If water is the next big resource that is "going away", why don't we start building desalinization plants now?

Question

I'll be damned if'in I drink doo-doo water.

Answer 1

Turn on you tap, and fill a glass with water. Don’t be a crybaby liberal.

Answer 2

Why bother yet?   Major corporations are buying up municipal water systems around the country.    They will wait until water is the price of gas, then build the desalinization plants.   Got to concentrate the power first before they make the money.

Answer 3

Because we are stupid, stupid people.  And just like a deer in the headlights, most of us probably won't "get it" until it smacks us in the face.

Answer 4

Desalination  plants had been built in many middle east countries to convert salty water to water not necessary for drinking purposes but for washing, irrigation, flushing, etc. it can be potable by adding more water treatment facility to insure its safeness. Some big resort and hotels by the sea in many parts of the world also have desalination facilities to add to their water requirements. So many are already using it.

Answer 5

The problem is water waste, one time through and down the drain to the sea or the next town down river. I have been looking at various gray water plans and have experimented with one of them. Right now I am capturing the rinse water from the washer and using it to do some of the watering of the yard and trees. What really needs to be done is like the island of Bermuda where they retain a very high percentage of all rainfall that hits the island. Every house there has catch systems and storage tanks.

They also practice gray and black water schemes as well they treat black water to recover both the cleaned water and the solids for fertilizer. The recovered water is used for landscape watering while gray water is used for flushing toilets. The water from landscape watering sinks down and filters itself maintaining the ground water that can be recovered from wells. These systems could be put into place in any community if it were not for silly forms of prejudice so many people have about sensible forms of recycling. Where do you think the people in the next town down river from your town get their water and if you get water from the river or aquifer where do you think it came from before it got to you.

Answer 6

I guess that you are going to be damned. Most of the water that goes into the intake of the plant that supplies you with drinking water has been discharged from a wastewater treatment plant upstream. If you are on a private well, the connection is more diffuse but you are still drinking what you call "doo-doo water". Live with it.

Desalinization plants are limited in value. Where there is a lot of surface water or even groundwater, they are just an un-needed expense. Not everybody lives in a low-rainfall, coastal area. This is where desalinization becomes economically feasible. While you could desalinate seawater for use elsewhere, pumping costs (up-hill, remember) would make distribution impractical.

Answer 7

Desalination plants have been in operation in the middle East and parts of Europe for some time.  Australia is currently developing some as well.  I don't know that it is the answer to the problem though.  We need to develop ways to harvest the fresh water available to us.

Answer 8

Uh, last time I checked, Iowa is covered in the stuff. Besides, if we desalinize that much of the ocean water, that will use massive amounts of energy and change the balance of salinity in the ocean. That will defiantly increase the effects of global warming (and if global warming hasn't happened yet, it will start it). It will massively increase the amount of carbon in the air and mess up the Gulf Stream and other currents. Our best bet is to use what fresh water we have better and more efficiently.

Answer 9

Actually a better way is to arrange to catch stormwater instead of letting it just run off.  Building large catchments and reserviors, and rain gardens and catchments on an individual level, can give us fresh water without having to build complicated plants.

DK

Answer 10

Actually, many countries are developing new ways to tap fresh water. It also costs big bucks to build all these plants. A lot of cities are reclaiming sewer water (which is actually much cleaner than it sounds) as a cheaper alternative.

Answer 11

This touches on the economies of scale issue.  Can a desalinization plant compete with a traditional water pumping and purification plant right now?

We're on the brink of seeing the battle for water in the Southwestern states start very soon (within three years).  The issues Lake Mead and the Colorado River are experiencing (just how do you define water "rights" and usage?) is most likely the bellwether for what will be happening throughout the west over the next few decades.

The answer isn't the construction of desalinization plants, but the creation of better water conservation and management practices.  Though climate change, if left unchecked, will make this effort mote.