The Pros And Cons Of Desalination

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”

To start off, the plant is not very trustworthy. Secondly, the desalination plant can harm different forms of marine life. Finally, the discharge water creates a hazard.

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

To begin with many environmentalists will seek to block this bid owing to the concerns about the damage to marine life. There however, has been little evidence to suggest that a desalination plant will directly damage fish populations (Little). There are also concerns about the high cost of production and which stems in from its enormous energy demand and weighty environmental footprint; the massive energy requirements. The plant could be built adjacent to a power plant so they could share a symbiotic relationship and mitigate each other’s environmental impact. It is also very difficult to project the cost of the project owing to the nature of the plants. Different projects cost are virtually impossible to compare owing to their unique designs. These are concern by activists. Other blockades also claim that the project will take a long time to develop (Hiltzik). By this time they claim the drought will be long gone and it necessity will not be widely felt. All these are expected pitfalls in the process of getting a new plant in working in the state of California and will surely be

This is so because, in the article,“California tries one solution to water problems — treating seawater,”on page 2 it says, “Unless that intake is carefully designed, it can harm marine life. Reverse-osmosis filters are so fine that they allow only water to pass, everything else entering the desalination plant is killed.” Also on page 2 it says, “Carlsbad, for example, will use fish screens with tiny openings. These will strain out at least 95 percent of small fish, but only 20 percent of organisms. The remaining 80 percent of tiny organisms (including fish eggs) will be sucked into the desalination plant and killed. Many small life forms that fish depend on for food would be destroyed.” Also on page 2 it says, “The desalination industry worldwide largely favors screened intakes, despite the damage they cause. They are cheaper to build than the alternative favored by the water board (so-called subsurface intakes.)”This shows how because of the huge cost we are getting cheaper things that harm and even kill some marine

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

-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.

The advantages of desalination represents an opportunity to use oceanic water resources. If the appropriate conditions are present, a desalination plant could potentially be used to replace an existing or future dam. As existing sources of useable water run dry, desalination is a very effective, alternative source of water. On top of that the distillation process produces one of the highest quality water, with a range of 1 to 50 ppm tds, tds is also known as total dissolved solids. With the recommended California standard being 500 ppm, this quality of water is far beyond any other water quality seen before.

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

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.