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The mighty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California agreed this week to pony up $14 million per year - or $350 million over the next 25 years, if you prefer to think of it that way - to pay for desalinated water in San Diego County. That money will go to public entities - cities and water districts - to offset the cost of water they’ll buy from a private, yet-to-be-built, desalination plant in Carlsbad. That plant will be constructed and owned by Poseidon Resources LLC. If this Poseidon thing rings a bell, it’s not just becuase you remember Shelley...

Environmentalists concerned about the threat to its unique eco-system. Water levels in the lowest and saltiest body of water on the planet are falling by more than four feet a year, giving rise to quips that the Dead Sea is dying. The government in Amman has said it is planning to extract more than 10 billion cubic feet a year from the Red Sea 110 miles to the south, feed most of it into a desalination plant to create drinking water, and send the salty waste-water left over to the Dead Sea by tunnel. Similar plans are already the subject...

A landmark desalination project gained final approval from regulators Wednesday, bringing the promise of an entirely new supply of water to San Diego County ---- and perhaps one of many in water-short California. But opposition to the plant, including legal action, continues. And the company that wants to build the $300 million plant in coastal Carlsbad still needs to raise the money. On Wednesday, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control board unanimously approved a permit for the plant. It had already considered the proposal twice this year. The permit approves a plan by Poseidon Resources Corp. to reduce the...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked President Barack Obama to declare a federal disaster in the drought-stricken heart of the state's agricultural industry. As well as requesting federal support for parched Fresno County, Schwarzenegger also issued a local order allowing for emergency state funds to be made available to the region, part of California's Central Valley. "California's Central Valley is our nation's agricultural engine and unemployment here is devastating the economy and hurting the people of California," said Schwarzenegger. "These are dire circumstances -- no water means no work -- and no work means people cannot...

AboutAbout Categories Algae to Oilmembrane research LLNL Research MSSCpipelinesturning saltwater in fireUncategorizedWater Desalination Research and Development Archives April 2009February 2009January 2009December 2008November 2008October 2008September 2008August 2008July 2008June 2008April 2008February 2008January 2008December 2007November 2007October 2007September 2007August 2007July 2007June 2007May 2007April 2007March 2007February 2007January 2007December 2006November 2006October 2006September 2006August 2006July 2006June 2006 Meta Log inRSSComments RSSValid XHTMLXFNWP US bill seeks major desalination research expansion 02nd April 2009 Before I get started let me show you some serious eye candy I found this past month. The noise to signal ratio for the last couple of years on global warming is running about...

Sen. Ken Salazar DOI Steven Chu DOE In my last post, I mentioned a number of popular ideas to advance alternative energy development. But I didn’t attribute them because nothing had been written of incoming administration officials as yet. A couple of days later several major newspapers mentioned ideas of incoming administration officials which included ideas I talked about. So I inserted these in my last post. If you went to my last post early check back. (Just skim down and check  the writing in block quotes.) This week’s post includes a piece from the Wall St Journal which mentions another...

An important California reservoir is nearing its lowest level in 30 years, and other state reservoirs also are very low – more evidence of a gathering water crisis that could lead to mandatory rationing in Southern California by next year, state officials say. The Oroville Reservoir in Northern California, a major supply reservoir for water that eventually flows into the Southern California region, is down to 38 percent of its capacity, according to the state Department of Water Resources. By Sept. 30, Oroville, about 75 miles north of Sacramento, is expected to hit its lowest level since 1977, and by...

CARLSBAD – A private company's proposal to build the nation's largest drinking water desalination plant at Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad cleared its final hurdles yesterday before the California Coastal Commission. ... The $300 million plant envisioned by Poseidon Resources Inc. of Stamford, Conn., would produce 50 million gallons of drinking water each day, enough to supply 112,000 households. Nine local water agencies have collectively contracted to buy the plant's entire output of drinking water. ... The commission's resolution of those issues Wednesday set a precedent for how the agency will handle about 20 other desalination projects that could be...

CARLSBAD – The developer of a proposed power plant in Carlsbad plans to float a familiar idea to provide water for its generators: desalinate ocean water. NRG Energy has applied to the California Energy Commission to build a 540-megawatt power plant west of Interstate 5 on the south shore of Agua Hedionda Lagoon. The new plant would be on NRG's 95-acre ocean-view property, where it owns and operates the 965-megawatt Encina Power Station. That power plant is best known for its 400-foot-tall smokestack, visible for miles. The new plant would replace three of Encina's five steam-driven turbines, so the old...

Here's one one interesting idea for getting water to desert regions. Consider gypsum. There's lots of it in the southwest. The chemical formula for gypsum is CaSO4.2H2O. Notice the H20 on the end? Gypsum is 20% water by weight. Did you know that you can quickly cook the water out of gypsum at 212F degrees 100C . Gypsum occurs in flat planes often not far from the surface--especially in old dry lakebeds. You could cook those planes. Leaving a mineral residue called bassanite--water would percolate up and the earth would subside causing a lake. Think you could find a heat...

Two parched years - punctuated by the driest spring in at least 150 years - could force districts across California to ration water this summer as policymakers and scientists grow increasingly concerned that the state is on the verge of a long-term drought. State water officials reported Thursday that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of a huge portion of California's water supply, was only 67 percent of normal, due in part to historically low rainfall in March and April. With many reservoirs at well-below-average levels from the previous winter and a federal ruling limiting water pumped from the Sacramento-San...

While a growing number of countries have announced their civilian nuclear energy ambitions over the past twelve months, no other country is likely to have more of a psychological impact on the nuclear energy picture than Saudi Arabia. We believe the Kingdom’s natural gas and water problems will lead them to nuclear, sooner rather than later, probably as early as this year. After our interview with Kevin Bambrough, which resulted in the widely read article, ‘Explosion in Nuclear Energy Demand Coming,” we began more deeply researching Bambrough’s conclusion. He believes the overwhelming growth in nuclear energy will continue to drive...

Lake Meade IIPosted February 17, 2008 by Categories: Water Desalination Research and Development Last April the New York Times ran an article on the western drought. However, here’s the first official study I’ve seen of the effects of rising demand and falling supply on Lake Meade. Its put out by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Perhaps reports like this were why Patricia Mulroy, General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority communicated the urgent need for action over the next 10 years at the MSSC in January. Across the net you could find people who would dispute...

Hoover DamPosted January 25, 2008 by Categories: Water Desalination Research and Development p1160270.jpgWell I’ve had a little time to think about the MSSC Desalination Summit in Las Vegas Jan 16-18. I asked the same kinds of questions at this meeting as I did last August at the annual American Membrane Association conference. The effect was almost the same. Almost — but not quite. Patricia Mulroy, General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority communicated the urgent need for action over the next 10 years. Also, it seemed a few of the guys at the conference caught a glimmer of what...

MSSC Salinity Summit 2008Posted January 11, 2008 by Categories: Water Desalination Research and Development Last February I wrote a piece called California Solar’s Revolutionary Energy Business Model for Desalination PumpsYuck. Lousy title.The point of the piece was that sometime in the future California public utilities might be able to offload a part of their energy costs for pipeline pumping–by using net metering.Along the way I mentioned that photo voltaic companies like NanoSolar would be collapsing the cost of solar power. This past December NanoSolar made good on their promise. Nanosolar (as recorded in Popular Science Magazine) is now producing solar...

State governments looking for ways to cope with severe drought in the Southeast should consider using nuclear power to desalinate seawater. This is a safe and proven technology that the U.S. Navy has been using for more than a half-century to provide drinking water for the crews of its nuclear-powered submarines. Until a few years ago, the water debate here in Georgia was conducted in an almost surreal atmosphere. We appeared to have sufficient supplies of water to meet our needs, and most of us seemed to feel that this state of affairs would continue indefinitely. By definition, miracles do...

Kanzius and Penn State Chemist Rostum RoyPosted September 14th, 2007 by Categories: Water Desalination Research and Development Back in June I posted extensively about John Kanzius RF machine that cracked hydrogen out of saltwater. His last comments at the time were that he believed that his device had achieved unity–and therefor he would go silent. (That is, unlike electrolysis which is about 72% efficient–Kanzius believed his machine was +100–meaning he believed his machine produced more energy than it consumed. Needless to say, everyone around the net has said this is impossible.)There have been a flurry of new articles this week...

I've been in Las Vegas this week for an American Membrane Technology Association desalination conference. I'll leave today for home haunts in Mclean, VA. Flying in on Monday from the east coast the old desert valleys of western Utah and Nevada look like old dead lakes. Come to think of it -- they are old dead lakes. Except there's a blue tangle of finger lakes among the carved brown mountains to the south. These mark Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Man made lakes. Both are now half full. There was a legislative breakfast on Wednesday morning. On the panel for...

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — On a one-acre site alongside a string of shrimp boats docked on the Brownsville ship channel stands a $2.2 million assembly of pipes, sheds, and humming machinery _ Texas' entree into global efforts to make sea water suitable to drink. Opening a small spigot at the end of a fat pipe, plant operator Joel del Rio fills a plastic glass with what he says will taste "like regular bottled water." "Sea water," he said. "It's never gonna run out." The plant is a pilot project for the state's $150 million, full-scale sea water desalination plant slated for...

Making drinking water out of sea water is a growing trend, but the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says it is a potential threat to the environment that also could exacerbate climate change. The global review of desalination plants worldwide: "Making water: Desalination -- option or distraction for a thirsty world?" -- states that some of the driest and thirstiest places are turning to desalination. These include regions where water problems affect large, populous areas -- Australia, the Middle East, Spain, the United Kingdom and United States, with India and China following suit. "Desalinating the sea is an expensive, energy-intensive and...

Australians Rejects Bulk Water Transfer in Favor of Desalination Research Last month the New York Times published an article about how the West is likely entering a prolonged period of water shortages. Similiar reports have recently been published in Australia detailing expected extended droughts over the next 50 years.The USA and Australia have responded to these reports in different ways.Several weeks ago I blogged about the current administration’s effort to push bulk water tranfers from Canada. This week Australia announced they were about to embark on a major desalination research project with the view of spending $250 million over seven...

Desalination VS Water Transfers A couple weeks back I blogged about a widely published report that held that the west was entering into a prolonged drying spell. The New York Times detailed solutions being proposed & implimented that included desalination.What was not mentioned was an idea that will be bandied about during a meeting in Calgary. That meeting will be held next week in Calgary. It addresses the idea of massive water transfers from Canada to the USA & Mexico to address water shortages. You won’t hear about it south of the border however. The only place this is mentioned...

Ok lets get the 5% wrong part out of the way. Both Newt and Kerry agreed that the current warming goes back 400 years. It only goes back about 200. Current reseach shows that there was a cooling period or mini ice age from the early 1400's to the early 1800's. Up until about 1810 the Thames River in England froze over sufficiently for London to have fairs on the river annually. After about 1810 those fairs ended. The ice was not solid enough to support the people. Both Kerry and Newt agreed that carbon dioxide has gone up since...

ASHKELON, Israel - Israel displayed its best desalination plant to visiting diplomats Thursday, marking International Water Day by demonstrating how the desert nation keeps from shriveling in the sun. The plant, at the southern port of Ashkelon, turns 330,000 cubic meters of Mediterranean seawater into fresh water every day for about 53 cents each — compared to 80 cents at other plants, according to an official from the company that built the Israeli facility. Ezra Barkai, desk manager for IDE technologies, said the plant uses the common reverse osmosis technology that pushes water through a series of filters to remove...

Greenhouses For Desalinised Water & Oil. This week, let’s take a more in depth look at using greenhouses to tap oceans or briny aquifers to produce desalinised water and energy.Several weeks back I posted about a British Company that used greenhouses for water desalination to produce high value fruits and vegetables. Another thing those green houses could produce is biocrude/biodiesal from algae. Why?Consider this from Wikipedia. Oil Yield Cultivating Algae for Liquid Fuel Production (http://oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm) Gallons of Oil per Acre per Year Corn . . . . . . . 18 Soybeans . . . .48 Safflower. . . ....

Engineers develop revolutionary nanotech water desalination membrane UCLA Engineering's Eric Hoek holds nanoparticles and a piece of his new RO water desalination membrane. Credit: UCLA Engineering/Don Liebig Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science today announced they have developed a new reverse osmosis (RO) membrane that promises to reduce the cost of seawater desalination and wastewater reclamation. Reverse osmosis desalination uses extremely high pressure to force saline or polluted waters through the pores of a semi-permeable membrane. Water molecules under pressure pass through these pores, but salt ions and other impurities cannot, resulting in...

Desalination roadmap seeks technological solutions to increase the nation’s water supply 07.06.2006 Sandia researchers ready to complete research roadmap After one last meeting in San Antonio in April, Sandia National Laboratories researchers Pat Brady and Tom Hinkebein are putting the final touches on the updated Desalination and Water Purification Roadmap -- "Roadmap 2" -- that should result in more fresh water in parts of the world where potable water is scarce. The updated roadmap is the result of three previous meetings -- two in San Diego and one in Tampa -- and the last held in April where many government...

A controversial proposal to build what would be the largest desalination plant in the nation along the Huntington Beach coastline was approved early today after months of raucous debate. The Huntington Beach City Council voted 4 to 3 to approve permits for Poseidon Resources Corp. to build a $250-million desalination facility next to the AES power station on Pacific Coast Highway at the city's southern edge. The desalination plant would produce as much as 50 million gallons of fresh water daily by tapping ocean water already pumped into the power station to cool the huge electrical facility. The plant still...

They took a bucket of muddy, bacteria-laden water. Added a bit of white powder. Stirred. And within minutes, standing amid 100 refugees in war-torn Liberia, researchers from Johns Hopkins University had produced what seemed like a magic trick: Clear, drinkable water. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it," Hopkins researcher Shannon Doocy said of her work last year. "The people in Liberia couldn't believe it." The powder, developed by Procter & Gamble Co. with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is now headed for its biggest test yet: the tsunami zone. Relief agencies, led by AmeriCares of...

At the beginning of the 21st century, South Asia and the Middle East pose major challenges to international peace and security. Amid many turbulent political and military developments in the two regions, India and Israel find a growing convergence in their strategic interests. The emerging Delhi-Jerusalem strategic alliance is creating much concern in the Arab world, but could become one of the crucial factors maintaining global security. Relations between India and Israel remained cold and strained until recently. Delhi consistently felt itself constrained to develop normal and friendly ties with Jerusalem yet followed a pro-active pro-Arab policy. In the 1970s...

Singapore opens world's biggest desalination plant SINGAPORE, Sept. 13 KYODO Singapore on Tuesday opened its first desalination plant, believed to be the world's biggest, to reduce the tiny island-state's dependence on imported water. The SingSpring Desalination Plant, built at a cost of S$200 million (about $119 million), is located in Tuas in the western part of Singapore and can produce about 136,000 cubic meters of water per day.

Russia to build the world's first floating nuclear power plant 08/09/2005 17:24 MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti commentator Tatiana Sinitsyna). The Federal Nuclear Energy Agency has made a decision to build a low capacity floating nuclear power plant (FNPP). The plant will produce roughly 1/150th of the power produced by a standard Russian NPP (using a VVER-1000 water-cooled reactor). Construction could begin in 2006. The mini-station will be located in the White Sea, off the coast of the town of Severodvinsk (in the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia). It will be moored near the Sevmash plant, which is the main facility of...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - With another 20 million Californians expected by 2050, a state water official said changing sea water into tap water must play a more significant role to make sure there's enough drinking water for the burgeoning population. "We're living on finite water resources. I don't know where we're going to get that. To me, desalination in all its forms is going to have to play a much larger role," Pete Silva, vice chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, told scientists Monday. Silva, speaking at the International Salinity Forum at the Riverside Convention Center, said the...

Entrepreneur develops more efficient engine By Ed Taylor, Tribune Brian Hageman has devoted a good part of his life to building nuclear power plants. Now he is ready to commercialize a new type of engine that could drastically reduce the need for electricity — and save money in the process. Hageman is president and chief executive of Deluge, a Phoenix-based company that is preparing to bring its thermal hydraulic engine to the marketplace. Ten manufactured prototypes of the engine, which convert heat energy to mechanical energy without combustion, will be used to drive pumps at an old oil field on...

Locating desalination facilities next to coastal power generators could extend the use of intakes that kill marine life, environmentalists say. Standing tall on the seashore, the AES power plant, with its naked steel frame, has long been a generator of electricity in Huntington Beach and a killer of marine life. For decades, environmentalists have looked forward to the day when AES and other aging coastal power plants would close, eliminating the cooling water pipes that suck in and destroy tons of fish, seals, crustaceans, larvae and microorganisms every year. But a renewed interest in using old generating stations as bases...

The U.S. government plans to invest $250 million in a desalination facility in the Caesarea area to serve the Palestinian Authority. The facility, which will be close to the planned Hadera desalination plant, will provide 100 to 150 million cubic meters of drinking water annually to Palestinian West Bank residents. It is unclear what method will be used to construct the plant, one of the largest in the world. An international tender may be published, but the U.S. administration usually closes its tenders to foreign companies. Nor has it yet been determined whether the tender will be for construction of...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. IT'S getting cheaper to make seawater drinkable, and more expensive to get water the traditional way from the dam to the tap. Taking the salt out of water for drinking remained slightly more expensive than conventional water treatment methods, but the gap was closing, visiting international expert on desalination Tom Pankratz said in Sydney yesterday. "The cost of conventional treatment is increasing, while at the same time we're now able to take advantage of all the technical advances of desalination," said Mr Pankratz, who served on the US National Academy of...

Koeberg 'pebble bed' approved 10/06/2004 15:12 - (SA) Helmo Preuss Johannesburg - Cabinet has approved a programme to develop human capital and improve research and innovation in relation to the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) Project, which has been called the world's sexiest baby nuclear reactor by its proponents. The most immediate beneficiary of the cabinet decision will be technology group, IST (IST), who should now get a $260m contract for the design of three key systems for the full-scale demonstration plant at Koeberg. PBMR technology in South Africa has been under development for the past 10 years, while it...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Attorneys for Alabama and Florida asked a federal judge Wednesday to permanently bar the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from implementing a deal that would let the Atlanta area suck more water from a key reservoir on the Chattahoochee River. The two states, which are downstream from Georgia, want U.S. District Judge Karon O. Bowdre to prevent the federal agency from honoring its January 2003 agreement that would let the fast-growing metro area take as much as 50 percent more water from the corps-operated Lake Lanier, located northeast of Atlanta. The corps and the state of Georgia,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. MADRID (Reuters) - The world's fast-growing thirst for water can only be met by purifying sea water as rivers and reservoirs become unable to meet demand, Spain said on Thursday unveiling a major program to fight its own chronic shortages. Spain's Socialist government, elected in March, has ditched plans to reroute the country's longest river to irrigate its parched southeast, saying it would harm fragile wetlands in the north, cost too much and not provide enough water anyway. Under new proposals, a variety of smaller schemes to improve existing infrastructure and...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. ARAB COUNTRIES have become synonymous with oil production and wealth. With only 4.5 percent of the world´s population, they control up to half the world´s oil supply. Less well known, however, is the fact that they get only 2 percent of the world´s rainfall and have but 0.4 percent of the world´s recoverable water resources. Total water resources of the 22 Arab states is less than 150 billion cubic meters. An even greater shortage looms. With population expected to increase from its current 250 million to 600 million by 2030, Arabs´...

Most of the water we drink in San Diego County comes from the Colorado River. Seven other states and parts of Mexico also rely on the Colorado River for water. California must reduce its draw from the river, and the Interior Department is threatening to declare a Colorado River water shortage, which could further reduce California's share. Excessive reliance on imported water is unreliable. The San Diego County Water Authority has been working to supplement local supplies, including the water purchase agreement with the Imperial Valley. But this provides only stopgap relief. Desalination is a good alternative to imported water...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Growing population centers in Europe and climbing global temperatures are putting a strain on the continent's already stretched water resources. Desalination facilities are increasing being seen as one solution. The first associations one makes with London's weather are gray, overcast days interrupted by regular rainfall, but rarely a ray of sunshine. But in spite of the copious moisture an English day can bring with it, the British metropolis is actually starting to parch. Its booming population and climbing temperatures mean the city of eight million is facing a looming water shortage....

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County water board voted Thursday to spend nearly $2 billion in the next 15 years in hopes of achieving what has been a civic goal here since World War II: breaking the region's near-total dependence on the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Beyond just the historic antipathy San Diego feels toward Los Angeles, another factor motivating the normally pinch-penny San Diegans to go heavily into debt is the agency's failure to get the courts to overturn a policy that would allow Metropolitan to cut San Diego's water supply by an estimated...

Developers panic as Spain scraps river project Cabinet to opt for desalination to meet urgent water needs Giles Tremlett in Madrid Friday June 18, 2004 The Guardian Spain has decided to build about 20 desalination plants in an attempt to water its parched south-east without raiding the fast-running rivers of the relatively well-watered and prosperous north. A decree authorising a diversion from the Ebro river, put on hold when José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialist government took power, is expected to be struck out at a cabinet meeting today and replaced by a €3.7bn (£2.4bn) plan relying on many smaller schemes...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The new socialist government in Spain has renounced a bitterly contested project to divert water from the country's largest river basin in the north to the parched south-east, saying it would build desalination plants instead. The country's most important ecological group, Ecologistas En Accion, welcomed the scrapping of what it called the "pharaonic" water plan, a pet project of the previous conservative government that was strongly supported by the construction industry. The group said the government still had not learned that what the dry Mediterranean coast of Spain needs is not...

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL June 17, 2004 Current Operating Status Date: June 17, 2004 Contacts: Bill Kearney, Director of Media Relations Heather McDonald, Media Relations Assistant Office of News and Public Information 202-334-2138; e-mail FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New National Research Effort Needed to Secure Clean, Adequate Water Supply in Coming Decades WASHINGTON -- The United States needs to make a new commitment to research on water resources in order to confront the increasingly severe water problems faced by all parts of the country, says a new congressionally mandated report from...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Officials favor public agencies If private water companies are permitted to operate desalination plants along the California coast, the state could lose all rights to regulate those plants, a group of public water officials and environmentalists was told Friday. Once multinational water companies are allowed a foot in the desalination door, they will use international law to bypass state and local regulations, said Marc Del Piero, a former county supervisor and state Water Resources Control Board member who represents the publicly owned Pajaro-Sunny Mesa Community Services District. Sunny-Mesa is one of...

California thirsty for seawater Desalination plans alarm opponents of development California thirsty for seawater (Akron Beacon Journal photo by Bob Downing) May 3, 2004 By John Fleming Special to the Tribune Published May 3, 2004 MOSS LANDING, Calif. -- Water is everywhere along California's thirsty midsection and south, but not a drop to drink. Or to do the laundry, water the garden or drive explosive residential development and a huge industrial base. Yet as the unpotable Pacific sloshes up against the coast, a growing number of people are looking to the ocean to cure California's need for fresh water: Take...

Desalination plans alarm opponents of development MOSS LANDING, Calif. -- Water is everywhere along California's thirsty midsection and south, but not a drop to drink. Or to do the laundry, water the garden or drive explosive residential development and a huge industrial base. Yet as the unpotable Pacific sloshes up against the coast, a growing number of people are looking to the ocean to cure California's need for fresh water: Take out the salt and you have a virtually inexhaustible supply. Desalination has been used on a large-scale for decades in places such as the Middle East. And small facilities...