Seawater Desalination: Saving Western Australia

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”

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).

The aim of this report is to evaluate the proposals to increase water on the Gold Coast of these two types of water storage. These would be building a new dam or building a new desalination plant to find out their environmental and social impacts for the Gold Coast and its community.

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

-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

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

It begins sea water to enter the sea water intakes through the refineries so as to prevent impurities from entering the sea water pumps, which in turn pumped seawater evaporators. After that, sea water mix with sodium hypochlorite when sea water intakes before entering the evaporator in order to process biological material sticking out. This solution (sol) is treated in tanks and then is injected through the pumps in specific amount on demand. There are electric power plates next to the sea water intakes for distribute electricity power that feed pumps and other electrically equipment’s, as there is also a measurement required for this equipment and control devices. The seawater moves