DesaliNation
How desal can stop our water problems
What is Desalination?
San Diego is in has been in a drought since 2014, when Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency. California has had many water problems before. In 2015, the snowpack was 5% of its average size. One way to fix the lack of water worldwide is a proccess called desalination.
We can solve the water problem with desalination because it increases the percentage of fresh water for a growing population. Desalination is the conversion of salt water into fresh water we can drink. It is needed to increase the percentage of fresh water because we won´t have enough fresh water in the future without it.
Why use Desalination
Why should we use it
1. Desalination is imroving and getting cheaper. There are many types of desalination and it is contantly improving as the price has been reduced to $0.51 per cubic meter of fresh water produced.
2.It increases the percentage of fresh water for us to drink. Human population is increasing and desalination gives us more water to drink.
3.It is cheaper than we most people think and may guarantee 100% water security. One example of this is the Victorian Desalination Plant in Melbourne, Australia. Though it is the most expensive desalination plant so far, it costs only 40 cents per person a day and has a 100% water security guarantee. It costs $670 million per year, but that is only paid for future water restricitions, and is worth it to increase the level of fresh water.
Case Study and How Desal works
How good is the desalination business doing today?
Case Study
There are 150 countries with desalination, 18,426 desalination plants, 222.9 billion gallons cleaned every day, and more than 300 million people worldwide rely on it.
How it works
The most popular type of desal is multi-stage flash-distillation. It uses heat to evaporate water and leave the salt behind. Forward osmosisis uses membrane and thermal purification to clean salt water. Desalination can be powered by many different things too, and people are coming up with ways to use things like solar-power to power desal plants.