New Water Source Idea (California desalination)

Los Angeles Times ^ | November 25, 2003 | Dan Weikel and Jean O. Pasco

[Willie Green]

Major Orange County water district is considering a public-private partnership for a desalination project.

A major supplier of water in Orange County is exploring potential partnerships between government and industry to develop a desalination plant that could help reduce demands on the county's vast groundwater basin.

The efforts of the Orange County Water District come as Huntington Beach is considering a private venture by Poseidon Resources to build and operate a $250-million desalination facility at the AES power plant on Pacific Coast Highway.

[Willie Green]

Concern over fresh water supply is becoming increasingly common in our nation due to pressures from drought and population growth. Our coastal states are frequently evaluating the viability of desalination systems to provide their fresh water needs. Desalination is an energy intensive process, so it is quite common for these facilities to be built in close proximity to electric power plants. For this reason, it is also reasonable to consider the use of nuclear desalination as a potential option.

[Willie Green]

ping

[Ann Archy]

FINALLY!!!!

[Slicksadick]

ping

[Age of Reason]

Concern over fresh water supply is becoming increasingly common in our nation due to pressures from drought and population growth.

There's a simple solution: end ALL kinds of immigration, because we are out of room and resources.

Were immigration to end, America's population growth would level-off, and we would experience much fewer shortages.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Good! Very good.

[gubamyster]

FINALLY!!!!

I live in Huntington Beach and this is going to cost a fortune. From the article:

Through grants and subsidies, the report stated, the cost of desalinated water could be reduced to between $359 and $880 per acre-foot, which is 326,000 gallons, enough for two families for a year.

Without subsidies, desalinated water costs between $609 and $1,130 per acre-foot, the report stated. Imported water from the Colorado River costs about $500 per acre-foot; water from the county aquifer costs about $150 per acre-foot.

Nor was he aware, he wrote, of any desalination plant with production costs as low as those mentioned in the study.

[PogySailor]

Good luck with that. The enviro's and the NIMBY's fought tooth and nail against the one built on Tampa Bay. Then the contractor screwed up and used the wrong type of filter on the inlet that kept getting clogged with bio matter. I don't think it has stayed on line for more than a week at a time.

Salt in the wound: Desalination plant could cost another $75 million

[Amerigomag]

Willie was this your vanity title or the Slimes?

DeSal is anything but new in California. It's been around for 25 years and has never proved cost effective. What is new is that California has done such a piss poor job of controlling its growth (principally through illegal immigration) that the technology may finally be economically viable. But then any technology is economically viable if your alternative is nothing.

The question is who is going to pay for the technology. Certainly not the primary user. He couldn't afford it. Obviously the California taxpayer can.

[Willie Green]

Willie was this your vanity title or the Slimes?

I added the portion in parentheses because desalination (and nuclear power) is one of my pet advocacies.

The LaLa Slimes had the "New Water Source Idea" title.
(I never alter the original title. Only make slight additions for clarification of content.)

Of course, the full article raises issues other than just desalination, such as privatization of the water supply. But we can't post full articles from that source.

[Willie Green]

It's been around for 25 years and has never proved cost effective.

Desal has been around longer than that.
But there have been significant technological and efficiency improvements over the last decade. Yeah, it is still more costly than traditional sources. But when population growth places excessive demand on those resources, desalination becomes a more viable option. Gotta get water from somewhere!

[SSN558]

It's been around for 25 years and has never proved cost effective.

It has proven cost effective in certain regions of the world where energy is plentiful and water is scarce. Neither condition exists in CA. CA's problem is over use and over population.

[PoorMuttly]

How about catching all those millions of gallons of FRESH WATER which runs through those famous runoff canals around L.A.

I guess I'm just a stupid dog...which I can accept...if proven. It just seems hollow to go after new water when so much is thrown away.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[Grut]

...a public-private partnership...

This is a code phrase for "two sets of trotters in the public trough."

[pageonetoo]

I remembered a D- plant at Wrightsville Beach, NC, as a kid, and did a google search... the writer is quite acurate with his last statement... the water stank, and tasted terrible

There was one for quite some time at Wrightsville Beach, North
Carolina... it was there when I moved to the Wilmington area in the mid
1960's, and apparently was dismantled in the late 1970's or 1980's. It
was a very early version of desalinization, and the water it
produced was barely potable.

International Nickel also had/has a research plant there..

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the pings.

They have been talking this up for some time.

Not sure if it will happen though.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

I live in Huntington Beach and this is going to cost a fortune. From the article:

If California wasn't controlled by the "chicken littles" of the environmental fringe, a nuclear desalinization plant could produce cheap water while selling energy.

Fresh water is a commodity that is ever decreasing because of increasing demand.

Ionics....ION......is the top desalinization company in the world - a great investment for the long term.

[Elliott Jackalope]

"What is new is that California has done such a piss poor job of controlling its growth (principally through illegal immigration) that the technology may finally be economically viable."

Former Californian here. I voted for Prop. 187, along with a majority of other Californians. You might remember it? It was the proposition designed to cut off all services to people here illegally? Then some rotten vermin of a federal judge struck it down as being "unconstitutional". Apparently our Constitution clearly states that people who have broken the law to be here, and who reside here illegally deserve to suck on the public teat.

I now live in Eastern Washington state. Why? Because I just could not stand to live in the third world hellhole that California has now become. So if you want to blame anyone for California's woes, blame our totally rotten, corrupt and worthless Federal government and the slimy vermin who sit on the benches of our Federal courts.

[Tacis]

Without reading the article, I KNOW that there is some aspect of this that the whacko-conservationsts will find totally unacceptable. It will change the color of the ocean, the salinity of the ocean, raise the temperature or the hum of the motors/equipment will annoy the rare Palos Verdes Sea Cucumber. And, they dare not do anything to spoil the southern view that Barbra Streisand has from the topmost tower of her guarded, palatial Malibu mansion located on an exclusive private beachfront.