Drinking from the sea: Demand for desalination plants increases worldwide

From Circle of Blue:

Pressed by growing urban populations, drier and warmer climates and the need to fortify supplies stretched by the increasing worldwide thirst, metropolitan and national governments on five continents are building record numbers of industrial plants to use a nearly alchemic technology to produce drinking water from the sea.

Over the last five years, an average of 800 new desalination plants have been constructed annually, according to various industrial reports, and the global market could reach $58 billion a year. In 2006 and 2007 alone, according to Global Water Intelligence, an industry research group that tracks water trends, the world’s desalination capacity grew 43 percent, and since 1990 has experienced an average annual growth rate of 17 percent. About 14,380 desalination plants operate across the world, said Global Water Intelligence, with a total contracted capacity of 62 million cubic meters, or 16.3 billion gallons, per day.

“In the last ten years, there’s been almost exponential growth, and I think it’s going to continue to grow,” said Tom Pankratz, member of the board of directors at the International Desalination Association.

But even as desalination emerges as one of the world’s important infrastructure development industries, attracting globally significant companies like General Electric and Veolia Environment, environmental and economic authorities have raised concerns.

“Desalination plants are enormously expensive, use tremendous amounts of energy and have major environmental costs that are not always adequately addressed, including brine disposal, impingement and entrainment of aquatic organisms and coastal development problems.” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute.

Read more from the Circle of Blue by clicking here.

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