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They share the same gas field with Qatar, who does all their desalination with all the excess gas production they can’t sell. Qatar has no surface freshwater o
by nerdsniper 10mo ago
They share the same gas field with Qatar, who does all their desalination with all the excess gas production they can’t sell.
Qatar has no surface freshwater or groundwater. So all of their water is desalinated. It’s often still quite salty to the taste though - the last few ppms would be an exorbitant cost to remove.
However, Qatar has 3 million people. Iran has 92 million people - 9 million in Tehran alone. So their half of that gas field in the Gulf contributes far less energy per capita.
And even if the energy is free (unlimited natural gas, fusion, magic, whatever) desalination is still fairly expensive. I think only about 50% of the cost is energy, the other half is CapEx, operations, and replacing the membranes as they get used up.
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo agoI have read about experimental desalination techniques that do a better job, and use less energy, but I haven't heard much about that, lately. I'd think that this kind of research would be a priority. It won't be long, before we start having water wars (like olden times, but with nastier weapons).
- pbmonster 10mo agoThe low hanging fruit have been long picked. Reverse osmosis is within 50% of the thermodynamic limit. If you have gigawatts of low grade waste heat (Iran does, in theory), you can run multistage flash distillers of the waste heat, and those have more than an order of magnitude separation to the thermodynamic limit (they also have lower CAPEX, lower maintenance and lower water pre-treatment requirements than reverse osmosis).
- dsalzman 10mo agoIn world first, Israel begins pumping desalinated water into depleted Sea of Galilee https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-world-first-israel-begins-pumping-desalinated-water-into-depleted-sea-of-galilee/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-world-first-israel-begins-p...
- nikanj 10mo agoQatar and exorbitant cost are an iconic duo, surprised they haven't gone through the trouble considering the general trend of glamor and excess