The Argumentative Essay: The Desalinization Of Seawater

“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.

) One of the most distinct advantages according to the article Is that It's a locally generated drought-proof supply of water. Another advantage would be that the production of recycled water is energy-efficient as it can be produced for about half the energy required to import water and approximately a third of the amount of energy needed to desalinate sea water. This energy-efficiency can also generate other advantages of reducing costs of importing water and avoiding the environmental effects of ocean desalination. In addition , according to WateReuse Association "purified wastewater could provide enough potable water to supply all municipal needs for more than 8 million people, or roughly one-fifth of California's projected population for 2020".

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?)

3. Water is a precious natural resource in Florida and it is said that supplies are dwindling. Desalinization (removing salt from) ocean water has been recommended as a solution to the problem. Why shouldn’t we drink salt water? Explain.

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

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

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

Many may not want to think about what could happen if rain doesn’t come down and the truth is no one can confidently answer when or if the drought will ever end. The only solutions we have for people now is for hopeful rainfall or snow, reducing water use ad rethinking the way we use it. However the state has been thinking of solutions and it has been said the Pacific Ocean could fix our drought problem. According to NPR, “workers are building what will be the largest seawater desalination…it is expected to provide up to 50 million gallons of fresh drinkable water.” That amount of water could help at least 112,000 households in Carlsbad, California. They would use reverse osmosis on the water, which means they would separate the silt, sand, and organics then move forward to pressurizing the water before it goes through very thin membranes. It could be an ideal solution because were not relying on the rainfall or snow packs, although it is a greatly debatable. Reasons are because it is expensive and could cause harm to sea

A topic, idea, or concept that I find so engaging that it makes me lose all track of time is Marine science. Marine science is my favorite subject and topic mostly because I surf almost every weekend when the surf is good and I really like sharks. Marine science is engaging to me because I grew up liking science, it was my best subject in elementary school and middle school. I also grew up like fishing, in high school now I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do as a career, and I was so confused.