Seawater on tap- disseminating the reality of drinking water

The ancient Greeks understood that boiling seawater produces a drinkable vapor; 18th century sailors experimented with catching this vapor in sponges to facilitate their thirst on long voyages.  Contemporary desalination began similarly: boiling seawater (by burning petroleum or natural gas) and regaining droplets of water in a process called thermal desalination.  Cleaner, more high-tech technologies like reverse osmosis — passing seawater through plastic membranes to remove salt and other impurities — are becoming more widespread.  The significant exception is the Middle East, where countries rely on fossil fuel-based sustainable plants to get two-thirds of their desalination needs.  The area accounts for approximately 90 percent of thermal treatment of seawater worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency .

Sanz of the IDA said the analysis failed to distinguish between thermal and membrane technologies and showed” a lack of real knowledge.”  The study has been “an impression of some people working at a college” and not an official United Nations’ view of desalination, ” he said.

Prices have tumbled by more than half over the previous 30 years thanks to developments in engineering and energy efficiency.   Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. are one of the cheapest places to desalinate water, given their comparatively low energy costs as well as the economies of scale at their large centers.  Increased use of solar and wind power to conduct the desalination process may make it cheaper.

This salty concentrate may contain dangerous residues from anti-scaling and anti-fouling compounds utilized in the plants, according to the study by the Hamilton, Canada-based UN Institute for Water, Environment and Health.  Desalination creates enough of the pollutant each year to cover the state of Florida under 1 foot (30 centimeters) of brine, said Manzoor Qadir, one of the study’s authors.  Brine may also deplete oxygen in surrounding waters, suffocating marine organisms and disrupting food chains.  Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait and Qatar collectively generate 55 percent of global brine, the analysis said.  Some centers have attempted to dilute brine by dispersing it over larger regions of the sea or processing it to extract precious metals.  But such procedures are technically difficult and expensive.

It is a cruel irony of this blue planet the majority of the earth is awash in waters, yet seawater is undrinkable.  Large-scale attempts to eliminate salt from seawater — the procedure called desalination — trace back into the 1950s, and now almost 20,000 centers from China to Mexico are making salt water drinkable to maintain burgeoning populations.  However, this modern-day alchemy is under scrutiny as critics question whether the benefits of desalination justify its possible harm to marine environments and contribution to global warming.

The critical to make seawater drinkable shows no sign of easing.  At current consumption rates, the U.A.E.’s largest emirate may run from natural groundwater provides “within a few decades,” the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency said in a 2017 report.  Still increasing demand for limited water resources is spurring new suggestions for food manufacturing as far as for desalination.  The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai recycles brine to irrigate salt-tolerant crops such as salicornia, which can be eaten or used for biofuel.  The study institute also breeds food plants such as quinoa that prosper in salty, desert lands.

 As of 2015, roughly 18,000 desalination plants had a combined production capacity of 86.55 million cubic meters a day, or 22,870 million gallons — roughly 1 percent of the planet’s need.  Ever since then, about 2,000 additional plants are built.  Saudi Arabia produces the biggest share of desalinated water, roughly a fifth of the world total, followed closely by the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, China, Spain and Kuwait.  (Since Persian Gulf nations use the majority of their restricted groundwater for agriculture, they depend heavily on desalination to supply their populations and businesses.)  Governments and businesses spend as much as $14 billion annually to make sea and brackish water drinkable. 

Some crops are situated in land away from the sea, and the brine they create is put into evaporation ponds, injected deep underground or transformed into a slurry that’s processed to dry salt for Entry.  Wider adoption of membrane technologies, particularly in the Middle East, seems like the best way to cut back chemical-laden brine.  Virtually all new facilities planned in the area will use reverse osmosis, a trend likely to continue as budget-minded Gulf authorities cut subsidies on fossil fuels.  All these cuts, by making thermal plants less aggressive, are the main reason membrane technologies are finally taking off there.

Early criticism concentrated on the super-heated effluent that lots of thermal plants discharged back into the sea and the way that it may kill corals and other marine life.  The IDA says desalination facilities currently trendy this bilge so that it poses such a danger.  Another environmental concern centres around using fossil fuels to power desalination, especially in the Middle East.  A study published in January sparked new controversy about “toxic substances” from the brine that desalination plants pour into oceans.