I've posted about this before, but the UAE has an interesting solution to water and electricity generation. One of the by products of oil production is natural

I've posted about this before, but the UAE has an interesting solution to water and electricity generation. One of the by products of oil production is natural gas that accumulates as pockets in the wells. Compared to crude oil this is a lot harder to store and transport, so in most cases is just burned off (if you ever fly over The Gulf at night, you can see the flames from the wells doing this). This by product is what is used to generate water and electricity. Sea water is heated with the natural gas, and turned into steam which runs turbines to generate electricity. The steam is then cooled, which provides desalinated water. The water is stored in tanks for a few days where limestone rocks are added (from other parts of the country) to provide minerals, then fed into the public water system. The newest "M" plant produces 2,000 MW of electricity and 140 million gallons of water a day, with an overall efficiency of 85%. It cost around $3 billion to build. http://www.power-technology.com/projects/jebel-ali-m-station/ http://www.power-technology.com/projects/jebel-ali-m-station...