Ethical decision making constructing the Wonthaggi Desalination Plant
Executive Summary
Water Forever is a media group writing for a business journal. The group has an interest in how desalination directly benefits the various stakeholders. The Victorian desalination plant (WDP) located in South Victoria off the coast line of Wonthaggi located has received much criticism. Many controversial and ethical issues have been expressed by various stakeholders. Despite these concerns, a decision has been made to go ahead with the multibillion dollar project and build Australia’s largest desalination plant. The Victorian government’s target was to deliver drinking water that is amongst the best in Australia and to ensure that Victorians no
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Today, desalination is a common process that's used in seaside cities and towns worldwide. There are more than 15,000 desalination plants around the world providing freshwater from salt and brackish water alike (Planet Green 2011). This number continues to grow as researchers work to improve the process, both in terms of cost effectiveness and energy efficiency (DSE 2011). But countries such as Australia, Israel and even the United States are continually adding desalination plants of various sorts into their water-management portfolios. The facilities are common in North Africa and the Mideast, where freshwater is scarce (Chandler 2008).
Desalination is a proven technology; we know it works as we can see from other countries that have desalination plants. We know it will produce water no matter the weather rain, hail or shin. The Victorian Government believes that it’s a good insurance policy, and has given the all go for the WDP.
The Victorian Government has said it will buy renewable energy credits to offset the plant's power requirement - about 3.5 kilowatt hours for each 1000 litres of drinking water, plus almost half as much again to pump it to Melbourne (DSE January 2009). Dr Tim Fletcher, director of the Institute for Sustainable Water Resources at Monash
“Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants.” (Jacobsen) Desalination is not a new idea it has been around for along time as far back as Aristotle in the 4th century and re emerging again the 1800s. Desalination is probably not going to be the magic solution to California 's drought problem at least not completely after all even the world’s biggest desal plants are only supplemental. The plants tend to not make enough water to support an entire population. Israel 's desal plant provide enough water for 2.8 million people, but California 's population is five times as bigger than israel 's and our agricultural industry is about thirty two times bigger. It can also be twice as expensive as treating other water sources due to having to heat the water. And there is also the problem of what to do with the leftover water or brine. Apparently you can’t just dump it back into the ocean as it could cause death to the nearby sea creatures due to it being too salty.
However, due to the long lasting drought in California we should heavily consider this method of producing clean water. In other parts of the world such as China, India, Australia, Spain and more they have been able to produce nearly fourteen billion gallons of drinking water through this process. The largest desalination plant in the world is located in Saudi Arabia and produces two hundred and seventy three million gallons of drinking water per day. If the United States is able to perfect this, it could fix the situation. Amanda Little does an excellent job of sharing a wide array of perspectives of desalination in her article “Can Desalination Counter The Drought”. For instance she describes the discusses the standpoint of the executive director of the California Coast keeper Alliance, Sara Aminzadeh, as she argues, “It’s just not a good option from a cost and energy standpoint.” She goes on to say, “Desalination may seem like a panacea, but it’s the worst deal out there.” Although this method may not be cost or energy efficient, this may be the only plausible method of producing clean water. As seen in Saudi Arabia this is an efficient form of creating clean water and due to the lack of resources, this may be California’s last
Since the discovery that desalination could provide humans in California with clean potable water from the ocean could be very effective, it
Desalination is basically the procedure of separating excess sodium chloride, minerals and impurities from sea and ocean water to make it usable for irrigation and human consumption. It has been touted to rid the world of its current water problems for nearly 5 decades now, during this period huge strides have been made in the desalination technology. These advances have made it possible to venture into desalination as the long term option to the water problem in many parts of the world. It is seen as long term since the ocean is not going anywhere anytime soon as compared to lakes and rivers that have been going dry seasonally. The state of California is not new to the water shortage problem; as stated above tit has been a witness to previous droughts. It is therefore time to consider a long term solution to this problem.
With the water crisis being seen around the world, even right here in the United States, we need to explore other options to supply fresh water to the residents. One State, in particular, that raises concern is the state of California. An alternative method to supply water to residents could be the process of desalination. Desalination is when fresh water is made by using either seawater or brackish and eliminating the minerals and salts as a way to make the water safe for human and agriculture uses ( Kesieme et al., 2013). In recent years, we have seen an increase the in the number of desalination plants around the United States (fig 1). However, is the process of desalination the answer for the water crisis going on in California? As a
If residents and corporations throughout the United States continue to frivolously waste water and refuse to make painless changes and upgrades around their homes, it will continue to increase in cost to people across the United States. For example, as a result of the water shortage crisis currently afflicting the southwestern United States, the city of San Diego, California, is currently constructing a desalination plant, located in Carlsbad, California. The idea of a desalination plant is to collect undrinkable saltwater from the ocean and, using reverse osmosis and other filtering techniques, remove the salt to produce clean, potable water (Barnett). However, there are many downsides to relying on desalination practices to provide for a city the size of San Diego. First and foremost, it is considerably more expensive to produce clean drinking water from saltwater as opposed to using regular surface water or groundwater. The act of filtering the water alone can be twice as expensive as traditional filtration methods. In addition, desalination plants consume much more energy than traditional treatment plants, mostly due to the fact that the filtration methods are much more involved. Desalination consumes twice as much power as recycled plants, and four times as much as pumping groundwater (Newell, Roohk and Reardon). For example, the Carlsbad plant alone will require the same amount of electricity as is used to power 125,000 homes in California. However, the biggest
On and around the Gold Coast there live about 556.000 people and every year the population of Australia grows of about 2.6% per annum, so that means about 1.79 million more residents each year. All these people need to be provided with water supplies and according to SEQ Water in 2015 one person on the Gold Coast consumed 170 litres every day and as the population and so also the water consumption grows and grows there is need of more water supplies like a dam, a desalination plant. But
A desalination plant is a possible alternative to California’s need of consumable water. There is a course cons against desalination mainly affecting the marine environment for leaving highly concentrated saline water behind through the process but we should not fear it as it is a long term solution we cannot toss aside. Kerry Cavanaugh from Los Angeles Times mentions, “2,000 an acre foot, compared to about $1,000 an acre foot for imported water” (par. 3). This means that production of water through this process is cost efficient and seems rather illogical to spend more money into producing water; instead of importing it from another major source. The process cost is not a major step forward, but the idea of reaching out to import water is rather absurd. California is an arid state; we are the ones responsible for turning it into a paradise. In order to maintain it that way a method to lower the cost of desalination can be propose as solution. The thought
The Pure Water project, a project that plans to construct three recycling plants to produce San Diego’s water supply, only requires $3.5 billion to get started – inexpensive in comparison to the amount of money it takes to import, partially purify, and desalinate water. An example of the ever-growing expense of imported water can be found in the article “Council unanimously approves purifying sewage into drinking water”, which was published to UT San Diego on November 18, 2014. In this informational article, author David Garrick states, “Councilman Scott Sherman said San Diego must fight back against sharply rising costs of imported water.” Potable water is the best way to combat the increasing prices of imported water. Rather than relying on water from the Colorado River – San Diego’s main supplier – existing water can be purified and reused. In the same article, it is also stated that, “In addition, recycling wastewater… would allow the city to avoid spending about $2.1 billion in upgrades needed at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant” (Garrick). As mentioned in the quotation, San Diego is already spending generous amounts of money on water. This can be remedied, however, with the implication of potable water, which costs significantly less. Another one of San Diego’s pricey water sources is desalination. Desalination is the high cost, high energy process of purifying salt water to make it drinkable. In the nonfiction article “OC Coastkeeper: San Diego Swindled By Desalination, Don’t Let OC Be Next”, published on February 3, 2016 to voiceofoc.org by author Ray Hiemstra, it is stated that, “San Diego is forced to pay for the most expensive water on the market whether they need it or not”, in reference to the desalination plant managed by
-Article 1- Ghaffour, N., M. Missimer, T., & L. Amy, G. (2013). Desalination (Technical review and evaluation of the economics of water desalination: Current and future challenges for better water supply sustainability) (Vol. 309, pp. 197-207). Thuwal.
Desalination is one of the more popular options being considered to attempt to terminate the drought. Desalination is a process through which salt water is pumped from the ocean in to a treatment facility, and then the salt is extracted to make it possible to be used domestically. This is a long drawn out process, which involves seven different steps. The steps of desalination include the
Though conservation is all and good, but the option of desalination has a flashier appeal. Tap the Pacific Ocean. Pump water from the ocean, remove the salt and drink. State officials are evaluating 15 proposed desal plants, and the largest such facility in the Western Hemisphere will open in Carlsbad this year.
It is predicted that by 2050, Melbourne will become Australia’s largest city with the highest population. The population and industry growth in Melbourne is constantly expanding. It is crucial that the water supply system has the resilience to stay with the population growth. Melbourne’s water supply needs to provide water services to remote and urban areas that have industries and businesses. This means that it will have to adapt to the present day and the future needs. The desalination plant is able to produce a sustainable amount of water to secure the future of Victorian citizens.
Desalinated water is critical to Perth’s water supply as Western Australia continues to experience a drying, arid climate. It is important that a reliance on traditional water sources such as dams are reviewed and new and sustainable sources that are climate independent are implemented. Factors of a drying climate, extreme weather conditions, population increase (Population in Perth to double in the next 50 years) and the way we currently source out water need to be evaluated in order to ensure a climate resilient supply that is independent of varied amounts of rainfall. Desalinated water is critical to Perth’s water supply due to the states large infrastructure and mining industry.
Desalination has been a hot topic as a possible solution. What desalination does is takes sea water and convert it into fresh water. The major hurdle with this is the cost and people that protest against it. Companies will need to first get over the initial cost of building a desalination facility. Despite this companies such as Poseidon Water has a contract with San Diego to construct a desalinations plant in Carlsbad (Neill). Protesters have complained about the effects of desalination on the environment. Desalination requires large and powerful pumps to extract the water. These pumps potentially could destroy habitats and marine life that live near it. This is not the case for Carlsbad plant as it has already gone through extensive governmental