Fresh water is needed to sustain life for humans, animals, and plant life. Desalination plants should be built to aid in providing this necessary resource. According to the article entitled “A Source of Freshwater” the process of water desalination has been around since the time of Aristotle in 320 BCE. Also, desalination plants are inexpensive. Next, the plant will make up to 56 million gallons of fresh water each day. There for, 14% of people will lack fresh water by 2025. Finally desalination is the solution for the future. Some may say that the plants are too costly to build or bad for the environment, but it is well worth the costs and steps could be taken to protect ensure safety. In conclusion, water desalination plants should be built
The advantages of desalination represents an opportunity to use oceanic water resources. If the appropriate conditions are present, a desalination plant could potentially be used to replace an existing or future dam. As existing sources of useable water run dry, desalination is a very effective, alternative source of water. On top of that the distillation process produces one of the highest quality water, with a range of 1 to 50 ppm tds, tds is also known as total dissolved solids. With the recommended California standard being 500 ppm, this quality of water is far beyond any other water quality seen before.
To start off, the plant is not very trustworthy. Secondly, the desalination plant can harm different forms of marine life. Finally, the discharge water creates a hazard.
The issue of building desalination plants has been a hot topic of Californians in the past couple decades because researchers knew that our available surface and groundwater supplies are becoming scarce. This problem is important because California is home to a large population of people as well as extensive agricultural and industrial productions that need vast amounts of water. With the reduction in available ground and fresh water brings other problems that need to be addressed. Many farmers are having to impose stricter management policies in regards to how they use the water the pay so much for. Crops sensitive to the amount of water they receive or do not receive can be destroyed in a short amount of time if neglected of water. With the amount of fresh water accumulated by both snow melt of California’s mountains as well as ground water retrieved from wells and pumps being depleted faster than we can recharge those sources, farmers face further impacts. An article by Robert Glennon, “Unquenchable: Americas water crisis and what to do about it” says “In the summer of 2009, California is facing mandatory water rationing. Many farmers may be entirely cut off, costing the economy more than $1 billion and putting more
-Article 1- Ghaffour, N., M. Missimer, T., & L. Amy, G. (2013). Desalination (Technical review and evaluation of the economics of water desalination: Current and future challenges for better water supply sustainability) (Vol. 309, pp. 197-207). Thuwal.
However, due to the long lasting drought in California we should heavily consider this method of producing clean water. In other parts of the world such as China, India, Australia, Spain and more they have been able to produce nearly fourteen billion gallons of drinking water through this process. The largest desalination plant in the world is located in Saudi Arabia and produces two hundred and seventy three million gallons of drinking water per day. If the United States is able to perfect this, it could fix the situation. Amanda Little does an excellent job of sharing a wide array of perspectives of desalination in her article “Can Desalination Counter The Drought”. For instance she describes the discusses the standpoint of the executive director of the California Coast keeper Alliance, Sara Aminzadeh, as she argues, “It’s just not a good option from a cost and energy standpoint.” She goes on to say, “Desalination may seem like a panacea, but it’s the worst deal out there.” Although this method may not be cost or energy efficient, this may be the only plausible method of producing clean water. As seen in Saudi Arabia this is an efficient form of creating clean water and due to the lack of resources, this may be California’s last
A desalination plant is a possible alternative to California’s need of consumable water. There is a course cons against desalination mainly affecting the marine environment for leaving highly concentrated saline water behind through the process but we should not fear it as it is a long term solution we cannot toss aside. Kerry Cavanaugh from Los Angeles Times mentions, “2,000 an acre foot, compared to about $1,000 an acre foot for imported water” (par. 3). This means that production of water through this process is cost efficient and seems rather illogical to spend more money into producing water; instead of importing it from another major source. The process cost is not a major step forward, but the idea of reaching out to import water is rather absurd. California is an arid state; we are the ones responsible for turning it into a paradise. In order to maintain it that way a method to lower the cost of desalination can be propose as solution. The thought
The problem of water shortage among the inhabitants of the state of California is without doubt a real need that has to be urgently addressed. This document seeks convince stakeholders in the state government of California and Water aid, a non-governmental organization that building a water desalination plant to help solve the problem in California is a good solution. We hope to obtain financial support and backing to undertake the project. This paper is necessary to bring to light a potent solution to this enormous problem facing the dwellers of California. Its vitality cannot be underestimated as it brings forth a potent solution to a real need to the families of the state of California.
With the water crisis being seen around the world, even right here in the United States, we need to explore other options to supply fresh water to the residents. One State, in particular, that raises concern is the state of California. An alternative method to supply water to residents could be the process of desalination. Desalination is when fresh water is made by using either seawater or brackish and eliminating the minerals and salts as a way to make the water safe for human and agriculture uses ( Kesieme et al., 2013). In recent years, we have seen an increase the in the number of desalination plants around the United States (fig 1). However, is the process of desalination the answer for the water crisis going on in California? As a
After years of water shortages plaguing the southeast of Queensland the state government decided to build a desalination plant, at Tugun, on the Gold Coast in 2009. After only 2 months after the taps were finally turned on, the State Government’s $1.2 billion desalination plant was shut down for five weeks of repair. (task sheet) The main problem the desalination plant faced was corrosion. The two giant stainless tanks used to store desalinated water had to be replaced because of corrosion and more than 100m of rusting pipe had to be replaced.
Water desalination is very important for us because it give us access to fresh and clean water. Also, water desalination is useful because we use it in many ways. For example, trees spraying , human consuming , municipalities, water glasses , hotels and resort. But also for industrial applications like power plants , oil and gas , chemical factories , requiring specific process water for their
Much of the population has agreed that society might be forced to resort to this in the future; however, this project should truly be initiated now. Recently, a desalination plant was opened in San Diego for about $1 billion (Rogers). With the current technology being used, this plant and others like it will simply not produce enough water to make it worth the cost. However, scientific advancement may someday make desalinization more efficient and reasonably priced, allowing it to pose as a feasible solution to the water supply
The world is in a water crisis and needs more fresh water. Desalination can be an enormous help. The water crisis is the number one risk to the planet according to the World Economic Forum in January 2015. Our planet is 70% water but only 2.5% is freshwater, and we only have access 0.007%. The earth has 7 billion people who need water and 6.8 million struggle everyday for clean water. Today people even
Desalination continues to assist various countries such as Saudi Arabia in increasing their supply of freshwater to the public. In his report, Alghariani (2003) suggests that the expense of spare parts, maintenance and training costs, as well as the difficulty of some processes involved, has lead to the low production volume from desalination techniques, however, Lisa Henthorne of the International Desalination Association, claims that as of 2009, there were 14,451 desalination plants with a combined production volume of 59.9 million cubic metres per day, indicating an increase in the supply of freshwater. Although seawater desalination removes most of the contaminants in the water, and not all, it still provides means for utilizing the ocean, which is the world’s main water resource, and this continues to deliver high quality water, which is suitable for human consumption, therefore making significant contributions to the supply of water to arid regions.
needed to pump, treat and transport water to the consumers. Desalination, an important technology for
Desalination is the process through which pure water is recovered from saline water using various forms of technology. The two major commercial desalination technologies include thermal desalination and membrane processes. Osman (2005, p.209) asserts that the technology is critical to water management, and it works independently of climatic factors. Thus, the method can be used to supply fresh water consistently regardless of the weather in the arid regions.