Providing the World with Clean, Decontaminated Drinking Water

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?)

According to David Sedlak, we have made large progress in seawater desalination for the past 2 decades. The largest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere that is built north of San Diego uses half of the energy use than Santa Barbara 25 years ago. One reason why Sea Water is a good way to save more groundwater because we do not have a lot of water, but lots of oil. Also seawater desalination is not always good, there is a negative side. It is energy intensive; that means that it will cause a lot more climate change, but that is the only negative thing David Sadlak had mentioned about seawater desalination; but so far the new seawater desalination plant uses half the energy it used to. This would help California because it would lower the amount of water that is pumped from the ground, therefore, seawater desalination is a possible solution for conserving more

The issue of building desalination plants has been a hot topic of Californians in the past couple decades because researchers knew that our available surface and groundwater supplies are becoming scarce. This problem is important because California is home to a large population of people as well as extensive agricultural and industrial productions that need vast amounts of water. With the reduction in available ground and fresh water brings other problems that need to be addressed. Many farmers are having to impose stricter management policies in regards to how they use the water the pay so much for. Crops sensitive to the amount of water they receive or do not receive can be destroyed in a short amount of time if neglected of water. With the amount of fresh water accumulated by both snow melt of California’s mountains as well as ground water retrieved from wells and pumps being depleted faster than we can recharge those sources, farmers face further impacts. An article by Robert Glennon, “Unquenchable: Americas water crisis and what to do about it” says “In the summer of 2009, California is facing mandatory water rationing. Many farmers may be entirely cut off, costing the economy more than $1 billion and putting more

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

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).

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

Tampa Bay Water is a seawater desalination plant located in Tampa, Florida. Their method of desalination of ocean water or brackish groundwater is another method to obtaining water from fresh surfaces or groundwater sources. This could be used to replace the need for a water supply dam. There are several different technologies that exist to remove salt and other impurities from ocean water. The two most commonly used methods are thermal distillation and desalination. Thermal distillation copies the natural water cycle by using heat to create a vapor that is converted into freshwater. Desalination is a process that removes some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water. The traditional process used is vacuum distillation, which

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

1. There are two main sources of fresh drinking water, ground water and surface water. Ground water originates from precipitations that usually fall in the form of snow or rain. While, the surface water is also originates from precipitate that reaches the land surface and is then recharged into rivers, wetlands and lakes. Although these systems are usually reliable, in desperate time of need, a more reliable source of water is needed. The desalination plant is extremely valuable and flexible because it does not depend on rainfall. Instead, the desalination plant is the only source that relies on seawater. Using seawater in the desalination plant helps meet the community’s water needs and secures the water needs in the future. While other sources of water, such as rainwater or water from dames are not reliable enough to strictly rely

In spite of the high cost, the method is effective, making it the most common form of desalination today. This process serves not only to remove the salt, but also the organic matter commonly found in

One of the most important natural resources we have on this planet is water. Water covers roughly 70 percent of our planet and is the very foundation for every single species on earth. We as humans, rely on water more than any other resource on the planet and we simply can’t live without it. Although water is abundant around the world, clean water for millions of people is inaccessible. Around the world, there are people struggling to get water yet along clean water and it greatly affects our health. Improving clean water supply and sanitation, and better access to clean water resources, can increase countries’ economic development and can contribute greatly to poverty reduction and overall people’s health.