General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: California Running out of Water [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Israel is desalinating water. It supplies water to itself but also to Jordan and to the Palestinian Authority.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/agriculture/desal2011.html
Saudi Arabia is maybe the leader in desalination.
Saudi Arabia pumps the equivalent of 300,000 barrels of oil to operate its desalination stations on the eastern and western coasts of the country, providing 3.3 million cubic meters of water from the stations operated by the state-owned Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC). At the same time, in the medium term, Saudi Arabia is need of huge capital investments in order for this sector to remain able to meet its obligations, which are growing at an incredible yearly rate.
Saudi Arabia consumes near 7 billion cubic meters of water daily, 60 percent of which is desalinated. Of this, 40 percent comes from SWCC desalination stations and 20 percent from stations operated by the private sector. Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Ibrahim, Governor of the SWCC, recently admitted in a press conference: We have exceeded the economic accounts allotted for providing desalinated water.
In meeting the demand for the most basic and essential requirement for life, the Saudi authorities face three challenges: bottlenecks in desalination capacity, pricing, and the depletion of existing resources.
While Saudi Arabia is among the most waterpoor countries in the world, its water system is one of the least costly for consumers. The tariff paid by consumers per cubic meter desalinated water is SAR 0.12 (about USD 0.03), while, the cost of production for stations that produce 20,000 cubic meters daily reaches SAR 12 (USD 3.20) per cubic meter. This is what costs the public treasury vast sums to produce water.
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/07/article55308131/the-desalination-nation
Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil to fuel its desalination plants. Southern California has a lot of sunshine. We are somehow going to have to use our resources and sunshine will be one we have to learn to use for desalinating water. I do not see any other solution to this problem.
We are xeriscaping like mad. Yard after yard is turning to desert landscaping.
Remember, we use relatively little fuel for heating our homes. Amd I have difficulty believing that any other state in the union has so many low gas mileage cars, either Prius type cars or electric cars. We could improve our public transportation in LA a lot, and we are working on it but progress is slow.
We will need to develop the technologies that turn the salt water that is so plentiful on our shores into potable water.
As for me, I garden in pots and use the water from my kitchen with the exception of soapy water on my plants, but I still have to use a little tap water for my garden. We have trees. They need water. And we need the trees. We don't have air conditioning. Our trees cool our house.