Can Desalination help solve the world’s growing water crisis?
Water Scarcity is a growing global crisis with more than 2 billion people, living in water-scarce conditions. A further 700 million people have serious difficulty gaining access to clean water on a daily basis. To put that number into perspective, that’s 1 in every 10 people on the planet who cannot access safe drinking water every day.
It seems entirely bizarre that this is the case when most of the earth’s surface is dominated by water and one might be forgiven for thinking that water is abundant on our planet. However, as inconceivable as it might be, less than 3% of the earth’s water is freshwater which is essential to sustaining most life on earth. Of that 3%, the majority of it is inaccessible to us, with 68% of it locked away in icecaps and glaciers. A further 30% is stored in groundwater reserves which leaves us with just 1%.
97% of the earth’s water is located in the world’s oceans which cover 70% of the earth’s surface. It is estimated that there are around 1.35 billion trillion liters of water in our oceans. With so much water seemingly available, the solution to the world’s water crisis appears to be staring us in the face. However, this apparent abundant source of water is saline, and in this form, totally unusable to humans, and not suitable for sustaining life.
That does not mean that we cannot use it, or gain access to it. It simply means that in order to do so we will need to remove the salt and other impurities from the seawater that prevent it from being usable. The process of purifying saline ocean water and producing potable freshwater is known as desalination and there are already more than 15000 plants operating around the world.
The majority of these facilities, 48%, are located in the Middle East and North Africa. A 2018, UN-sponsored study estimated that the world produces around twenty-five billion gallons of water a day which is enough to provide water for twenty to thirty cities the size of London. This is nowhere near enough to solve the current and growing global water crisis. However, could it be a solution if the technology was adopted more widely around the world?
With the success of desalination in countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, UAE, and Qatar desalination provides a possible way forward for other countries facing similar water issues. Let’s explore the process to understand both the pros and cons of desalination.
Modern desalination plants use the process of reverse osmosis to produce clean freshwater from seawater. This process involves pressing seawater through ultrathin, semipermeable membranes to remove large molecules, or ions such as salt from the seawater and to produce freshwater on the other side. The process is energy-intensive requiring large amounts of electricity in order to run the machinery and systems. It is estimated that almost 40% of the operating costs of these plants are consumed by electricity.
The process of reverse osmosis is however less energy-intensive than previous desalination methods, such as boiling seawater and there are existing renewable energy solutions that can be used to augment or remove the cost as well as environmental impact of electricity. Alternative energy sources that are environmentally friendly are required to reduce the cost and negative impact of energy production for water production from desalination.
Another environmental consideration in the desalination process is a by-product of salty brackish water called Brine. Brine is a highly concentrated solution of saltwater and large volumes are produced in the process. For every 3 liters of freshwater that is produced by the desalination process, almost 6 liters of Brine is produced. Brine is toxic to life both on land and in the sea. If the Brine is simply pumped back into the ocean, it creates a layer on the ocean floor and this can suffocate and kill marine life in that area. The Brine has to be diluted or distributed effectively to minimize the impact.
One possible solution to the problem is to build salt plants to process the Brine into salt and other minerals that can be used in other commercial products. The costs and commercial viability of this are prohibitive at present but proponents of desalination are optimistic that they can reduce the impact of Brine through its reuse in the production of other products in the future. Improved Brine management strategies and techniques are required to limit the negative environmental impacts and costs associated with its disposal.
Desalination plants can also negatively impact the marine life in the area surrounding the intake of seawater that is piped to the desalination plants for processing. Fish and other marine life can be sucked into the system and killed in the process thereby reducing the marine life in the area. Further environmental studies are required to fully understand the impact.
Lastly, the initial capital cost of the infrastructure is prohibitive to many countries looking to deploy the technology when compared to traditional water treatment facilities. This coupled with the large energy costs associated with its operations causes a slow rate of adoption of the technology. Much work will be required to reduce the CAPEX and OPEX costs of desalination if widespread adoption of the technology is to occur.
The above is a very simplistic representation of the process of desalination. If you want to read a more detailed scientific explanation of the process of desalination and reverse osmosis, you can read more here.
Assessing the process of desalination above, its environmental impact, the costs involved in operating and building the plants, as well as the current levels of production, one can conclude that desalination cannot solve the world’s current water crisis on its own. While it is definitely an attractive technology given the abundance of seawater on the planet and there is a romantic optimism attached to extracting water from the ocean, much work needs to be done to reduce the costs and its environmental impact.
The good news is that the costs of the technology are coming down and renewable energy solutions can provide the solution to reduce the environmental impacts of the energy requirements. Desalination can definitely be used to augment supply from other sources and help to solve the world’s water crisis one plant at a time.
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H2O securities can directly help to solve the financing of these plants and supports the efforts of the companies that deal with the associated Brine issues, contributing to maximizing the efforts in this sector and the role it plays in solving the world’s water crisis. To find out more about H2O Securities, please visit us at https://h2o-securities.com.
