Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
And Desalination is not really that expensive.
It's down to less that a dollar a cube. Compare that to the Calgary $40 per month plus $3 per cube for water cost and Desalination is not significantly more expensive once transportation and disposal costs are factored in.
So even in poor counties the cost of providing a family enough water is driven by the lack of infrastructure in general and not the cost of Desalination.
It's not even that environmental damaging as you just have pumping energy to get the water through the RO filters rather than evaporation costs like old systems.
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It certainly is expensive if you factor in the cost to build the plant. Cape Town has a lot of desalination projects in the works, but they will only slow the drain of the reservoir, not replace the need for it. The first to come online will only produce I think 2Ml/d.
Different markets I know, but the new San Diego plant, which is the biggest in North America I believe, only provides 7% of the regions water supply and cost $1bil (+100mil operation and maintenance per year) and 14 years to build. It produces 189 Ml/d, and Cape Town's consumption last week was 580 Ml/d (after already reducing consumption).
The technology is there, but it's still young, and certainly a more expensive option vs standard reservoir and WTP tech. There are also environmental problems in addition to pump costs, such as getting rid of the brine. This can leave parts of the environment essentially dead.
