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If you want anything to be economical or "worth it," you create the conditions where you are providing something to external parties, and the money will come in
by motohagiography 3y ago
If you want anything to be economical or "worth it," you create the conditions where you are providing something to external parties, and the money will come in to sustain it. The economics of desalination are trivially viable if you can set up a stable financial regulatory environment in the region that has competitive taxation internationally.
Desalination is economical in the middle east because they export oil. In Israel it's economical because they export tech knowhow, and have foreign income sources from their diaspora networks. Some people will moan about "tax havens! for the filthy rich!" But really it's just viable habitation for locations without a lot of resources to export. Favourable capital rules are a valuable export. We do this in customs-free zones around the world today. If you have those rules in an area that needs a desalination plant to survive, I guarantee you it's going to work really, really well.
- dukeyukey 3y agoSame in Australia - you've got a very wealthy population, living on the coastal outskirts of a wind/solar/coal heavy desert. Basically the perfect combo for desalination.
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoThe coastal areas of Australia have literally some of the highest rainfall anywhere in the world. Sydney has more annual rainfall than 'rainy' Seattle or London. For Australia the correct thing is to store the damn (or should I say dam) water that falls where people live.
- mr_toad 3y agoTransport costs are everything. There’s water on the coasts, but the cost of transporting it inland is too high.
- midoridensha 3y agoWhy would you transport it inland? The people live on the coasts. Are we talking about water for use by people, or for agriculture?
- dukeyukey 3y agoI imagine agriculture, but wow, I knew Australia's population was mostly coastal, but I looked it up and out on the 25 biggest Australian cities, only Canberra is inland.
- defrost 3y agoIn a delicious moment of turnabout is fair play, Jack Davis frequently referred to European Australians as fringedwellers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Davis_(playwright) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Davis_(playwright) https://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/davis-jack-17788 https://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/davis-jack-17788
- koyote 3y agoWhich is why the Sydney desalination plant is entirely (I believe) powered by renewables.
- golemiprague 3y ago[dead]