Posted on 02/03/2014 6:36:24 PM PST by BenLurkin
SANTA MONICA (CBSLA.com) — In light of California’s escalating drought emergency, the onetime dream of President John F. Kennedy of obtaining fresh water from salt water may become a reality in the very near future.
The process of getting usable fresh water from salt water, called desalination, stems from a technology that is already accepted worldwide, according to UCLA Professor of Chemistry and Bio-Molecular Engineering, Youram Cohen.
“It’s a technology that is now in widespread use all around the world, and I think that, in time, this is what we will see,” Cohen said.
UCLA has reportedly developed a number of small desalination plants, including one at Port Hueneme near Ventura, that are said to be capable of producing clean drinking water for up to 24,000 people each day at a fraction of the cost of ground water that is imported by municipal water districts in California.
“It is a lot cheaper than bottled water, and, I should say, that water is very tasty,” Cohen said.
Additionally, contrary to the idea that desalination plants may be harmful to the environment, Professor Cohen says that global evidence suggests that the discharge from desalination plants may actually be beneficial to marine life.
“The Australians will show you that marine life is (thriving more) in the area of discharge from the desalination plants than elsewhere,” Cohen suggested.
A number of environmental organizations, however, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Orange County Coast Keeper, are yet to be convinced of the potential benefits of desalination.
“Our stance on desalination plants is that it is a potential source for the future,” Orange County Coast Keeper’s Ray Hiemstra said. “We have a lot of work to do in developing desalination technology to where it is not as expensive and better for the environment. So, that’s what we need to do; experiment, find out what’s going to work and take our time and it will be a source for the future.”
California’s first major desalination plant is currently under construction in Carlsbad, with a scheduled launch date some time in 2016, after a number of regulations are met.
While a number of scientists and environmentalists believe desalination is the technological wave of the future, the debate over when, or if, that future will ever become reality, continues.
I never understood why a lifeboat wouldn’t have a water desalination system to desalinate sea water
a shallow amount of salt water over a black surface in the sun would evaporate quickly... have a collector to grab the steam and condense. it would also double as a solar collector for electricity. of course, this woukd only work in bright sunny areas
of course, if you could generate enough power, you could desalinate using electricity
Israel does it quite well.
Thanx. Chula Vista wants to turn their shore into a tourist destination. They will not get the charger stadium, but may build a couple of resort hotels.
They should build a desalt plant also.
The one in Carlsbad will provide up to 10% of the county’s water supply. So we need a few more pants. SD has the lowest amount of ground water of any county along the coast.
If we built enough plants we could take care of Imperial County.
Recently looked it up. Utilities in CA are presently paying about $2.50 per 1000 gallons for water. Desal can supposedly be implemented for around $3.75.
You can never tell about sea salt -- it's sneaky.
The Confederacy had salt works along the Florida Gulf coast during the War Between the States. All they had to do was boil the seawater off leaving salt.
With the brine at a high concentration, it would be easy to boil it off. Maybe the salt is not worth it for what it would take to get it.
Here is an article on the Carlsbad plant.
http://astoundingideasmarineresources.blogspot.com/2013/06/atmospheric-and-terrestrial.html
I guess I’m proud to say that I, and the crew that I led, broke ground and installed the underslab utilities in that very Port Hueneme facility. I alway thought it was a good idea, and a badly needed solution to the problem of “water everywhere, but nothing to drink”
There is a salt works in Kansas where all they have to do is spray the brine up in the air and the salt falls down dry. The brine obviously has a lot of salt in it and the air is dry.
“Is this a new technology that is less expensive?”
Not new, but improved. Reverse osmosis has been continuously improved since its invention in the 1960’s. The main driver of cost are energy inputs and the goal is to reduce the amount of energy required per cubic meter of fresh water produced. Israel has been a world leader in building massive RO plants with the latest and most efficient technologies, and is said to now have an actual water surplus because of this.
Any coastal area should be able to get desalination done with minimal energy expenditure if they could just get turbines to harvest the energy of the tides and currents and use that energy to power the plants, supplementing it with grid electric as needed and selling any excess energy back to the power companies.
Heck, they could even do some simple evaporation pools to augment their clean water output.
Thanks, cnm.
I’ve been intimately involved with RO from original patents through all of the GE acquisitions, and I’m looking for details on these improvements. The article offers nothing meaningful that I can find.
Any links or more info?
Much obliged...
Ok, what is the process? Did I miss it in the article?
Didn't I just read an article dealing with Israel having so much fresh water from their desalination plants that the cost of water is dropping and they have excess to sell?
Actually you just need an anode because the seawater itself is the electrolyte. Not much current there but -
It is California so your first spelling was acceptable.
I work in Carlsbad and drive by this construction project frequently. It seems to be progressing nicely, and I’m happy to say that the end product will not be piped to Orange County.
Didn’t I just read an article dealing with Israel having so much fresh water from their desalination plants that the cost of water is dropping and they have excess to sell?
Yes, you did.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3118303/posts
We will desalinize lots of water within a decade on the California coast. Will probably see the same in Texas. The Grand Coulee/Columbia Basin development has been very successful in promoting agriculture and there is no reason the same thing should not happen in California and Texas.
The price should go down for water, but I suspect it will end up like gasoline/diesel now - an easy vehicle for the government to levy outrageous taxes.
P.S. - some environmentalists are now telling us we will have “peak water” and we are going to run out. I laugh at them. The technology exists now to greatly reduce water waste through inefficient farm irrigation with t-tape and other drip irrigation methods. I don’t pretend to know the exact figures, but I have read that we waste more than 75% of our water in activities such as showers, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and washing our cars. However, the biggest area for saving water will be improved farm irrigation. We currently use old methods and equipment that basically drench the topsoil instead of target the roots.
Technology will provide the answers for many of societies potential ills. Too bad it does not work like that for morals!
Or even a buy product.
That's what I thought, but it looks like some folks are aware of a new improvement and I'm trying to find out about it.
Salt is salt no matter where it comes from, NaCl.
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