Posted on 11/17/2022 2:39:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
The California Coastal Commission will decide whether to permit a proposed Marina desalination plant on Thursday. But the mayor of Marina, Bruce Carlos Delgado, plans to fight it.
"Marina gets none of the water, but all of the harm," Delgado said. "Our air, our coastline, our groundwater is threatened, our vertical pools will dry up. The walking path to the beach will be past industrial facilities that Monterey and Carmel will never allow on their beaches."
The project was proposed by California American Water, which would use the plant to deliver millions of gallons of water to about 100,000 of its customers on the Monterey Peninsula, which are predominantly wealthier communities: the city of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel-by-the-Sea and the neighborhoods of Pebble Beach.
The project is anticipated to supply 40 percent of the Peninsula's water needs.
"You can imagine the popularity of putting an industrial site on Monterey's beaches or Carmel's beaches. So we have a long pattern of injustice in this country, where unwanted industrial facilities are put into low-income, small, minority-dominated communities," Delgado said.
As climate change and a statewide drought persist, water scarcity is becoming a pressing matter.
In December 2021, the state imposed a cease and desist order, preventing the Peninsula from drawing water from its main water supply, the Carmel River, which is drying up.
Person Holding Phone Taking Picture of Served Food3 Central Coast restaurants named top spots to grab brunch in California, according to Yelp "It's become politicized and I don't understand why," Josh Stratton, a spokesperson for Cal Am, said. "The bottom line is we need more water. I think all of us know we are in a state of prolonged drought in the state of California and Monterey County so I don't understand why people would oppose such a great project."
Alternatively, proponents have proposed expanding the Peninsula's intake of recycled wastewater delivered by Monterey One Water and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District to Cal Am.
It's touted as being cheaper than the desal plant, but critics question if the source water would deliver enough supply.
To move forward, the California Public Utility Commission would need to authorize the water expansion purchase and the deal would require a signature from Cal Am, M1W and MPWM.
Cal Am says it plans to still sign that agreement and suggests both project—the desal plant and the water expansion—could move forward together.
But according to MPWM, taking on both projects would bring unnecessary costs.
The CPUC is scheduled to review the proposition on Dec. 1.
Because, you know, we can’t have a desal plant after diverting a bunch of California’s sparse water offerings to help protect a bait fish.
Water and power generation are both needed in CA. (as I’m sure you know)
Where’s the power going to come from? Taking salt out of seawater takes HUGE amounts of power.
I wonder what the economics of the plant would look like if they put the plant five miles inland, off the coast.
Also, I’ve read the highly saline water discharge is really harmful to aquatic life. The effluent outfall pipe has to be put FAR off offshore to avoid serious harm to aquatic life.
I am sure if they run one pinwheel on top, it will all be taken care of.
NIMBY. Don’t block our view!
3.37 kWh per cubic meter for reverse osmosis is not huge.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10098-016-1190-3
For example, RO typically requires 3.37 kW h/m3 of energy for desalinating seawater, 1.2 kW h/m3 for industrial effluent, and 0.7–1 kW h/m3 for brackish water (Hoang et al. 2009). Modern seawater desalination plants incorporating RO usually employ an energy recovery device (ERD).
Let California die.
How does this affect air quality? The coastline? Groundwater" And what is a vertical pool? Always generalities, but no scientific explanations.
I believe all editors in the media have been fired. I believe it is “vernal pools. ”vertical pools” is an oxymoron
Note the alternative proposed ... toilet to sippy cup recycled water. How much do you trust a government “public servant”, without any personal liability or responsibility, to do a mistake proof job.
NO WAY IN HELL they will allow a desal plant. The California Coastal Commission is full of the most tyrannical thugs you will ever find. There are several defunct power plants along the coast ready to be used. BUT NO. The idiots of California have decided that the old smokestack oil burners (Morro Bay) will be converted for battery storage.
“Where’s the power going to come from? Taking salt out of seawater takes HUGE amounts of power.”
I assume that when some lists the costs of desalinized water, they’re including the cost of the energy involved.
Given that, and according to the article below (and plenty others), the cost comes out to 0.39 CENTS per gallon (well under a penny per gallon). Where I live in Texas, I pay between 1.5 and 2.0 CENTS per gallon, and we use about 4000 gallons per month. Given the cost listed below, another 0.40 CENTS per gallon would raise my water bill by $16 a month, at most (from $60 to $80 to $76 to $96). Yes it’s more, but I would GLADLY pay that to NOT have to be lectured about water use, told not to wash my car, told when to water my law, etc.
The REAL PROBLEM that the Left has with desalinization is that it uses SOME ENERGY, and even a relatively minuscule amount of energy is UNACCEPTABLE to them, since most of that energy is still carbon-based. So they bitch...don’t fall for their propaganda, do the math instead.
https://www.advisian.com/en/global-perspectives/the-cost-of-desalination
“Since the 1960s, the cost for Multi-Stage Flash Distillation (MSF) to desalinate water has decreased approximately by a factor of 10, with approximate unit costs of US$ 10.00/m3 in the 1960s to less than US$1.00/m3 ($3.79 per 1000 gallons)”
And, of course, more Illegals won’t affect the problem...
| Item | Amt $ | Amt % |
|---|---|---|
| 5/8" service charge | 28.58 | 17% |
| 12.00 CCF at $5.4087 per CCF | 64.90 | 39% |
| 7.00 CCF at $6.762 per CCF | 47.33 | 28% |
| WRAM charges or credits | 7.54 | 5% |
| CPUC Fee | 2.22 | 1% |
| Other Charges & Credits | 6.55 | 4% |
| Local tax (3.5%) | 5.50 | 3% |
| Public Purpose Programs | 4.21 | 3% |
| Total | 166.83 | 100% |
Here's the comparison of the Desal price you quoted vs. what I paid:
| CCF | Gallons | Price $ |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 8,980 | 34.03 |
| 7 | 5,240 | 19.86 |
| Desal price $/1,000 gal | 3.79 | |
| Cal Water Price | 112.23 | |
| Desal Price | 53.89 |
Obviously the price I paid includes all the physical plant to treat and distribute water which isn't included in the Desal water price. But how much would that be? Double the water cost? Triple? Either way (2X or 3X the water cost), it looks like the price of delivered desalinated water is competitive.
That's a surprising result.
The other thing that is not so surprising is that ONE-THIRD of my bill is non-water fees and taxes.
If California was actually serious about green issues, they would link nuclear power generation to desalinization to reducing the waste stream from desal to harvest lithium and other needed metal byproducts. But they don’t really care about any of that. As with the bullet train to nowhere, they are all about the money.
Yep. All those salts in the waste stream are full of goodies we can use in manufacturing, food processing and so on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.