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Singapore has been making and using "NEWater" from wastewater (sewage) since 2003. It forms only around 1% of tap water supplies, the biggest customers are ind
by resolutebat 3y ago
Singapore has been making and using "NEWater" from wastewater (sewage) since 2003. It forms only around 1% of tap water supplies, the biggest customers are industrial users like chip fabs that need really, really clean water.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater
It's worth noting, though, that Singapore has invested a lot into potable water tech like this not because it makes financial sense in itself (it doesn't), but because the vast majority of Singapore's drinking water is piped in from Malaysia, which thus has a literal stranglehold over the country.
- stOneskull 3y agoif only desalination wasn't so difficult. it'd solve so many things.
- ReptileMan 3y agoWell desalination for residential is ok financially in high income countries. It costs 5$ for 1000 gallons and that is the monthly consumption of a household
- recursive 3y ago$5/month/household sounds like it would work for all but the very poorest of countries.
- TylerE 3y agoFor costal regions, sure. Anything further inland? Pumping water uphill is incredibly energy intensive.
- thmsths 3y agoThat would still help those regions too, a lot of coastal cities get their water from quite far away, if they can become self sufficient through desalination, that's more water available for other regions.
- peteradio 3y agoWell gosh put in bottles and truck it then!
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago40% of the world lives within 100km from the sea.
- mnw21cam 3y agoI currently pay £4.42 per 1000l for a normal mains piped water supply (and for the drainage system to take that water away again). 1000 gallons is 4546l, so the cost for desalination is £0.86 for 1000l by your price. Sounds like desalination is worth it even in soggy England (which hasn't been soggy at all until a few days ago).
- HDThoreaun 3y agoI think that's only for coastal areas. Once you include pumping costs it gets much more expensive.
- scythe 3y agoIronically, the one place that desal pumping would be almost free is the Imperial Valley, which is below sea level, though across a roughly 80-meter col (7 km horizontal) from Laguna de Salada. But they have among the oldest Colorado river rights — to fully 20% of the theoretically available flow — and couldn't afford the electricity, requiring some Rube Goldberg finance to make the whole scheme work out.
- czbond 3y agoThanks for mentioning a rough cost estimate of desalination. I've always wanted to know.
- mywittyname 3y agoDesalination is an ecological disaster at any scale large enough to be useful. That excess salt needs to go somewhere and wherever it goes, it will be a problem.
- TremendousJudge 3y agoput all salt making companies out of business, then whatever's left just carry it by train and put it in an old salt mine
- ajmurmann 3y agoWould it have a meaningful impact on the ocean if we threw the salt back in?
- gavinsyancey 3y ago"The ocean" is not a monolith. You have to pump the brine back into the ocean in a specific location (i.e. wherever the outflow pipe from the desalination plant is). And that has meaningful negative local ecological impacts.
- mywittyname 3y agoYes, absolutely. The supersaturated brine produced as a byproduct decimates local ocean life when it's pumped back into the ocean. It's already a problem while desalination is rare. Imagine how bad it will be at "human-scale". And you can't just divert the brine onto land. Where ever you put it will be salted earth - completely unlivable. And it will probably pollute ground waters.
- anthonypasq 3y agocant you just bury it in a desert/mountain or something?
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoThere is no "away" on a finite planet that has humans on every continent.
- silisili 3y agoIs that just the price of the process, or does that price include the transport and dumping or otherwise handling the waste salts?