Massachusetts Considering Desalination Plants

Iphtashu Fitz writes "Despite a reservoir system containing some 412 billion gallons of water for Boston and surrounding communities, some eastern Massachusetts towns are facing water shortages and are now considering water desalination plants as a new source of fresh drinking water. The city of Brockton, 20 miles south of Boston, has plans in the works to build a $40 million plant and could begin construction as soon as this September. Currently there are fewer than 100 desalination plants in the US and most of them are in smaller communities, but that seems to be changing. The largest desalination plant in the country is located in Tampa, FL, which expects it to provide 10% of the citys drinking water by 2008. California also has at least 10 large scale plants on the drawing board. Some environmental organizations like the Conservation Law Foundation dispute the need for desalination plants however. They argue that many water shortages could simply be solved by better conservation of existing supplies."

Comments

huh

[minus_273]

what harm is there from desalinaiton plants? sea level dropping? why are environmental groups protesting it?

Re:huh

[grahamsz]

Desalination consumes a huge amount of power... that in turn creates greenhouse gases or nuclear waste.

However, if you are smart you can use your desalination plant only at times when the demand on the power grid is below average, and i'll burn electricity which would have otherwise been wasted.

Re:huh

[JaredOfEuropa]

why are environmental groups protesting it?

Technical solution = one less issue for the greens to lobby against, hence less power for them.

Solution in the form of rationing = greens telling us how to live, meaning more power to them

Call me cynical, but all too often I see the greens (or the Green Khmer as my friend calls them) protesting against good solutions... it seems that they always favour rationing.

Re:huh

[SideshowBob]

The salt can go back into the sea. And the fresh water that is created by de-salination eventually ends up back in the sea as well, so overall salinity stays the same. In fact you can just mix it into the output of the water treatment facility to avoid localized increased salinity.

Conservation only works when...

[Grant29]

Conservation only works when people contribute to the effort. These days people use water for household uses, lawns, washing cars, etc. Once we are used to having it on demand, it's kinda hard to think about conserving. Ususally it's too late when a shortage occurs. Might as well start building the plants now, by the time they are finished being built, they will be needed.

--
Retail Retreat

Silly enviro-people, water is for consumers!

[stienman]

They argue that many water shortages could simply be solved by better conservation of existing supplies.

Well DUH. The people aren't trying to solve a 'water shortage' problem. They are trying to solve a "demand exceeds supply" problem. They don't have a reason to deny people the water they want to use if the people are willing to pay a higher cost. Eventually they hit a price point where people will naturally conserve water.

Water is a reusable natural resource. It's not easy to come up with a reason to conserve it, since they are already conserving it with water treatment plants.

Think of the water system as a closed system. The only unaccounted for openings are evaporation, and letting it go into the water table (ground, streams, ocean, etc). Otherwise the water is contained entirely in storage, pipes, and treatment plants. To offset evaporation and adding to the water table a system must have a certian amount of intake from wells or another water source. A water shortage doesn't necessarily mean that not enough water is being produced, it means that the system has reached its capacity --> the treatement plants are supplying less water per day than people are consuming, and they are draining (slowly) their reserves of treated water. Alternately more and more water is being stored in additional piping added by new neighborhoods/buildings or evaporated/drained into the environment by new lawns and pools and not enough used water is getting back to the treatment plants. The wells and other 'new water' sources are too stressed.

There are two ways of combating this - either take in more water from the environment, or increase the efficiency of the treatment system (more plants, better plants, etc) Obviously the second problem can only be solved by getting more 'new water' into the system. In many cities it makes more sense to place a new well than to upgrade the treatement plant, especially if the treatement plant isn't at capacity. In many cases a well cannot be placed because it puts too much strain on the water table, so a desalination plant makes very good sense.

The environmental people are not complaining so much because they feel we are destroying the planet as they are complaining because it's a symptom of our consumerism which they fundamentally oppose on principle. If they can get everyone else to 'think green' in general then they hope that other problems which do directly affect the environment will also abate.

Oh, and yes, desalination does stress the water source. If they do not process the salt into other forms then the source many become too salty near the plant. If they do not replace the salt then it may not be salty enough. Either way, a desalination plant affects the water source. Whether that's bad or good is subjective.

-Adam