Can Seawater Desalination Solve California's Drought?
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- Опубліковано 9 лис 2015
- In the year 2016, the people of San Diego County will be drinking seawater. Not straight out of the Pacific, of course; the water - up to 54 million gallons per day - will first pass through the Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest desalination facility ever built in the Western Hemisphere. Is purified saltwater the answer to California's drought? Businessweek's Sam Grobart investigates. (Video by: Alan Jeffries, Ryo Ikegami)
get some solar panels on that building yo
why isn't it powered with solar, wind and wave?
solar panels can kill birds who fly over the area. it happened in the Mojave desert, 6000 birds die every year.
Just another mind Wind turbines kill birds too. The only answer is to eliminate all energy.
@Big Boyo Oh i know. This is why our only alternative is to eliminate all energy.
They could draw the methane off of their humongous garbage heaps to run full sized electrical turbines to produce the power to run the desalination plant.
they need about 30MW of power aday I don't know why they are not recovering any at the exit point as well it seems to be moving fast enough to generate some power
Sure it can. Ask Gran Canaria in Spain for help. They have over 50 years experience, they have advised Israel and the United Arab Emirates on their desalination system.
^^^^^^^^^^
50 percent of the water used in a house is actually used by the toilet, and the toilet doesn't need drink water, it doesn't need fresh water, it doesn't need cleaner water at all. It can use the dirty water from the wash machine, from the shower and from the bath. Installing a special reservoir to recuperate those grey waters and use that water a second time for the toilet would cut the needs of water by half. After, all used waters could be reused for the agriculture instead of being just rejected into the ocean. After all it is unsalted water and it costs more expensive to make it drinkable again than desalinate the sea water. And another solution, use the water intelligently and stop wasting it.
everlastingauraX
if your butt is splashed, that means your toilet doesn't work correctly. Anyway, the water from the bath, the shower and the laundry is not so dirty. It even could be used in the garden.
They already do this in Spain. In fact, I have watched a video where they show how there's another system in the building that collects the dirty water in a tank, add some blue chemicals to make better and color it blue, then, whenever you flush, the toilet will take water from there!
korelly
Great point. The problem is you'll need to rebuild all piping for brine and fresh water. Still the kind of thinking we need to get out of this.
Yea use the brine water to flush with and wash cloths an d dish washers with I heard sailors used to hang there whites over the back of ships to get them white .
"Plant uses 32-38 mega watts" - 32 million watts is definitely a lot of power on a consistent basis. To make desal viable for the future, they should be covering the top of the plant with solar, and adding battery storage capacity. Some wind power may also be needed where appropriate.
32-38MW per day or month or year???
Solar & wind power kill birds. Save the birds!
@@leojanuszewski1019 Its actually been studied in the UK that wind does not hurt the birds as much as was previously thought. Its actually rather low impact on the bird community--they tend to be smart and avoid danger/recognize patterns.
@@TahtahmesDiary But what about insects? Save the insects!
@@leojanuszewski1019 How is Solar energy killing birds exactly?
I'm not sure what the real motivation of opponents to desalination is. The issues I often hear are technological hurdles that can be overcome, even the cost will come down as technology advances and becomes more common place. It seems opponents have more of an ideological opposition to desalination.
+Tine Woodbe Desalination creates salt pollution. Yes, diluting it helps but it still can cause problems for marine life. I don't really oppose creating desalination plants but I can see some of the problems with it.
stupidluvdisc That issue is easily solved by piping the outflow far off shore where the high salt density discharge would easily be diluted by the billions of gallons of water that is the pacific ocean. The technology to accomplish this is well established. If we can build oil pipelines for hundreds of miles through all manner of terrain, we can certainly build a water discharge pipeline several miles out to sea.
+stupidluvdisc People use sea salt every day in food. so just another benefit...brine tank to collect it.
I think scientists should look into the idea of using the brine waste from the desalination process to store electric power before it is put back into the ocean!!!
Love these videos. Short, informative, easy to understand , and interesting topics. Keep making them.
Not wasting water works also.
Could they maybe bring salt water inland to a basin let it evaporate and then seed the air near fields to reduce consumption?
Maybe you could also sell the salt that builds up cheap to bring in more industry?
I know theres areas of desert well below sea level. Are there any within a reasonable distance of the ocean so you don't need to lay to much pipe channel flooded tunnel ect?
Could send clean soft water (has cloride via sodium chloride already in it) from the Atlantic to every home, then run soft / salt water to showers and toilets, then people have a small distiller at the kitchen which disinfects and removes salt for drinking, about a gallon a day per adult.
If the shower water is too soft people can buy a water de-softener, or whole house reverse osmosis system
That's exactly what I had been thinking not even four days ago!
build 10 more plants
A good solution to the problem
What are they using as an energy source to power the unit - Note that the desel plant is the single largest power user in San Diego Co. which is the major concern with many of the hydro plants going off-line and no solar, wind, or wave would not be able to fill the gap without exuberant O&M costs and a major footprint. Possibly a a dedicated nuclear facility on smaller scale such like the power plants found on many aircraft carries and submarines which would reduce costs equal to that of pumping groundwater.
We are a "coastal" state , I can't see how the Government is not using some of the surplus money to invest in "desalination" plants .....
But then I do understand why the Government is not doing it , EVERY ONE IS POCKETING THE MONEY , money that is of aide FROM the Federal Reserve , and since WE , the lower class are the ones TAX for it not the rich nor any government on a higher chair .......
Why not use solar energy to power the desalination plants? And use the hydro electricity that would come thru the pipe line as the water is transported to the transfer stations - for free energy - and then use the left over water to water the dry fields to grow food. Put a purification system in for drinking water. All powered by the sun. Yes, there would be a start up cost. There should be no hunger in this world at this present time with the technology we already have.
Blessings to All ~Live Love Consciously~
+Debra Mitchell Probably because it would take a solar farm 1/5 the size of California to run it. In the story it already states they are taking advantage of the hyrdro energy from the release of the by water. If perpetual energy was as easy as you've just the worlds energy problems would be solved.
+Hapuniva You can use just the solar to start it up... the water itself would create the Energy. It is THAT EASY.
Sounds like you've got it all worked out. You should write down your plan and present it to them.
+Hapuniva Solar farm 1/5th the size of California is equivalent to the entire electricity demands in the United States, and even then it's be an excess. All the desalination plants in the US will not consume energy anywhere close to that amount.
Ok, so whats your point?
Question for california residents: how much do you pay per month for house water alone? 25$? 50$? 200$?
There is everlasting freshwater under the earth that comes up to the top, it can't run dry so the questions is what's up with this so-called drought.
The brine dumped back into ocean shouldn't be higher than when it went into this facility .
Gray water recycling. There's literally plans online from a company that extracts water from human waste during it into clean distilled drinking water with a fertilizing byproduct.
Why not pull the salt out of the water and store it in abandoned salt mines , why dump the salt back into the ocean?
Do you want to dump pure salt in salt mines? Wow. You have to be very eco friendly...
get ready for higher water prices!
What?! 30% more ? So basically california could solve it's water problem if it pays 30 cents more for every dollar yhey now pay for water? I thought it was about 500% more...30% is a bargain.
Here's a thought. What about a population policy? Let's say, California, the world's 4th largest economy did something other than grow forever? No doubt, the state is already so over-bloated with greed and growth, it will need to use desalination problems well into the future but if people began a little bit of family planning and you applied an intelligent immigration program, you would certainly not need to build anymore of them. Moreover, a population policy would assist in addressing the myriad other environmental issues that come with more and more people wanting more and more ... forever.
The tragedy is that all the effort applied to resolving water issues in California will, in many ways, make things very much worse. It will remove an obstacle to growth; meanwhile this growth will ensure on-going environmental harm in its many other manifestations and ensure we are compelled to live in an ever more crowded space.
This principle, alas, applies to our efforts to address climate change (ie. removing carbon from the atmosphere). People imagine this will end environmental decline. It will not. Certainly, addressing climate change will help vis a vis climate related decline but it will do nothing to stop environmental decline caused by too many people consuming to much. Indeed, such necessary initiatives are likely to act as a spur to more and more growth because too many people imagine that arresting climate change is a 'fix all' solution. That is, once that problem is out of the way, they can carry on regardless! Something to think about!
It sounds like nuclear-powered desalinization is the key. Actually, nuclear is the key that a lot of people don't want to admit is the only solution we have for pretty much everything in our future.
It is not lack of water, it is too many people wanting it. The earth is WAY overpopulated.
We should try to get wealthy philanthropists to offer a billion dollar prize to anyone who can find a cost effective way to desalinate sea water. (By "cost effective" I mean competitive with the watershed in temperate climates. The cost of disposal of wasted brine would also have to be figured in.)
Nano materials science is going to make this MUCH cheaper and energy efficient in the coming years. Perhaps even profitable.
what about creating your own electricity source...so you dont have to buy it
70% of water consumption is used on agriculture
But there are only so many crops that can handle salty water and still only so much of it.
+ Felox - that is called "growing food".
Most of the grown food is fed to animals which are aterwards eaten by humans. If we use all of this food directly for ourselves, nobody would need to starve and nobody would need to suffer. That is called "wasting food".
@@SimanoBaty and the reason being is that a lot of people would like to have some meat on their tables and opt to buy that kind of stuff.
They will get better and better at it. Keep doing it, because you keep letting people build new houses and buildings in a dessert,
so build more plants, and try for once to be ready. Build several plants now, and do creative things to power them. But build them, 'cause this problem is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. That or stop building.
Gov. Jerry Brown has a plan to harness the power of moonbeams.
we can just use the high speed rail to import more water
Im proud to live in San Diego.
What kind of effect does dumping all the super salty water back into the ocean have? What happens if you start dumping a billion gallons of extra salty water into the ocean every day?
All the water we use gets in the ocean eventually, the oceans will be as salty as they always where.
Olivier I'm sorry. English isn't my first language.
so they spent 1 billion on making it efficient? how cost effective was that ? i mean 1 billion can buy a lot of power i assume
Brine lakes are the answer to the brine issue, and will lower the temperature in deserts. Pump the brine to the California deserts.
Use ocean wave power to power the pumps and plant, and also harness the chilly water for geo/thermal. Pacific on tap , and the rest of the oceans everywhere, except Fukushima unless they want to drink their own crap, but I for one would rather drink from the ocean and send wastewater to fields, instead of 'reclaiming'/ re-drink it/other towns sewage later...yuvk
Being 5/7 oceans isn't a very good rating
My uncle works in finances at Bloomberg
Awesome, drink from the ocean, dump wastewater on fields, but if it goes in a river, don't re-drink it. Common sense.
Yes, California can be saved and I would love to help.
The solution to any problem is raising taxes, raising the debt ceiling, and increasing the size of government. Even nonexistent problems
+b Like the drought in California...
Solar power is something we should look into like India..
stop using clean fresh water for golf courses/recreational areas, no pools, dont water lawns in deserts
Then the salinity of the ocean goes up...
Thats something we don't have to worry about. Overall the oceans will become less salty because of freshwater ice melting at the poles.
Of course desalination is the answer, people simply need to pull their head out and start building more plants.
They could've spent at least half a minute to explain what reverse osmosis is. -_-
Saudi Arabia Used Salt water turn into Fresh Water!
Does not seem right. You are pulling water out of the ocean and then putting back into the ocean a higher salt content. So, what happens to the aquatic sea life that depends on a lower ocean salt concentration? They either need to migrate somewhere else or die. All this so humans can continue living ridiculously excessive lifestyles in an area where it should not be possible. Something will give eventually and it's not going to be good
the northern current constantly washing the coast ,no effect whatsoever,this are micro quantities compared to the size of the ocean currents
You thought it wouldn't solve rising sea levels right?
What?
Shouldn't play mother nature!
Using wind and wave energy is usefull.
Desalination costs a lot of money!
+william hubschwerlin Not desalinating cost more. It's about the bigger picture, the long game.
+Tine Woodbe Didn't you view the video? To build the plants cost more and they consume a lot of electricity!
william hubschwerlin My point is that they are not taking into account the bigger picture when determining costs.
1. As with most technologies, the financial cost of building a desalination plant will go down substantially if it was to become widely used.
2. When the talk about the cost of our current water system they don't include externalities: the massive environmental/financial costs to mountain and valley areas where the current water is being drawn from, economic impact of rationing, and on and on...
3. The population and economy will continue to grow; rationing can help slow, but not stop the growing need for more drinkable water; so no matter how you slice it the current water supply will continue to run out. Period. A new source of fresh water needs to be instituted like it or not.
I get that! But who's going to cough up the money? And consumers will pay for it in higher water bills later!
william hubschwerlin Agreed. But we are going to have to cough up that money either way.
Supply and demand: as water continues to run out under California's current system the cost of water will rise anyway. And eventually the costs of dried up river beds, decimated fish/wild life species, sinking and dried up lake beds, etc. will all have to be paid eventually. Our current methodology for dealing with these long term consequences is to remain short sighted and/or "look away," but we're going to have to "pay the piper" eventually.
Whereas with desalination there will be an initial bump in cost in the short term, but in the long term the cost of the plants and processing will go down AND we won't have those pesky long term "externality" costs that are conveniently being ignored currently.
We need to start mining space for everything.
It’s the only logical solution. Israel understood this.
Your wasting energy
"Single largest power users in Sand Diego" - wow, that is some pricey water.
Conservation is looking like a really good idea now.
The waste byproduct the cost and overall output of fresh water is miniscule. The cost will trample out economy. A more effective solution is simply going vegan.