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The California Coastal Commission will decide whether to permit a proposed Marina desalination plant on Thursday. But the mayor of Marina, Bruce Carlos Delgado, plans to fight it. "Marina gets none of the water, but all of the harm," Delgado said. "Our air, our coastline, our groundwater is threatened, our vertical pools will dry up. The walking path to the beach will be past industrial facilities that Monterey and Carmel will never allow on their beaches." The project was proposed by California American Water, which would use the plant to deliver millions of gallons of water to about 100,000 of...

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A California coastal panel on Thursday rejected a long-standing proposal to build a $1.4 billion seawater desalination plant to turn Pacific Ocean water into drinking water as the state grapples with persistent drought that is expected to worsen in coming years with climate change. The state’s Coastal Commission voted unanimously to deny a permit for Poseidon Water to build a plant to produce 50 million gallons of water a day in Huntington Beach, southeast of Los Angeles. Poseidon said it was disappointed in the decision. “California continues to face a punishing drought, with no end...

Could the holy grail of turning salt water to drinkable water finally be upon us? A new report from Interesting Engineering seems to suggest that could be the case – detailing a new nanofiber membrane, developed by Yunchul Woo and his team at the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, that appears to be “stable in the long term” for desalinization. And it can be done “in minutes”, the report says. Membranes had been used in the past, but there is often a challenge in keeping them dry for long periods of time. When they become wet, their...

Graphene, the much-hailed wonder material, may be the solution to the world’s water crisis. One in nine people around the world do not have access to clean, safe water close to their homes and at least 2 billion people are forced to use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. Dirty water is a serious public health concern and drinking or washing in dirty water spreads diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid. Contaminated drinking water causes over 500,000 deaths each year from diarrhoea, a leading killer of children under five. First developed by scientists at the University of Manchester...

Cape Town, South Africa, July 9 “Day Zero.” That’s when water taps throughout the city are expected to go dry before Israel declared statehood in 1948, its leaders focused on water security as closely as they did military preparedness. Israel is in the fifth year of drought, today citizens can reliably count on abundant water. Cape Town another story. reservoirs began receding more than two years ago. This problem turned into a crisis because of subsidy-distorted water pricing, inefficient irrigation, and a lack of desalination facilities and a long-term plan. In 2016 officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry recognized the problem...

Scientists, including those from Northeastern University in the U.S., developed carbon nanotube pores that can exclude salt from seawater. The team found that water permeability in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with diameters of 0.8 nanometre significantly exceeds that of wider carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes, hollow structures made of carbon atoms in a unique arrangement, are more than 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. The super smooth inner surface of the nanotube is responsible for their remarkably high water permeability, while the tiny pore size blocks larger salt ions. “We found that carbon nanotubes with diameters smaller than a nanometre bear...

Researchers at Penn State, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company have developed methods to control defects in two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, that may lead to improved membranes for water desalination, energy storage, sensing or advanced protective coatings. For a two-dimensional, one-atom-thick material like graphene, defects such as small cracks or holes can make a big difference in performance. Usually, these defects are considered undesirable. But if the defects can be controlled, they can be used to engineer new, desirable properties into the material. "As long as you can control defects, you...

Among Manchester’s proudest scientific developments has to be graphene - it’s very own homegrown wonder material first isolated by scientists at the University of Manchester back in 2004. A material made from a single atom layer of carbon that is super lightweight, super conductive and super strong, it seems to have endless capabilities in the modern world - from smart clothing to intergalactic exploration. Twelve years after its discovery via a sticky tape dispenser - and six years since its developers Andre Geim (pictured below) and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics - and interest in graphene...

Increasing water scarcity is driving innovations in water production technologies, according to analysis by Frost & Sullivan that finds accelerated movement towards wastewater reuse and advanced water recycling technologies. Innovations in Water Production and Its Impact on Key Sectors finds that advancements in technologies, chemicals and processes are addressing the three most difficult challenges in water production. These are: â—¾the removal of nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus compounds in open body water sources â—¾sustainable desalination â—¾the removal of emerging chemical compounds from drinking water The report says the water production space as a whole is shifting toward renewable energy-based solutions to...

Producing fresh drinking water from the sea - desalination - has always seemed to be the most obvious answer to water shortages.Our oceans cover more than 70% of the earth's surface and contain 97% of its water. But the energy needed to achieve this seemingly simple process has been costly. Now, thanks to new technologies, costs have been halved and huge desalination plants are opening around the world.The largest seawater desalination plant ever, Israel's Sorek plant near Tel Aviv, just ramped up to full production. It will make 624 million litres of drinkable water daily, and sell 1,000 litres -...

n a Mediterranean beach 10 miles south of Tel Aviv, Israel, a vast new industrial facility hums around the clock. It is the world’s largest modern seawater desalination plant, providing 20 percent of the water consumed by the country’s households. Built for the Israeli government by Israel Desalination Enterprises, or IDE Technologies, at a cost of around $500 million, it uses a conventional desalination technology called reverse osmosis (RO). Thanks to a series of engineering and materials advances, however, it produces clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved. Worldwide, some 700 million people don’t...

Liberal policies turn a small problem into a statewide crisis.My family and I are in Los Angeles this week for some meetings concerning a super-secret venture, which, dude . . . it's super-secret! (But it won't be for long.)But one of the first things that became clear when we got here is that the state is in the midst of a water crisis - one so serious that Gov. Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown has imposed an unprecedented set of restrictions on the use of water. Friends we visited for Easter tell us the state isn't messing around. They send inspectors around...

The California Coastal Commission approved a plan to build the Western Hemisphere's largest desalination plant north of San Diego -- a move aimed at relieving water shortages in the nation's most populated state. Wednesday's decision came after a daylong debate over the merits of the $300 million Carlsbad project, which is expected to eventually produce 10 percent of San Diego County's water supply from ocean water. Construction on the plant could begin next year and begin delivering drinking water in 2011, according to Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources Corp., which is heading the project. Commissioners gave the plant conditional approval in November....

Windmill With A Twist Can Provide Fresh Water From Seawater DirectlyThe first prototype has been built and is already working at a location near the A13 motorway near Delft. This prototype is to be dismantled and transported to Curaçao the first week of March. There the concept will be tested on seawater. (Credit: Image courtesy of Delft University of Technology) ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2008) — A traditional windmill which drives a pump: that is the simple concept behind the combination of windmill/reverse osmosis developed by the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in The Netherlands. In this case, it involves...

Hong Kong could begin to feel the pinch of increased water demand in the mainland as early as five years from now, an academic has warned. Hong Kong University associate professor of geography Frederick Lee Yok-shiu said he estimates mainland authorities may decrease the supply to Hong Kong in favor of Pearl River Delta cities such as Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou within the next five to seven years. "Five, six, or seven years down the line, increasing competition may lead to a change in the way water (from Guangdong) is going to be distributed among the different cities," Lee told...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. A feasibility study has been carried out and talks are underway between US and Mexican water authorities over possible construction of a desalination plant that could supply both sides of the border. The proposed plant would serve the respective Mexican and US cities of Tijuana and San Diego, the latter's Otay water district general manager, Mark Watton, told BNamericas. A general feasibility study into a desalination plant at Rosarito has already been concluded by Otay officials along with their Mexican counterparts from the national water commission (CNA) and Tijuana state public...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - California's epic quest for water, made more pressing by a Western drought and a cutback in the Colorado River supply, is turning toward what many see as an obvious source: the Pacific Ocean. For the most part, desalination has long been prohibitively expensive as a source of drinking water in California. But rising demand, dwindling supply, and new technology that makes it cheaper to take the salt out of sea water are changing the economics of desalination. ``It is expensive, but it's not something of the other world anymore,'' said Adan Ortega, a spokesman for the...