Poseidon Water Desalination

Water Pollution: Clean drinking water is becoming a rare commodity. Water is becoming an economic and political issue as the human population fights for this resource. One of the options suggested is using the process of desalinization. Industrial development is filling our rivers seas and oceans with toxic pollutants which are a major threat to human health.

In my opinion, the affordable water solution includes two main directions: Taps new resource and reduces expenses of water. There are many ways to create the new water resource and the feasible methods are 1. Building desalination plants 2. Building new the dams 3. Rain harvesting system. California has very long coastline and it provides the very great opportunity to utilize sea water to generate drinking water by desalination plants. NBC news “Solutions to California's Water Crisis from Half a World Away” showed the interesting comparing data between California and Israel in table 1 [2]. The desalination plants will contribute large amount of water to California’s drought. We need to consider if low snowpack and high temperature will happen frequently in the future, this is a right time to make a foresight plan to build the desalination plants. If the weather is still drought, agriculture must pump more water away from aquifer. There is not only the land is sinking but also influence the eco system.

This will help save water because seventy-five percent of our water is used by farmers who use flood irrigation which is very wasteful. The second way to be resourceful is xeriscaping which is dry landscaping. By Xeriscaping water is being saved there’s no need to water your lawn or plants. Residential Californian’s spend about fifty percent of our water on watering the outdoors; that’s more than the rainfall we receive to be wasted on plants and lawns. The third way to be resourceful is desalinization technology which is by taking water out of the ocean and treating the water so there aren’t any impurities or salt in the water so it can be digested. This method is very costly and could also cause harm to the environment. Dozens of desalinization plants have been proposed to be built in California, but it isn’t cheap. The fourth way to be resourceful is by water recycling which is being used in parts of California; but isn’t used for drinking. However, the groundwater replenishment system has purifiers which make recycled water safe to drink. This is one of the best ideas on how to be resourceful because we already have groundwater replenishment systems in California. Water recycling is cheaper than desalinization and doesn’t cause harm to our environment. Lastly in being resourceful is conservation the average Californian household uses two-hundred gallons of water a day. Some good ways to conserve are: taking shorter showers, turning off water when not in

“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

With the Pacific Ocean lining the California coast line some may ask why can’t sea water be filtered and used as a source of free water. This is actually an alternative that has been researched and even put into use in places such as the Netherlands, Aruba, the Middle East and even right here in the U.S. This process is called desalinating seawater. Saltwater in its pure form cannot be used for drinking water and is deadly to plants, however if it goes through the process of desalinating it can be used. With California desperate for water Carlsbad, California decided to construct a desalinating plant. An article on NBCNEWS website states that the plant can produce “50 million gallons of freshwater a day from the sea and pour it into a water system that serves 3.1 million people”

Desalination technology converts the tons of seawater that cover’s California’s coast into drinkable water. This process, though expensive and difficult, would provide California with an endless supply of water. The ocean is a huge part of the California lifestyle, and it could become a huge source of their water supply too. The Groundwater Replenishment System recycles water to be used again. It takes in about seventy million gallons of waste water a day and puts it through a cleaning and purifying process, that then makes this water safe enough to drink. Many people may not be comfortable with drinking recycled water, but this water could be put to use in landscaping and farming, adding seventy million extra gallons a day. The desalination process may be a bit far fetched for now, but using a water recycling program is completely feasible and would be a huge help in reducing California’s use of water. (only its not reducing, its just providing them with more water to use yknow? how should I phrase that?)

This shows Carlsbad is failing to fulfill the promises that were made to San Diego, California. Secondly, the desalination plant harms marine life. Even though the plant can stop bigger fish, it can not keep out tiny microorganisms and fish eggs. These organisms keep other fish alive, and they make up the ocean.

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.

The California Department of Water Resources, the Bureau of Reclamation, State and Federal Fish agencies and State and Federal Water Agencies have proposed a fix of systems within to ensure a more efficient, eco-friendly flow of fresh water throughout. The proposal is called the Bay Delta Conservation

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

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

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