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> The Carlsbad Desalination Plant near San Diego was completed a few years ago and is now operational. It is the largest, most technologically-advanced and ener
by cnlevy 4y ago
> The Carlsbad Desalination Plant near San Diego was completed a few years ago and is now operational. It is the largest, most technologically-advanced and energy-efficient desalination plant in the United States. It is approximately the best we can do right now for large-scale desalination.
Israel built a 624000 m^3/day desalination plant for about $400M in 2013.
It costs about $150M to operate per year, most of it probably from electricity consumption
So you already have an order of magnitude reduction in cost
Build 10 of them should reduce building cost even more per plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination_by_country#Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination_by_country#Israel
- Aloisius 4y agoMmm. That’s not an order of magnitude reduction in operating costs. 185,022 m^3/day (150 acre-feet) for $50 million/year is about $0.74/cubic meter. 624,000 m^3/day for $150 million/year is about $0.65/cubic meter.
- credit_guy 4y agoOn the other hand if you look at the amortized capital cost (and you use a 40 year lifetime), it comes to 37 cents/m3 for Carlsbad and 4.4 cents/m3 for the Israeli desal plant.