withheld or misstated information about the desalination plant's impact on the environment." Upon completion "the plant will be capable of producing 50 million gallons of drinking water a day, enough to meet the needs of about 9 percent of San Diego County's population."

Water World (12/10) noted, "Poseidon has worked in partnership with the City of Carlsbad since 1998 to build the desalination plant, which will have the capacity to produce 50-million-gallons-per-day of high quality drinking water and serve 300,000 residents annually."

KGTV-TV San Diego (12/11) reports that Scott Maloni, vice president of Poseidon Resources, called on "project opponents to put an end to their senseless and meritless attack. ... Two lawsuits attempting to halt the project have also been unsuccessful." According to Reuters (12/11), the plant will be the largest seawater desalination facility in the Western Hemisphere

Vancouver Startup Developing Lower Cost Desalination Technology.
Business in Vancouver (12/9, Cherewayko) reported, "Saltworks Technologies is developing a saltwater-powered battery it says removes salt from water at a fraction of the cost of other desalination processes." The initial idea was "how to use a thermodynamics law, in which the tension between two different concentrations of the same solution converts energy." Ben Sparrow, the head of the Saltworks Technologies, "applied the law to salt water and realized that the voltage from the ions of a hyper-saline solution could pull salt from a third water stream as the ions naturally move from a high to low concentration of salt water." Now, four years later, the startup is "making the final adjustments on a saltwater-powered battery that can desalinate water at a cost" of "up to 80% less than that of existing processes." While reverse osmosis and electrodialysis "require external and often plentiful sources of electricity," Saltworks' technology needs "only to power low-pressure pumps and a few other moving parts."

Official: Massachusetts Desalination Project Could Be Ready In One Year.
The Herald News (MA) (11/24, Dion) reports, "The next step in the construction" of the water desalination plant in Swansea "is complete with the installation of an intake screen that will draw water from the Palmer River," according to Water District Superintendent Robert Marquis, who added that "he expects the entire $18 million project to be totally online by November 2010. 'This will draw 5,400 gallons of water a minute from the river.'" Marquis said that the water intake "will draw the water during two six hour cycles a day, at low tide, adding that the water is at its lowest salinity at low tide." He explained that "water is drawn into the intake gently and, while there is a screen inside the intake, the intake of water from the river should be slow enough to keep debris from being 'sucked' into the unit."

Chile Calls On Mining Companies To Find Alternative Water Sources.
SteelGuru (11/22) reported, "Based on the findings of a study released on water usage in domestic mining by Chile's state copper commission Cochilco" the country's mining minister "said that if companies do not start searching for alternative water sources now, it is highly likely there will not be enough resources for all the red metal projects slated to begin between now and 2020." Santiago González said that there is "no point carrying out projects if we don't have the necessary water resources in order to [develop] them in the years to come." The minister "added that desalination...or direct use of seawater...are the 2 best alternatives today to relying on natural aquifers that are becoming scarce."

Mining Company Announces Plans For $250-Million Desalinization Plant.
SteelGuru (11/20) reported that "Chilean mining giant" CAP revealed plans to build a $250-million "desalinization plant to provide water for its iron mining operations in Chile's Atacama area." Under the plans, more than "750 workers will construct the plant, an underwater emission pipe and a sea water collection facility near the town of Puerto Totoralillo. A 120 kilometers aqueduct will then transfer the water to Cerro Negro Norte mine in the Copiapo Valley."

California Paper Criticizes Decision To Finance Desalinization Plant.
California's Daily Breeze (11/22) editorialized about the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which recently "has had some rough criticism," last week made "another controversial decision" which "would help finance a desalination plant that should never be built and could cost water customers $350 million over the next 25 years." Poseidon Resources LLC is seeking "to build a plant in north San Diego County to desalt sea water, and wants some public help to finance it. In addition to the MWD subsidy, the company wants state approval to sell tax-free municipal bonds to cover the rest of its costs." Everybody except Poseidon, argues the Breeze, "would be much better off without this project," which it characterizes as "environmentally unsound because...it would suck sea creatures directly into its intake tubes and destroy them. It is financially unsound because, as opponents correctly estimate, its costs will be so high nobody would want to buy its product." The Daily Breeze also questioned Poseidon's "performance record."

Canadian Firm Announces More Efficient Desalination Method.
CleanTechnica (11/16, O'Callaghan) reported that Saltworks Technologies claims that its desalination technology reduces "the electrical energy required for desalination by over 70%." The Canadian firm reports that it "can produce 1m3 of water with 1kW hour of electrical energy, compared to the 3.7kWhr per m3, which is what is currently achievable using reverse osmosis with the use of energy recovery devices." The firm uses "solar heat (or waste heat) to evaporate water and concentrate salt water. They are converting solar energy into osmotic energy by doing this. They then use this osmotic energy to desalinate water." Since "the system is not under pressure," the firm "can use plastic pipes instead of steel pipes, potentially reducing capital costs also."

Desalination Plant Restarts After Shutdown.
Following a story from yesterday from the St. Petersburg (FL) Times, Tampa Bay Online (11/10) reported, "The region's desalination plant started running [Tuesday] after being shut down nearly 48 hours because of problems caused by a power failure on Sunday." The facility "in Apollo Beach was running at its maximum capacity of more than 25 million gallons a day when it lost power," which "caused valves in the plant to shut and water to reverse direction at high pressure." According to a spokeswoman for Tampa Bay Water, the plant's owner, the effect known as "water hammer," caused a number of "pipes to leak and the plant had to be shut down."

The St. Petersburg Times (11/11, Pittman) notes that "the $140 million plant" is "the largest" in the US. "At the time the power went out, the plant had been running above its capacity of 25 million gallons of water a day, as the utility tries to make up for pumping too much water out of the ground during the spring water shortage."

Company Touts Sun-Powered Ionic System As More Energy Efficient Than Distillation, RO.
Control Engineering (11/6, Welander) noted that "distillation works and has been around for a long time, but is energy intensive. Reverse osmosis (RO) is better, but creating the high pressures involved requires electrical power (typically at least 3.7 kWh for 1,000 liters) and equipment able to withstand the stress. Where there's electricity, there's usually carbon." A new company, Saltworks Technologies, "has developed a technology unlike the others," taking "advantage of the characteristics of sodium and chlorine ions. Using a bit of sun-powered evaporation to create a salt concentration imbalance, the approach induces the ions to leave the solution using something called an ion bridge," and "the only electrical power needed is to move the water between various tanks. The equipment can be built of plastic to avoid corrosion problems." According to Saltworks, "this technology is highly scalable so it promises to be practical for a single home to a central supply for a community."

Engineer Tells Panel Pilot Desalination Plan Not Affected By Red Tide.
The Brownsville (TX) Herald (11/4, Phillips) reports, "NRS Consulting Engineer Jake White had good news for Laguna Madre Water District Directors Wednesday evening," telling them that "the red tide has not affected the pilot desalination plant at Andy Bowie Park to any noticeable degree." The engineer reported that "water taste and quality has not been affected in the least," as "the plant is removing all traces of toxin from the water." White also said that toxins would not "have any deleterious effect on the metal components of the pilot plant."

AquaSure Agrees To $1.5 Billion Loan For Desalination Project.
Bloomberg News (11/4, McDonald) reports, "AquaSure, a group of investors building Australia's biggest water desalination plant, agreed to a A$1.7 billion ($1.5 billion) loan to help fund the project," sources said. "Banks offered to lend more than AquaSure sought, meaning the Victoria state government won't need to make up a shortfall." Bloomberg notes, "Suez Environnement Co., Thiess Pty. and Macquarie Group Ltd. are among members of AquaSure, which won a government contract in July to build the desalination plant in Victoria." AquaSure will fund, design, construct and operate a reverse-osmosis plant capable of providing a third of Melbourne's annual water supply."

Cheaper desalination - "Current thinking" - A fresh way to take the salt out of seawater

Oct 29th 2009   From The Economist print edition

THERE is a lot of water on Earth, but more than 97% of it is salty and over half of the remainder is frozen at the poles or in glaciers. Meanwhile, around a fifth of the world’s population suffers from a shortage of drinking water and that fraction is expected to grow. One answer is desalination—but it is an expensive answer because it requires a lot of energy. Now, though, a pair of Canadian engineers have come up with an ingenious way of using the heat of the sun to drive the process. Such heat, in many places that have a shortage of fresh water, is one thing that is in abundant supply.

Ben Sparrow and Joshua Zoshi met at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, while completing their MBAs. Their company, Saltworks Technologies, has set up a test plant beside the sea in Vancouver and will open for business in November.

Existing desalination plants work in one of two ways. Some distil seawater by heating it up to evaporate part of it. They then condense the vapor—a process that requires electricity. The other plants use reverse osmosis. This employs high-pressure pumps to force the water from brine through a membrane that is impermeable to salt. That, too, needs electricity. Even the best reverse-osmosis plants require 3.7 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy to produce 1,000 liters of drinking water.

Mr Sparrow and Mr Zoshi, by contrast, reckon they can produce that much fresh water with less than 1 kWh of electricity, and no other paid-for source of power is needed. Their process is fuelled by concentration gradients of salinity between different vessels of brine. These different salinities are brought about by evaporation.

The process begins by spraying seawater into a shallow, black-bottomed pond, where it absorbs heat from the atmosphere. The resulting evaporation increases the concentration of salt in the water from its natural level of 3.5% to as much as 20%. Low-pressure pumps are then used to pipe this concentrated seawater, along with three other streams of untreated seawater, into the desalting unit. As the diagram explains, what Mr Sparrow and Mr Zoshi create by doing this is a type of electrical circuit. Instead of electrons carrying the current, though, it is carried by electrically charged atoms called ions.

Salt is made of two ions: positively charged sodium and negatively charged chloride. These flow in opposite directions around the circuit. Each of the four streams of water is connected to two neighbors by what are known as ion bridges. These are pathways made of polystyrene that has been treated so it will allow the passage of only one sort of ion—either sodium or chloride. Sodium and chloride ions pass out of the concentrated solution to the neighboring weak ones by diffusion though these bridges (any chemical will diffuse from a high to a low concentration in this way). The trick is that as they do so, they make the low-concentration streams of water electrically charged. The one that is positive, because it has too much sodium, thus draws chloride ions from the stream that is to be purified. Meanwhile, the negative, chloride-rich stream draws in sodium ions. The result is that the fourth stream is stripped of its ions and emerges pure and fresh.

It is The idea that could be built equally well on a grand scale or as rooftop units the size of refrigerators. Of course, a lot of clever engineering is involved to make it work, but the low pressure of the pumps needed (in contradistinction to those employed in reverse osmosis) means the brine can be transported through plastic pipes rather than steel ones. Since brine is corrosive to steel, that is another advantage of Mr Sparrow’s and Mr Zoshi’s technology. Moreover, the only electricity needed is the small amount required to pump the streams of water through the apparatus. All the rest of the energy has come free, via the air, from the sun.

California Water Agencies Consider Desalination.
KPIX-TV San Francisco (10/17), a CBS affiliate, reported, "Four Bay Area water agencies have teamed up to possibly build as many as three desalination plants, two on the bay, one along the ocean." The article noted, "The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), Hetch Hetchy, Contra Costa Water District and Santa Clara Valley Water District are so worried about future water supplies," and "they are talking about sharing the cost of building the plants." According to the water agencies, "building an array of desalination plants might mean not having to build new dams and reservoirs." KPIX pointed out that, "until recently, desalination wasn't considered an option because the costs were too high," but, according to Mike Tognolini of EBMUD, "there has been great improvement in the technology that's used to desalinate water and because of that the cost to desalinate water is dropping dramatically."

Massachusetts Desalination Plant Poised To Open Soon.
The Herald News (MA) (10/6, Pateakos) reports, "The final leg of the region's first public desalination facility will soon begin, as MassHighway has granted approval for the Swansea Water District to install two water pipes under Interstate 195." According to Water District Superintendent Robert Marquis, "the boreholes, which will be drilled underneath the highway to allow for a 16- and 20-inch water pipe to be installed, will have no effect on traffic," as they "will be dug far enough under the ground to eliminate the need for any lane closures." According to the article, "There will be a pre-bid conference on Oct. 13 for the boring work, which is estimated to cost around $885,000. Bids must be received by Oct. 22."

Work Begins On Controversial Australian Desalination Plant.
ninemsn (10/6) reports, "Building has started on Victoria's controversial desalination plant which will provide up to 150 billion liters of water each year to Melbourne from the end of 2011." AquaSure, "the consortium constructing the $3.5 billion plant," includes Suez Environment, Degremont, Thiess and Macquarie Capital Group." The contract calls for "construction and operation of the desalination plant, an 84km transfer pipeline, plus the construction of underground power and sourcing renewable energy."

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (10/6) reports, "AquaSure consortium...has promised to build a windfarm...to offset the plant's energy needs." But despite that "the project has drawn strong opposition from environment groups and the local council. A small group of protestors were on hand to heckle" Victoria Water Minister Tim Holding, "saying the plant is bad for the environment and the local community." But the minister said that such projects "are necessary. 'We've got to be honest with people, you can't respond to 13 years of the longest and driest drought that we've ever had, you can't prepare our community for climate change, without investing in projects to augment our water supplies,' he said."

"Water-Rich" North-Central Florida Urges Growing Cities To Pursue Desalinization.
Politicians in Florida "representing the water-rich north-central region want the water to stay right where it is," while "politicians representing the growing cities want the water to go where it's needed," the Lakeland (FL) Ledger (10/3, A10) reported. "It was no surprise to receive a press release this week from Alachua County's State Sen. Steve Oelrich urging the St. Johns Water Management District not to withdraw water from the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers for drinking purposes. If cities like Jacksonville need more water, Oelrich said, they should invest in desalination plant." This, said Oelrich, "sets a dangerous precedent for other areas with water shortages." But according to the Ledger, "Sen. Oelrich is naive if he really believes it's possible to keep the Rodman intact without having it eventually tapped as a drinking water source. It is too big and too convenient a target of opportunity for powerful urban politicians to ignore for long."

Jordan To Proceed Alone With Dead Sea Pipeline.
AFP (9/27) reported, "Jordan has decided to go it alone and build a two-billion-dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea without help from proposed partners Israel and the Palestinian Authority, an official told AFP." Fayez Batayneh, who represent Jordan "in the mega-project to provide drinking water and begin refilling the Dead Sea, which is on course to dry out by 2050," said, "Jordan is thirsty and cannot wait any longer. ... Israel and the Palestinians have raised no objection to Jordan starting on the first phase by itself." Under the plan, the pipeline would "draw off 310 million cubic metres (10.5 billion cubic feet) of water each year, of which 240 million will be fed into the desalination plant at the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba, enabling an annual production of 120 million cubic metres of drinking water."

Desalination Touted As "Best Alternative," Most Cost Efficient.
The Daytona Beach (FL) News-Journal (9/25, Fernandez) reports, "Prepare to be desalinated -- eventually. And it's a good thing. Those were among the messages delivered by a panel of experts during a public meeting Wednesday night in Marineland (FL) to discuss a proposed water desalination plant to supply the region's taps." Jerry Salsano of Taurant Consulting said that, according to "some of the partners involved" in the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Project, "a desalination plant is the best alternative for the lowest possible cost." The partners "are looking at building a desalination plant on land or on a ship by 2017." Menawhile, "no site has been selected for the plant, which would need about 50 acres and be linked to 190 miles of transmission lines." In order "to produce 25 million gallons of drinking water daily," the facility "would have to draw about 63 million gallons of seawater every day."

Central Florida Desalination Project Discussed.
The Orlando Sentinel (9/23, Lelis) reports that in Central Florida "a multimillion-dollar project that could send treated seawater through miles-long pipelines to faucets in DeLand, Mount Dora or Leesburg" was discussed at a public meeting last night. It is estimated that the Coquina Coast seawater desalination project "could deliver desalted water to a host of cities and county utilities looking for new sources of potable water." The three cities "are interested in whether seawater is a viable option, but none of the governments has committed to building what could be a $460 million to $1 billion project capable of producing 50 million to 80 million gallons of water a day." In the meantime, "the Coquina Coast group is reviewing options -- primarily a land-based plant or a vessel that would treat the water at sea and pipe it into a distribution center."

Lawsuit Aims To Stop California Desalination Project.
The AP (9/23) reports, "Opponents of a plan to turn millions of gallons of salt water from San Francisco Bay into drinking water for residents of Marin County have sued to stop the project." The lawsuit claims that "the desalination project would increase energy consumption, pollute the bay and fuel population growth." The Marin Municipal Water District board "last month approved a desalination facility that could convert 5 million gallons of bay water into drinking water each day." While "officials say the county needs a new source of water that is drought-proof," opponents say "the county should focus on conservation."

Activists To Sue Over California Desalination Project Changes.
The San Diego Union-Tribune (9/17, Burge) reports, "Environmental groups haven't given up their effort to derail the proposed ocean-water desalination plant in Carlsbad (CA)," and are "telling the City Council, after it approved project changes Tuesday night, that they'll sue." The changes would consolidate "some of the plant's operations" and include "six miles of pipe that will carry the cleansed water inland." The Union-Tribune notes that the council approved the changes "as an addendum to the environmental impact report it OK'd in 2006, without reopening the time-consuming environmental review process," as "the desalination plant's developer, Poseidon Resources," had to "meet all conditions by Nov. 14" in order "to obtain a permit from the California Coastal Commission." But an attorney for the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation and Coastkeeper "told the council it should have reopened the environmental process to allow for public review."

NATO Awards Grant For Two Middle East Desalination Projects.
Israel 21c (9/15, Kloosterman) reports, "A new Israeli technology for desalination is the centerpiece of a NATO grant that promotes collaboration between Israel and Jordan and could save water and energy across the globe." The grant will cover the development of "two inland water desalination plants -- one in Israel and one in Jordan," and will get "two Middle East universities collaborating." Under "the terms of the project, three universities -- Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, the Hashemite University of Jordan and the University of Colorado in the United States -- are to implement a new Israeli reverse osmosis desalination technology at two pilot sites." The technique was "developed originally at Ben Gurion University," and "a new six-person company called Rotec is commercializing" it. The role of "the universities, as partners," is to "implement the new reverse osmosis Rotec technology" at the water plants.

California Water Crisis A National Priority, Federal Agency Says.
The AP (8/13) reports, "California's ongoing water crisis is a major national priority, akin to restoring the Chesapeake Bay or Florida's Everglades," Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes said Wednesday. Hayes also said that "Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will hold a public meeting in Washington next month to discuss plans to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the freshwater estuary that supplies drinking water to two-thirds of Californians and is one of the most vital wildlife habitats on the West Coast." While about 50 "mayors are calling for President Barack Obama to visit the area himself, saying three years of drought coupled with court-ordered protections for threatened fish species have sapped critical irrigation supplies," California "and federal agencies are evaluating several conservation strategies for the estuary, including a controversial proposal that could cost up to $17 billion to build a canal to move water around the ecosystem."

Japanese Steelmaker To Study Australia Water Supply Project.
Bloomberg News (7/23, Suga) reported, "JFE Holdings Inc., Japan's second-largest steelmaker, said its engineering unit will start a study this year on a water supply project in Queensland, Australia." JFE Engineering Corp., said that it "plans to operate a test water treatment system at a plant in the state's southeast for three years before beginning commercial operations in the year starting April 2014." The project aims to "ease supply shortages in Queensland's southeast as the population is forecast to increase by 50 percent to 4.2 million by 2030."

Electric Sewage-Treatment Technology Said To Be Eco-Friendlier Than Biological Processes.
British Columbia's Goldstream News Gazette (7/24) reports that Boydel Wastewater Technologies Inc.' uses "an electricity based process called electrocoagulation (EC) to treat sewage instead of biological processes." Ledcor, the company which is testing Boydel's technology, said that "the process can treat to secondary levels, as required by the province, as well as remove pesticides, heavy metals and pharmaceuticals from the waste stream. It will also be able to accommodate the treatment of sewage and stormwater in one facility." Ledcor also said that "because the system uses electricity over biological processes to break down the sewage, far less greenhouse gas is emitted."

Study Suggests California Alter Its Water Strategy.
The AP (7/23) reports, "By investing in water-saving technology, California's drought-burdened farmers could save enough water annually to fill four times over a reservoir," which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports building," according to a study by the Pacific Institute, which "urges regulatory agencies and lawmakers to focus on farm investments rather than large infrastructure projects." Farm investments "could ensure more reliable water supplies as a warming planet increases the length and frequency of droughts, the report suggested." The study noted that "water-intensive flood irrigation has certainly declined since 2001...but the method still is widely used in some areas," but that a great number of farmers "with historic water rights have no incentive to conserve," since "they get their full allocation of canal water every year no matter the weather conditions, while others get none." The report recommended "water contracts should be renegotiated to reflect the new reality of a dwindling supply."

Portable Desal, Filtration System Developed.
The Chemical Engineer (UK) (7/14, Duckett) reported, "Chemical engineers at UCLA's school of engineering and applied science...have helped develop a new mini-mobile-modular desalination and filtration system (M3)" and "has successfully tested the unit in California with a view to helping solve the state's water shortage problems." The system marks "quite a change from the costly and often time-consuming practice of building individual pilot plants to evaluate and demonstrate the feasibility of desalination for each source of water." The system "was developed by staff and students from the chemical, electrical and civil engineering departments with specific expertise in control theory and optimization, process design and monitoring, computational fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and software development," and in collaboration "with Victoria University in Australia, Ben Gurion University in Israel, and Tarragona University in Spain."

The Engineer (UK) (7/14) quoted Yoram Cohen, the lead researcher and a UCLA professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, who said, "In the first part of the reverse-osmosis process, 65 per cent of the water that was fed in was recovered as drinking water." He added, "We can potentially recover up to 95 per cent using an accelerated chemical demineralization process that was also developed at UCLA." While the M3 "is compact enough to be transported anywhere in the back of a van, it can generate 6,000 gallons of drinking water per day from the sea or 8,000 to 9,000 gallons per day from brackish groundwater."
 

California To Break Ground On Desalination Plant.
The Wall Street Journal (7/9, A4, Shankman) reports, "Early next year, the Southern California town of Carlsbad will break ground on a plant that each day will turn 50 million gallons of seawater into fresh drinking water." According to the article, "the $320 million project, which would be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, was held up in the planning stages for years. But a protracted drought helped propel the project to its approval in May -- a sign of how worried local authorities are about water supplies." Under the plan, "the desalination plant would use water that flows by gravity from the ocean across a manmade lagoon and into the facility through 10 large pumps. The plant would then blast it through a filter, extracting fresh water and leaving behind highly pressurized salty water. The process would provide enough water for 300,000 people each day."

California May Approve More Lenient Graywater Code This Summer.
The Los Angeles Times (7/6, Carpenter) GreenSpace blog reported, "California may adopt a more lenient gray water code as early as August." Under the proposed regulation, "a clothes washer or other single-fixture, residential gray water system, such as a shower, could be installed or altered without a construction permit. That's a complete reversal of the present state requirement that homeowners installing systems to recycle the waste water from their sinks, showers, bathtubs and laundry machines conform to Appendix G of the California plumbing code, which requires that gray water systems not only be permitted by the appropriate administrative authority but installed underground with extensive filtering apparatus."

Foreign Countries, California Debating Desalination Plants' Viability.
The Wall Street Journal (6/4, Johnson) Environmental Capital noted that "the debates over what to do about water and electricity have a lot in common. There are ardent supply-siders who say we need to produce more of the stuff, and there are equally devoted demand-side types who stress conservation and efficiency." Currently "in Spain, the Middle East, and Australia, thirsty governments are building big desalination plants to turn salty seawater into drinking water. One big downside is that the process is expensive-and uses a lot of energy." Such a "debate is coming to a head in California, too, which is facing its own water crisis. Plans are afoot to build as many as 20 desalination plans across the state. At issue is how to meet an expected increase in water use even as traditional water sources, from rivers to reservoirs, are getting drier."

American Water Wins Texas Desalination Contract.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (5/14) reported, American Water said Thursday "that its subsidiary had won a $500,000 contract to run a desalination pilot plant in Laredo, Texas." Under the agreement, the Applied Water Management "will be using a new desalination technology, designed to reduce capital and operating costs. Applied Water is expected to begin engineering work this month, and to begin running the facility by the end of this year."

The Philadelphia Business Journal (5/15, Key) adds that the plant is planned "to provide additional fresh water for the 215,000 residents of Laredo, which is located in a semi-arid area on the Texas-Mexico border. Laredo is reaching the limit on the amount of water it can draw from the Rio Grande River and its ground water has been affected by salt intrusion."

San Diego Approves Large Desalination Plant.
The AP (5/14) reports, "San Diego's water board gave final approval Wednesday for construction of the largest water desalination plant in the Western hemisphere." Under the plans, "the $320 million project proposed by Poseidon Resources could come online by 2012 in Carlsbad and produce 50 million gallons of drinking water a day, or 10 percent of the supply for San Diego County." The AP notes, "The pressure to find new sources of clean water has been increasing with drought conditions and as traditional sources across California are becoming more unreliable."

However, according to the Los Angeles Times (5/13, Perry) L.A. Now blog, "environmentalist activists, who believe the project would harm the coastal environment, plan to appeal to the State Water Quality Control Board and to continue at least three lawsuits aimed at blocking the project."

In addition, the North County (CA) Times (5/14, Fikes) notes, Poseidon Resources "still needs to raise the money" for the project. If built, "the plant could serve as a template for other desalination plants on the California coast, where densely populated urban areas are increasingly straining their water supplies."

South Africa Warned Of Water Price Increase.
Creamer Media's Engineering News (5/22, Parker) reports, "Water Institute of South Africa (Wisa) president Dr Heidi Snyman has warned that the price of water" to South African consumers may "increase, owing to the increasingly complex methods sometimes needed to draw clean water from new sources." Snyman "said that the continued pollution and mismanagement of existing resources meant that the water industry relied heavily on recycling wastewater and processes such as desalination to be able to provide the growing population with clean water." The article noted, "Water price hikes would affect the entire economy, as water is a major input into most industries' production processes." Snyman aid, "Our strategic drives will focus on making a real difference in the water sector by increasing membership benefits, promoting volunteerism, ensuring an African and global presence and financial sustainability."
 

In California, Desalination of Seawater as a Test Case   By FELICITY BARRINGER Published: May 14, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — The vast $320 million desalination plant approved this week by San Diego’s regional water authorities is likely to serve as a test case for whether such a large project can meet its goals while safeguarding its Pacific environment.

The plant, to be built near Carlsbad, north of San Diego, will be the first large-scale desalination operation on the West Coast and the largest in the hemisphere. “If they build it well and it operates well and the price is right, we will see more,” said Peter Gleick, the cofounder and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, Calif.

“I think there’s going to be some hesitancy to really expand desalination until this plant is up and running,” he added. “There’s going to be hesitancy on the part of everyone — regulators, water agencies and municipalities.”

Other ambitious desalination projects are being considered along the California coast, from Marin County just north of San Francisco to Santa Cruz, Monterey, Long Beach and Huntington Beach. Cities, water companies and environmentalists are likely to scrutinize how the plant near Carlsbad performs financially and technically and weigh its environmental impact.

Environmentalists have battled the project in lawsuits, raising concerns about the amount of fish that will be killed by the pumping process and about potential change to the aquatic ecosystem when leftover brine is returned to the sea. So far they have not won any victories.

Poseidon Resources pursued the project for over six years before gaining final approval on Wednesday from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, the last of four agencies whose assent was needed.

The plant will filter 100 million gallons of seawater daily, taking salt out by filtering it through fine membranes, a process called reverse osmosis. If construction proceeds as scheduled, it will produce 50 million gallons of drinking water by 2011.

The plant would provide water to nine municipal water agencies in northern San Diego County, filling 10 percent of the county’s drinking water needs. Its capacity makes it one of the biggest outside the Middle East.

The California Coastal Commission, one of the agencies that approved the project, raised questions last month about whether Poseidon’s plan to mitigate the damage to aquatic life was sufficient. Poseidon plans to create 55 acres of new coastal wetlands to mitigate the loss of fish. The Coastal Commission suggested that a minimum of 66 acres was required, but the regional water board signed off on the original plan.

Marco A. Gonzalez, a lawyer for the Surfrider Foundation and the Planning and Conservation League, said he would appeal the regional board’s decision to the state board.

Barcelona's New Desalination Plant To Provide 44 Million Gallons Of Water Per Day.
BBC News (7/22) reports, "A desalination plant has opened near Barcelona - said to be the biggest of its type in Europe - to ease chronic water shortages." Officials say that the plant, which "went into operation" early this week, "will provide 24% of the water consumed in the Barcelona area," or about "200m litres (44m gallons) of drinking water daily for the city's 4.5 million people." Meanwhile, two other "desalination plants are being built in the Catalonia region."

Florida Local Governments Looking Into Desalination.
The DeLand-Deltona Beacon (FL) (5/12, Everson) reports, "Uncertain about the area's future water needs, Volusia County has cautiously expressed interest in a possible desalination plant in Flagler County to treat ocean water for use in homes and businesses." So far, "several localities are taking part in the preliminary discussions about the Coquina Coast Desalination Project," and "the exact price tag of Coquina Coast is not yet known, but Volusia County Utilities Director Gloria Marwick said she has heard estimates as high as $1 billion." In addition, "the refined water from Coquina Coast will be quite expensive - perhaps too pricey - for both the utilities buying it and the customers paying for it." It is expected that future water needs and technological improvements will narrow the gap.

Tampa Considers Treating Wastewater For Drinking Supplies.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (5/8, Zink) reports that Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda "revived a decades-old proposal to send treated wastewater back into the public drinking water supply," saying that "this is the only way for the city...to become self-sufficient and not have to spend more money buying water." Tampa "currently dumps 55 million gallons of treated wastewater into Tampa Bay each day. The water is purified to the point that it can be used on lawns, but the city's reclaimed water system reaches only about 8,000 property owners." While, according to Miranda, "it will never be financially feasible to expand the system enough to maximize the use of the water," it can "make financial sense to build a wastewater treatment plant to further purify the water. The water could be put back into the ground, where it would be naturally filtered before reaching the Hillsborough River and treated again before heading to customer's taps."

San Diego Poll Shows Increased Support For Recycled Sewage.
According to the results (pdf) of a public opinion poll released last week by the San Diego County Water Authority, the Voice of San Diego (4/24, Davis) reported, "63 percent of respondents" support "the use of recycled sewage to boost drinking water supplies. That's up from 28 percent in 2005." However, "more of the public (17.9 percent) sees seawater desalination as the most critical thing the authority could do to secure water supplies than those who believe the answer is using recycled water (3.7 percent)." In regards to saving water, "more residents said they'd save water by cutting indoors," such as taking shorter showers, than outdoor options such as "cutting irrigation."

Florida Utility Considers Desalination Project.
The Florida Times-Union (4/22, Hunt) reported, "Northeast Florida could be tapping the Atlantic Ocean for drinking water within the next two decades," according to Kirby Green, executive director of the St. Johns River Water Management District. The article noted that desalination is "one of the more sensitive areas for JEA (Jacksonville Electric Authority) customers," who "are facing rate hikes of about 45 percent - roughly 10 percent annually over the next four years." Also, "building a desalination plant would make for a hefty capital investment at a time the utility's water and sewer debt - $2.4 billion - is projected to go into default if revenues don't increase."

Florida Utility Considers Desalination.
The Florida Times-Union (4/22, Hunt) reports on the possibility of using desalination to make use of Atlantic Ocean water in Northeast Florida. Kirby Green, executive director of the St. Johns River Water Management District, said, "It's not a question of 'will it happen?'" adding, "it can take seven to 12 years to get a desalination plant going." JEA CEO Jim Dickenson said that "the utility should still ask customers to cut back on water use when they can," in order to "protect groundwater and avoid the need to build desalination equipment." JEA customers "are facing rate hikes of about 45 percent -- roughly 10 percent annually over the next four years," while the utility "has released one estimate suggesting that preparing seawater for household use could carry 12 times the cost of conventional groundwater." That estimate is presented as questionable, but JEA spokeswoman Gerri Boyce said that the figure "includes one-time plant construction and engineering estimates on a plant capable of producing 15 million gallons daily."

Interior Secretary Calls For Modernization Of California Water System.
The AP (4/16) reports, "Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urged California on Wednesday to modernize its antiquated water system," and pledged "$260 million in federal stimulus money to help finance projects aimed at relieving the state's water woes." The Interior Secretary noted "California's massive system of reservoirs, pumps and canals, built a half century ago, was designed for a population half the size of the state's 37.7 million." The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, "which provides water to nearly two-thirds of all Californians, has become a highly troubled resource. Three years of below-average precipitation have wreaked havoc on its habitat and water supply. Urban and agricultural pollution are problems."

According to the Los Angeles Times (4/16, Chong, Boxall), $40 million of the money will go "for groundwater pumping and other projects to ease effects of the drought. Salazar also announced a "$29.4-million budget for improving the national and international earthquake monitoring network," saying, "With nearly 75 million Americans living within earthquake-prone areas, this investment is long overdue." An official "who coordinates the Advanced National Seismic System for the U.S. Geological Survey," said that roughly "two-thirds of the money will go toward modernizing seismic networks across the United States." The New York Times (4/16, A19, Barringer, McKinley) also reports the story.

California Area Studying Desalination Sustainability.
The Santa Cruz (CA) Sentinel (4/13, Bookwalter) reported on a "yearlong pilot project commissioned by the Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek water districts to learn if desalination is an option for the water-starved agencies." At the end of the project, later this week, "water will stop flowing through various tubes and membranes at the Long Marine Lab desalination plant," and also "tanks will be taken apart, pipes dismantled and the building the plant stands in will be torn down." While final conclusions "are still weeks away, Santa Cruz water chief Bill Kocher deemed the experiment a resounding success," and said "the quality of desalinated water provided by the small treatment plant justifies moving toward a larger, permanent plant that, at its peak, could churn out 2.5 million gallons of fresh water per day."

Florida Water Utility Makes Last Withdrawal From Near-Empty Reservoir.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (3/14, Pittman) reported that as of last week, "Tampa Bay Water has virtually drained its 15 billion-gallon reservoir. From now until the summer rainy season, it must rely on its two remaining sources of water: its sometimes troubled desalination plant and the dwindling supply in the underground aquifer." According to the article, "the regional utility expects to again ask the Southwest Florida Water Management District to impose the toughest watering restrictions in history on Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough county residents." The Times noted, "The reservoir, which covers about 1,100 acres in rural Fort Lonesome, is normally filled with water from rainfall, the Hillsborough and Alafia rivers and the Tampa Bypass Canal. But an ongoing drought, which started three years ago, has left all those sources depleted."

Taxpayers Association Opposes Desalination Project.
The Marin (CA) Independent Journal (3/5, Crane) reported, "Marin United Taxpayers Association (MUTA) steadfastly opposes building a large permanent desalination plant near the Central Marin Sanitary Agency plant in San Rafael." The MUTA argued that "going high-tech environmental for fresh water in Marin when other options are available during a period of wartime and downward spiraling economy is irresponsible." The association "believes that using less water -- is the cheapest, fastest and most ecologically friendly way to stem Marin Municipal Water District's identified water shortfall of 6,700 acre-feet per year by 2025."
 

End Of Chapter -  Sea Water Desalination, Water Shortages, Recycling, Sterilization