This is just one post in the Desalination Category

Poseidon has promised to eliminate it’s carbon footprint, but will that really happen?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 7, 2008 at 6:47 am

From Voice of San Diego:

The developers of the planned Carlsbad desalination plant offer an alluring pitch: They’ll harness the limitless ocean and produce enough drinking water to satiate the needs of more than 100,000 San Diego County families.

Those who have opposed Poseidon Resources Corp.’s desalination plant have long pointed to its effect on marine life. The pumps that draw in 100 million gallons of seawater each day can trap and crush eggs, larvae and small fish.

But as the county’s awareness of climate change has dawned, the plant’s opponents have seized on its sizeable carbon footprint, a byproduct of the energy-intensive process of sucking in seawater and filtering it through membranes that remove salt.

Poseidon has attempted to diffuse that argument by volunteering to offset some of its carbon dioxide emissions. Though the plant itself will not generate carbon dioxide, the power plants that provide its electricity will. So Poseidon has drafted a climate action plan, which details the steps it will take to offset greenhouse gas emissions, such as planting $1 million worth of trees in wildfire-affected areas of the county and investing $4.1 million in rooftop solar panels at the facility. Its efforts led Forbes magazine to recently name Poseidon one of the top 100 companies “going green.”

In news releases, the company claims the plant will be “the first major infrastructure project in the state to voluntarily eliminate its carbon footprint.”

Read the rest of this comprehensive story from the Voice of San Diego by clicking here.

April 7, 2008 · Filed Under Desalination, Poseidon's Carlsbad Plant