RE: it produces clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved ...
OK, it costs $500 Million to build. I have a few questions:
1) How many customers will it serve?
2) How much does it cost to maintain it?
3) Will it be profitable?
It’s in the article excerpt that 20 percent of the country gets its water from it; the $500 million will obviously be amortized over the lifetime of the plant, and the operating costs of a typical large RO plant used to somewhat exceed $1 per cubic meter. The article states that this is cheaper. The figure for annual operating cost could be estimated by the number of people to be served and the per capita water use. In most societies, domestic, personal water use is under 10 percent of total use, most is used for other things, such as irrigation, and commercial and industrial uses (including food-related processes like canning, bottling, cleaning).
Water Desalination is becoming more profitable. I read an article that says it is possible to get the cost down to 49 cents per cubic meter using the newest ocean desalination methods. The current cost is 20 cents per cubic meter to make sure fresh water is sanitary. There are several desalination plants all around the world this may become a new industry. I was reading that there may be portable desalination plants as well.