Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Sun 26 Oct 2014, 14:35:02

Shaved Monkey wrote:No one round here needs it
Everyone has tank water and dams the town water is just a back up really.
I'd prefer it if it just rusted up and they removed it.
The tourism growth dream died with the high Australian Dollar and Petrol prices and the GFC and cheap flights to Asia.
Dont really want to perpetuate the dead water in plastic industry either.
Quite happy not to have tourists either.
Give it a few years and the protest over running costs should stop it.


How is your water situation today SM? There is so much discussion about California around here I kind of forgot you were having issues of your own a couple years ago.
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Fri 20 Feb 2015, 18:45:53

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—California’s four-year drought is putting a new spotlight on a plentiful but costly water alternative: ocean water, minus the salt.

This Southern California beach city may spend up to $40 million to update and reactivate a desalination plant it mothballed after another drought ended about 24 years ago.

With its local reservoirs at less than 30% of capacity, the City Council voted in September to pursue reopening the facility, which can turn sea water into the equal of nearly three-fourths of Santa Barbara’s normal demand for drinkable water.

While desalinated water will cost about a third more than the city’s imported freshwater supplies, Mayor Helene Schneider said other options, including more conservation, have been exhausted for the city of 90,000.

“It should be the source of last resort—and the reality is we are getting to that place of last resort,” Ms. Schneider said.

Desalination is widely used in other parts of the world, including the Middle East, but has been slower to catch on in the U.S. One reason: It takes a great deal of electricity to separate the salt from water, making the process unattractive for communities that have cheaper sources.

In California, desalination commonly takes place by a process called reverse osmosis, which entails running ocean water through permeable membranes to separate out salt. The salt is returned to the ocean as a brine solution.

Poseidon Water, a Boston company that develops water systems, is using $1 billion in private financing to construct a desalination plant in Carlsbad, Calif. It aims to provide the San Diego County Water Authority with about 8% of its water, at a cost up to twice that of water the agency imports from northern California.

Israeli-based IDE Technologies will operate the facility under contract with Poseidon.

With no end in sight for the drought, more communities are looking to desalination. The Orange County Water District in January voted to negotiate to buy water from another $1 billion Poseidon plant, to be built in Huntington Beach, Calif., pending final permits.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/california- ... 51?tesla=y
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Sat 18 Apr 2015, 09:06:45

More at link below.

CARLSBAD -- On sunny afternoons, this stretch of beach 35 miles north of San Diego offers a classic So uthern California backdrop: joggers, palm trees and surfers, flanked by waves rolling in and pelicans soaring overhead.

But just across the road, another scene, unlike any other in the state's history, is playing out: More than 300 construction workers are digging trenches and assembling a vast network of pipes, tanks and high-tech equipment as three massive yellow cranes labor nearby.

The crews are building what boosters say represents California's best hope for a drought-proof water supply: the largest ocean desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. The $1 billion project will provide 50 million gallons of drinking water a day for San Diego County when it opens in 2016.

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_2 ... e=infinite
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 25 Jun 2015, 18:54:15

Recycled water, salt-tolerant grass a water-saving pair

Plants need water. People need water. Unfortunately, there's only so much clean water to go around -- and so the effort begins to find a solution.

Luckily for people, some plants are able to make do without perfectly clean water, leaving more good water for drinking. One strategy is to use treated wastewater, containing salt leftover from the cleaning process, to water large areas of turf grass. These areas include athletic fields and golf courses. Golf courses alone use approximately 750 billion gallons of water annually in arid regions.


"It has the biggest implication for golf courses because there are some courses now that are required to water their grasses with wastewater instead of drinkable water," she said. "That's where it most makes sense, especially in areas like Las Vegas where there may not be much drinkable water available to water your lawn. That's a prime example."


sciencedaily
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
User avatar
Graeme
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 13258
Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
Location: New Zealand

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby dohboi » Fri 26 Jun 2015, 02:17:48

How about just getting rid of the grass all together?
User avatar
dohboi
Harmless Drudge
Harmless Drudge
 
Posts: 19990
Joined: Mon 05 Dec 2005, 04:00:00

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby ritter » Fri 26 Jun 2015, 11:57:00

dohboi wrote:How about just getting rid of the grass all together?

:idea:

(Don't get me started on *)&@&!! golf courses.... )
ritter
Tar Sands
Tar Sands
 
Posts: 858
Joined: Fri 14 Oct 2005, 03:00:00

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 25 Dec 2015, 12:17:00

10% of San Diego's water supply is now fresh from the Desalination plant.

The Carlsbad Desalination Project (Carlsbad, CA, US) reports that operations are now under way at the nation’s largest and most technologically advanced seawater desalination plant. After successfully completing construction, the Carlsbad Desalination Plant—dedicated to Carlsbad’s former Mayor Claude “Bud” Lewis—has already produced more than 1.5 billion gallons of locally controlled water for San Diego County (CA, US), helping to minimize the region’s vulnerability to the statewide drought.

As reported in CompositesWorld February 2014 story, "Designing pressure vessels for seawater desalination plants," Protec-Arisawa America in Vista, Calif. produced 2236 pressure vessels—filament wound to ASME Code Section X safety standard—for the SeaWater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) desalination system used by the Carlsbad plant. (Also see CW, February 2013: "Composites slake the world’s thirst.")

The Carlsbad Desalination Plant is the result of a 30-year water purchase agreement between the plant’s developer and owner, Poseidon Water, and the San Diego County Water Authority for the production of up to 56,000 acre-feet of water per year, enough to meet the needs of approximately 400,000 people. It is a major component of the Water Authority’s multi-decade strategy to diversify the region’s water supply portfolio.

California Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, attending the opening, said, “The Poseidon project not only provides San Diego County with a drought-proof water supply, it also demonstrates how California can meet the water needs of future generations.”

The $1 billion desalination project includes three main components: the desalination plant adjacent to NRG Energy’s Encina Power Station on Agua Hedionda Lagoon; a 10-mile pipeline that connects to the Water Authority’s regional distribution system; and upgrades to Water Authority facilities for distributing desalinated seawater throughout the region. The plant provides a highly reliable water supply produced with state-of-the-art technology to reduce energy demands, and it will be the first water infrastructure project in the state to have a zero net carbon footprint.


http://www.compositesworld.com/news/san ... lant-in-us
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 25 Dec 2015, 13:11:49

pstarr wrote:I found the carbon-neutral claim unlikely, did some research and found this:

Image

I have another carbon-related issue. San Diego's water now comes from the Colorado River and Northern California via the aqueduct system. Both those sources are above sea level as they enter the San Diego region. That means the seawater must be pumped up hill if it is ever to replace more than 10% of the regions water supply. It seems only a few West Coast cities could ever benefit from ocean desalinization except at a great cost in water pumping and CO2 emissions.


Water in regions of the country not full of mountains all has to be pumped around Pete, it really isn't a big deal. Besides don't all you Californians your electricity from Solar and Wind and Moonbeams or something? Heck the Dutch were using windmills to pump water 600 years ago, surely Californians can master that technology?

1400
Wind mills pump out the water

Around 1400 water still is a big problem for the fast growing and developing country of Holland. A big part of the land sunk so deep that it is situated below sea and river levels ever since. One of the biggest inventions of that time is the use of winds mill for an other purpose than grinding wheat and grain. Wind mills were used to pump the water out of the sunken polders over the dike into the rivers that were situated higher than the land. Over a hundred years later wind mills were placed all over the country. It was this invention that made it possible to keep living below sea level and still have dry feet.

http://www.dutchwatersector.com/our-history/
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 15 May 2016, 14:18:22

Anyone know if this plant is running now that six months have passed? They should have most of the kinks worked out and be producing water around their minimum price point now.

http://carlsbaddesal.com/
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby hvacman » Mon 16 May 2016, 11:20:05

pstarr wrote:It appears so Tanada
After three years of construction, the San Diego County Water Authority and Poseidon Water dedicated the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant on Dec. 14, 2015, joined by more than 600 dignitaries and supporters from across California.

The plant is producing approximately 50 million gallons per day of locally controlled water for San Diego County, helping to minimize the region’s vulnerability to statewide drought conditions. It is part of a $1 billion project that includes the nation’s largest and most technologically advanced and energy-efficient seawater desalination plant, a 10-mile large-diameter pipeline and improvements to Water Authority facilities for distributing desalinated seawater throughout San Diego County. The plant meets about 7 to 10 percent of the region’s water demand – about one third of all the water generated in the county.


Yes, it's online - didn't you see your lights dim when it started up at full capacity? As Pete's energy/million-gallon chart showed, desalinization is an energy disaster. The pumping effort per million gallons to push the salt water through the desalinating RO membranes is HUGE, even compared to all the pumping effort to get Shasta Lake water to flow through 700 miles of aquaduct south through the Central Valley, then over the Tehachapi's on its way to LA and San Diego. One thing to remember about pumping water 3,000 feet uphill that really improves the net energy efficiency. When it goes back down hill, you can reclaim most of the pumping energy (about 75%) by running it through hydro turbines, which all these water projects do.

There in no reclaiming the massive pumping energy required to push salt water through the RO membranes to desalinate it. It is "lost" energy (It's an "entropy" thing). San Diego would have been much further ahead investing those $billions on advanced water conservation features, as now they are saddled with a system that is entirely dependent on massive amounts of inexpensive electricity from NG-fired power plants. In the renewable-only all-electric world of the future, we will have to make every kilowatt-hour count, even if it means "importing" water from 700 miles away, ramping back our commercial farming-on-desert, AND building another dam or two. Desalinization will be a feel-good luxury we will not be able to afford.
hvacman
Tar Sands
Tar Sands
 
Posts: 594
Joined: Sun 01 Dec 2013, 13:19:53

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 16 May 2016, 13:10:42

Actually San Diego has a new big project building, they are going to take filtered waste water and run that through reverse osmosis to make it into potable water. The long term plan is to get a third of their total water supply from 'recycled water' by 2025-2030.

Of course that ignores the fact that the other 70 percent of the supply still has to be imported or desalinated, and that they can't concentrate the waste stream too much or it will exceed discharge allowances for dumping into the Pacific.

Having lived the vast majority of my life in naturally watered places all this toying with desert living seems odd, but that is just me I guess. Millions even tens of millions, choose to live in the desert and depend on technology to have enough water to drink.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 16 May 2016, 15:53:19

pstarr wrote:last words in the last post are junk.

For some reason I can not edit my posts. Again.


Its not a personal problem Pstarr, nobody can edit posts in the Environment forum unless they are individually enabled by the staff. There was too much post revision going on in here for me to tell who was egging whom on and causing problems so I turned the function off Environment forum wide.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Desalination Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Mon 16 May 2016, 20:40:40

Well if recycled water is good enough for the astronauts in the ISSA then the technology should be pretty cheap by now. Didn't NASA develop all kinds of technologies we have been using for decades now?

But, how much energy does it take to put recycled water through reverse osmosis compared to filtered sea water?
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Saltwater desalination for an increasingly dry world

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 03 Nov 2017, 20:17:30


Right now, the city of Cape Town is caught in the aftermath of its third successive winter without significant rainfall. In response to the water scarcity crisis, a fleet of saltwater desalination plants will be installed around the city within a few weeks to draw drinkable water from the sea. The Mother City’s plight is by no means unique – drought has crippled other major cities around the world including Rome, Los Angeles and Lima, with increasing intensity in recent years. Approximately 1 per cent of the world's population is dependent on desalinated water to meet daily needs. But the UN projects that 14 per cent of the world's population will encounter water scarcity by 2025. However, some characteristics prohibit desalination from being a totally sustainable way to provide water for people in certain parts of the world. So what exactly does


Saltwater desalination for an increasingly dry world
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
User avatar
AdamB
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 9292
Joined: Mon 28 Dec 2015, 17:10:26

PreviousNext

Return to Environment, Weather & Climate

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 61 guests