Could ocean water desalination end the fight over water rights to the Colorado River, eliminate the need for new canals and pipelines to bring water to southern California and even allow for the return of stretches of biologically damaged parts of the Sacramento River delta to healthy wetlands?
The company is now growing its portfolio from municipal wastewater projects to include industrial contracts, desalination and water-reuse projects.
Ocean water desalination will not be a viable source of water for agriculture for decades.
FORBES: Drill It, Dam it, Log It: How To Fight Eco-Tyranny In America
California's Department of Water Resources says it would like ocean water desalination to add 500, 000 acre-feet a year of water to the Golden State's supplies, a modest amount compared with California's overall water consumption.
In federal water desalination policy, why the politically preferred brackish groundwater desalination instead of seawater?
FORBES: Barack Obama's BRAIN Initiative Vs. Bioengineered Gills And One-Wheeled SegWays
Last month the University of Johannesburg narrowly defeated a motion to cancel its water desalination research agreement with Ben-Gurion University.
Altela provides on-site water desalination to mining and oil and gas companies.
Just north of San Diego, on a site overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Poseidon Resources is building the biggest water desalination plant in the United States.
Its polymer technology also carries the potential for other application markets, including water desalination, ultra-capacitors and energy generation, chemical and biohazard resistant fabrics, and immersion coatings.
In Corralejo, a wind farm is associated to a water desalination plant, while the University of La Laguna is developing a biofuel production project using jatropha curas seeds.
Israel is a world leader in water desalination and recycling.
One executive wished for a "fountain of youth" pill, while another wished for a simple, cheap means of water desalination, a technology that could transform the lives of millions of the world's poor.
Such an approach can help use less water, eliminating the needs for capital-heavy investment such as desalination projects or long water pipelines.
Qatar gets 100 percent of its drinking water from desalination, and concentrated brine is expelled into the Persian Gulf.
FORBES: Should Countries With No Water Be Pushing for Growth?
Desalination removes salt by forcing water against a membrane to remove salts via reverse osmosis.
The only means to increase fresh water supply, desalination, requires big energy supplies.
FORBES: Barrick's Reverse Midas Touch And Other Golden Rules
Opponents of the method, however, are saying that the conversion process uses great amounts of fossil fuels and that it harms marine life through its vast duct system whereby it pipes water into the desalination facilities.
FORBES: San Diego Fishing for Fresh Drinking Water in Pacific Ocean
People in the main cities now have enough water, thanks to desalination, though they still have to pay for it.
While low flow fixtures, rainfall collection, and solar panels help to conserve water and energy, the desalination plant and wind farm that were part of the original plan are the kinds of large-scale facilities that would make this community truly stand out as a worldwide front-runner in sustainability.
FORBES: Will Loreto, Mexico Be One Of The World's Most Sustainable Urban Destinations?
The lake is an industrial byproduct of the desalination system used to meet the UAE's water needs.
At the same time, South East Water is planning to pilot a small desalination plant in Newhaven, East Sussex.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Magazine | Turning sea-water into tap water
Furthermore, even 20 desalination plants would only add a cup to California's water bucket.
More than one million people, it says, will be supplied this summer with water from Britain's first large-scale desalination plant in east London.
And unless you want to lick rainwater from leaves, make sure the island has ample potable water, or you'll be installing a desalination facility.
Why not ditch desalination altogether for investment in Great Lakes-to-Southwest water transport pipelines parallel to the Keystone XL or other proposed corridors, repair of leaky existing infrastructure, or cargo shipping?
FORBES: Barack Obama's BRAIN Initiative Vs. Bioengineered Gills And One-Wheeled SegWays
Bolting cooling facilities onto an OTEC generator, and also using some of the resulting power for desalination on islands like the Bahamas that are short of fresh water, helps tip the economic balance in favour of OTEC.
Desalination technology has historically been more widely embraced by countries with scarce water resources, such as the Middle East.
While large-scale desalination is not uncommon in those parts of the world where natural water resources are scarce -- such as Texas and Australia -- the UAE is by some margin, according to Iannelli, the industry's most active player.
CNN: Counting the carbon cost of bringing water to the desert
Israel could also help Syria use whatever water it still has, or is able to produce through desalination and recycling more wisely through drip irrigation - which was invented in Israel.
He says only General Electric would be large enough to swallow American Water Works whole, but companies like GE, ITT Industries and 3M have not shown previous interest in water utility assets, preferring to stick to water industrial assets--e.g. filtration, desalination and instrumentation markets.
应用推荐