Posted on 09/03/2015 9:12:36 PM PDT by grundle
CARLSBAD, Calif. - North America’s largest seawater desalination plant is ahead of schedule.
Construction on the $1 billion Carlsbad Desalination Plant is completed. Inspectors are now putting the plant through its paces to make sure it works.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Poseidon Water spokeswoman Jessica Jones.
The idea for the plant is almost 20 years old. As of Wednesday, the plant was desalinating 50-million gallons of water a day into clean drinking water. The water will be dumped back into the ocean until the plant passes inspection.
Poseidon Water built the plant and reached an agreement with IDE Americas to operate the plant. IDE built three of the four desalination plants in Israel. Those plants supply the Middle Eastern country with 60 percent of its water.
They’ll be operating the largest plant in North America and the first on the West Coast.
The Carlsbad Desalination Plant is contractually obligated to open November 26.
However, IDE Americas CEO Mark Lambert said Wednesday, “We are perhaps a little bit ahead of schedule….Somewhere in the October time frame we expect to be pushing water up the hill for drinking water.”
Eight powerful pumps will push 54-million gallons of water 10 miles uphill every day. The water will be dumped into a San Diego County Water Authority aqueduct.
It’s enough water for 300,000 people every day.
Lambert said they are already looking at ways to expand the plant’s production an additional five million gallons a day.
“We’re thinking about how to do that, when we would do it, and where it would go,” he said.
At the same time, plans are being drawn for California’s second desalination plant in Huntington Beach.
“I think the next one won’t take 20 years,” said Lambert.
What about the plant that already opened in Cambria?
How much will the consumer pay for that water? $5 per gallon?
When is the EPA and the california environuts going to shut it down?
To honor their cause, all the anti-Israel people in San Diego County are going to need to boycott tap water. And everything made with tap water. Like food.
This is a great story of human innovation.
[The idea for the plant is almost 20 years old.]
With all the droughts they have in Southern California, you’d expect them to move a little more quickly than this.
“...Eight pumps will push 54-million gallons of water 10 miles uphill every day...”
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I think those pumps should be powered by windmills and solar panels.
Or build a single new reservoir instead of litigating in favor of snail darter fish.
...5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
38 billion gallons per day!!!!!!???? could this be right? what California uses in a day. USGS estimate, whatever that is.
They’re gonna need a bigger desalinization plant.
And about 300 of them.
But, but, but this is gonna make the ocean salty ...
Cambria is a small plant, but it’s winning awards.
Santa Barbara is recommissioning theirs ... a plant built years ago and mothballed.
“How much will the consumer pay for that water? $5 per gallon?”
about 31 cents/gallon
It is expensive as water goes, but it will cost less than 1 penny per gallon.
Wow, those pumps must be really low.
I wonder why they have to push the water so high?
Hydroelectric, of course.
Is it just me, or would it make more sense for them to save the water in holding ponds, and then release it into the ocean if and only if the plant fails inspection. (But, if it passes inspection, that water is good to go.)
> IDE built three of the four desalination plants in Israel. Those plants supply the Middle Eastern country with 60 percent of its water.
It’s kalifornia. They still think socialism works.
Is this the one mothballed for overa decade just sitting there?
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