34 ms·

Can't they get water from the ocean?

BLKNSLVR 1y ago
The desalination plants all ended up getting swallowed by the very water sources they were originally desalinating.
antonvs 1y ago
No. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-dont-we-get-our-drinking-water-from-the-ocean/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-dont-we-get-o...
- silisili 1y ago
  ...the article says otherwise, that we can, do, and increasingly will. > can cost from just under $1 to well over $2 to produce one cubic meter (264 gallons) of desalted water from the ocean. That's about as much as two people in the U.S. typically go through in a day at home. What am I missing here? Even if you triple the cost, people will pay a $180 water bill before living in a water scarcity situation.
- forrestthewoods 1y ago
  > It can cost from just under $1 to well over $2 to produce one cubic meter (264 gallons) of desalted water from the ocean. That's about as much as two people in the U.S. typically go through in a day at home. Uhhhh that seems pretty cheap and affordable?
  - Yeul 1y ago
    It's not private homes that are at risk. Agriculture and industry use up the most water and they absolutely do not want to pay.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- littlecranky67 1y ago
  Article is outdated (2008) and makes a single argument: Desalination requires too much energy. Becaues it is outdated, it doesn't account for the excess energy a lot of places and countries have from wind and solar. Water desalination is a prime candidate (along with Bitcoin mining and AI model training, sigh) for using available excess energy from renewable that cannot be stored otherwise. Clean/drinking water can be stored easily - it is called a freshwater lake.
  - derriz 1y ago
    Not really - renewable curtailment and negative wholesale electricity prices happen but not frequently enough that you can generally afford to leave a capital intensive investment like a bitcoin mining setup, a water desalination plant or a hydrogen electrolyser idle 90% of the time waiting for cheap electricity. And the market and technological developments (batteries) are actively working against this pricing anomaly - I can see the phenomena of negative pricing disappear completely in electricity markets in the next few years given the current explosion in grid battery deployment.
    - littlecranky67 1y ago
      Might be true in the US, but here in Europe we see this quite often. Prices don't have to be negative, it is enough if they are cheap (we pay for water too). And in some locations there are already projects like this [0] where they built a hydro-electric pump station with a dam for storage plus a desalination plant that fills the reservoir from seawater in one location. [0]: https://www.ree.es/en/ecological-transition/storage https://www.ree.es/en/ecological-transition/storage
  - KaiserPro 1y ago
    The UK also doesn't have enough power, well not enough to do whats needed for desalination. It would be _vastly_ cheaper and easier to build reservoirs.
    - p1dda 1y ago
      Build new power plants genius
- energy123 1y ago
  I don't see how the contents justify a hard "No". Even before factoring in that the article was written 17 years ago.
Geee 1y ago
Yes, they can. Many countries in desert climates use seawater as their main source of drinkable water. Desalinating water in modern plants costs about $0.5 per cubic meter, or $0.0005 / liter.
Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
Desalinating water requires a lot of energy and equipment. Seawater must be tapped, filtered and passed through membranes in a process called reverse osmosis. All of this requires lot of electrical power, large pumps, cleaning, corrosion-resistant materials, etc. Desalination is generally the last resort when there are no other options. It is much simpler, more efficient and less expensive to properly manage freshwater resources, maintain networks, eliminate losses and leaks, etc.
- p1dda 1y ago
  It obviously doesn't work, desalination works.
  - Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
    I have worked on a reverse osmosis unit (to produce demineralised water for industry) and I maintain that this is not the right solution. Great Britain is not an oil rig or a desert devoid of fresh water. It does not have cheap energy such as natural gas to produce electricity at low cost. Nor is it Israel, which has only the Jordan River and reuses every litre of water two to three times. The UK has chosen to delegate the maintenance of its water and sanitation network to private operators who chronically underinvest in the maintenance, renewal and improvement of the network. That's the bloody problem. Injecting a little fresh water from desalination into a leaky network by importing natural gas for the necessary energy is a monumental waste. Desalination is at the bottom of the list of things to be addressed.
everfrustrated 1y ago
Theres no shortage of water from rain. Problem is that England is pretty flat and all the rain drains to the ocean (100% of rivers leak) without natural lakes and dams (requires mountains) being available. Hence very expensive projects to create storage lakes.
p1dda 1y ago
Yes and they absolutely should.

The desalination plants all ended up getting swallowed by the very water sources they were originally desalinating.

No. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-dont-we-get-our-drinking-water-from-the-ocean/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-dont-we-get-o...

silisili 1y ago
...the article says otherwise, that we can, do, and increasingly will. > can cost from just under $1 to well over $2 to produce one cubic meter (264 gallons) of desalted water from the ocean. That's about as much as two people in the U.S. typically go through in a day at home. What am I missing here? Even if you triple the cost, people will pay a $180 water bill before living in a water scarcity situation.
forrestthewoods 1y ago
> It can cost from just under $1 to well over $2 to produce one cubic meter (264 gallons) of desalted water from the ocean. That's about as much as two people in the U.S. typically go through in a day at home. Uhhhh that seems pretty cheap and affordable?
- Yeul 1y ago
  It's not private homes that are at risk. Agriculture and industry use up the most water and they absolutely do not want to pay.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
littlecranky67 1y ago
Article is outdated (2008) and makes a single argument: Desalination requires too much energy. Becaues it is outdated, it doesn't account for the excess energy a lot of places and countries have from wind and solar. Water desalination is a prime candidate (along with Bitcoin mining and AI model training, sigh) for using available excess energy from renewable that cannot be stored otherwise. Clean/drinking water can be stored easily - it is called a freshwater lake.
- derriz 1y ago
  Not really - renewable curtailment and negative wholesale electricity prices happen but not frequently enough that you can generally afford to leave a capital intensive investment like a bitcoin mining setup, a water desalination plant or a hydrogen electrolyser idle 90% of the time waiting for cheap electricity. And the market and technological developments (batteries) are actively working against this pricing anomaly - I can see the phenomena of negative pricing disappear completely in electricity markets in the next few years given the current explosion in grid battery deployment.
  - littlecranky67 1y ago
    Might be true in the US, but here in Europe we see this quite often. Prices don't have to be negative, it is enough if they are cheap (we pay for water too). And in some locations there are already projects like this [0] where they built a hydro-electric pump station with a dam for storage plus a desalination plant that fills the reservoir from seawater in one location. [0]: https://www.ree.es/en/ecological-transition/storage https://www.ree.es/en/ecological-transition/storage
- KaiserPro 1y ago
  The UK also doesn't have enough power, well not enough to do whats needed for desalination. It would be _vastly_ cheaper and easier to build reservoirs.
  - p1dda 1y ago
    Build new power plants genius
energy123 1y ago
I don't see how the contents justify a hard "No". Even before factoring in that the article was written 17 years ago.

Geee 1y ago

Yes, they can. Many countries in desert climates use seawater as their main source of drinkable water. Desalinating water in modern plants costs about $0.5 per cubic meter, or $0.0005 / liter.

Beretta_Vexee 1y ago

Desalinating water requires a lot of energy and equipment. Seawater must be tapped, filtered and passed through membranes in a process called reverse osmosis. All of this requires lot of electrical power, large pumps, cleaning, corrosion-resistant materials, etc. Desalination is generally the last resort when there are no other options. It is much simpler, more efficient and less expensive to properly manage freshwater resources, maintain networks, eliminate losses and leaks, etc.

p1dda 1y ago
It obviously doesn't work, desalination works.
- Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
  I have worked on a reverse osmosis unit (to produce demineralised water for industry) and I maintain that this is not the right solution. Great Britain is not an oil rig or a desert devoid of fresh water. It does not have cheap energy such as natural gas to produce electricity at low cost. Nor is it Israel, which has only the Jordan River and reuses every litre of water two to three times. The UK has chosen to delegate the maintenance of its water and sanitation network to private operators who chronically underinvest in the maintenance, renewal and improvement of the network. That's the bloody problem. Injecting a little fresh water from desalination into a leaky network by importing natural gas for the necessary energy is a monumental waste. Desalination is at the bottom of the list of things to be addressed.

everfrustrated 1y ago

Theres no shortage of water from rain. Problem is that England is pretty flat and all the rain drains to the ocean (100% of rivers leak) without natural lakes and dams (requires mountains) being available. Hence very expensive projects to create storage lakes.

p1dda 1y ago

Yes and they absolutely should.