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Water desalination becoming more realistic

cnn.com — There's probably a place for desalted seawater in meeting the nation's future water needs, but research is needed to reduce the costs and impact on the environment, the National Research Council says.

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  • cashman57, on 04/26/2008, -14/+6I have a friend that set up a centrifuge that would desalinate water but don't know how practical it ended up being.
    • Garganturat, on 04/26/2008, -0/+2I don't think that would work very well. There wouldn't be enough throughput and you'd have to spin for probably a long time and very quickly >70,000rpm
    • dsmx, on 04/26/2008, -0/+7In real life a full size centrifuge used in mineral processing throughput isn't an issue, what is an issue is the high costs in installing, operating and the fact they breakdown a lot due to wear from the high speeds involved. They are only used if there is no other way to separate a mineral from a liquid and the value is high enough. Sorry to disappoint you but you can't use centrifuges for water.
  • sharadpandit, on 04/26/2008, -7/+1Good
  • brantw, on 04/26/2008, -7/+1I'm glad to hear it.
  • naslai, on 04/26/2008, -13/+5Nobody believed me when I told them that one day the world will fight over fresh water..
    • gta3uzi, on 04/26/2008, -0/+12Not exactly fighting over it, just preparing for it. Right now we're fighting over land, oil, and religion. :)
    • dsmx, on 04/26/2008, -2/+6Nobody believed me when I said 006 would be the baddie in goldeneye 3 months before the film got released.
    • cubicledrone, on 04/26/2008, -3/+0Only in a world run by middle managers would there ever be a fight over water.

      Guess what? The hairpieces run the world.
  • 80hd, on 04/26/2008, -4/+8I'm still waiting for Mr. Fusion
  • footodors, on 04/26/2008, -8/+2The ocean is just to big and in our face not to use it for our water supply. What's taking so long, though?
    • 80hd, on 04/26/2008, -0/+9it takes a LOT of energy.
      Showering just isn't so much fun when it costs 300x more
      • cubicledrone, on 04/26/2008, -7/+1There's a big fusion reactor hanging in space overhead 12 hours a day. So let's ask the question again. What's taking so long?

        I'll save you the trouble. It's idiot middle managers. Thanks.
        • H0tKarl, on 04/26/2008, -0/+5Don't you have a TPS report to finish?
  • spuncoke, on 04/26/2008, -3/+6Already a reality here in Australia.
    http://www.sydneywater.com.au/ensuringthefuture/de ...
    • UTKEngineer, on 04/26/2008, -0/+3Yeah, desalination is occurring in plenty of places, so not really sure how it's BECOMING a reality. How about becoming more affordable?
  • SubjectiveC, on 04/26/2008, -7/+5Dean Kamen's water purifier is a step in the right direction. It's too bad that right now it costs him a hundred thousand dollars a piece (they're not entering into production), but I can see, if governments are willing and companies don't engage in any shady practices, this crisis being averted nearly before it turns really ugly.
    • H0tKarl, on 04/26/2008, -2/+4The perpetual cold fusion generator I invented is another step in the right direction. Too bad it's too expensive for me to put into production.
      • SubjectiveC, on 04/26/2008, -1/+4Do the people digging me down even know who Dean Kamen is and what his research is about? I'll be nice now, because I know diggers are to be expected only to sit through late night comedy to get their news, so here's a link from The Colbert Report:

        http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos. ...
  • mgyqmb, on 04/26/2008, -3/+9This was one of those things as a kid that I thought was a no-brainer. I never really understood things like "droughts" or "shortages" - especially in countries that bordered the ocean. I'm delighted to see stories like these now that I know how difficult it is.
    • H0tKarl, on 04/26/2008, -0/+5Yes, soon these countries will have a nearly limitless supply of salt.
      • palehorse864, on 04/26/2008, -0/+3Souvenirs... novelties... paartyy tricks.
  • CrudE, on 04/26/2008, -1/+12Too bad salt isn't the only 'bad' thing in sea water now a days. Think about all the oil, sewage, and waste thats in our oceans.
    • ShempRider, on 04/26/2008, -5/+2Salt isn't a bad thing.

      You got dugg.
    • dsmx, on 04/26/2008, -2/+3There's also heavy metals, toxins, oil, plastic and many even more unpleasant things.
    • Rivetgeek, on 04/26/2008, -0/+7Guess what princess, that bottled water you drink? At one point, it was raw sewage. That's what sewage treatment is for.
    • H0tKarl, on 04/26/2008, -0/+2don't forget all the fish piss.
    • ShempRider, on 04/26/2008, -1/+2I'm lost. ***** this.
  • CDoug03, on 04/26/2008, -7/+8I've always wanted to desalinate my own urine just like Kevin Costner in Waterworld.
    • H0tKarl, on 04/26/2008, -1/+3I tried it with my coffee maker. Desalinated water tastes like piss.
  • mrzack, on 04/26/2008, -12/+4very good. The money should've been invested into future water resources and clean up rather than to kill Innocent Iraqis. This ***** NAZI Bush Regime son of a Bitch Must pay.
  • krnldmp, on 04/26/2008, -4/+9Seems like if there isn't enough ***** fresh water for humans, then there are just too many god damned humans on this planet. Now, go have some more ***** kids.
  • Cerius, on 04/26/2008, -5/+5Clearly we need to evolve and develop gills. From there we could go back to the oceans and hide from all that we have done to planet and then come back a thousand years later with both gills and a whole world to pillage and plunder again.
    • Damaragon, on 04/26/2008, -0/+0There wouldn't really be a difference, we'd do a very similar thing under water to what we're doing on the surface.
  • scotte, on 04/26/2008, -3/+2RO is pretty well understood and commercially available. I've got a watermaker aboard my boat that will generate about 8 gallons of fresh water per hour (under 500 PPM TDS) from salt water (the ocean) which can be over 32000 PPM TDS. The cost? Electricity of about 17 amps at 12VDC.
    • ShempRider, on 04/26/2008, -1/+2Dude, it's Friday. NIGHT.
      Cut us layman some some slack.
    • dsmx, on 04/26/2008, -1/+3That's 200W, if everyone in the US did that 60,000,000,000Watts of extra electricity would be needed at a rough guess. Hot quite sure on how environmentally friendly it is.
  • atbnet, on 04/26/2008, -4/+18Wow, the comments on Digg are getting so predictable.

    There are your one word replies that are useless. There's the I blame Bush reply. There is the reply with people saying they predicted this many years ago. There are the replies that are just stupid and seem to be written by bots. There is a reference to a movie about the future and using fictional technology. There is the blaming religion reply. There are your pessimistic replies how this article doesn't really solve anything. There are replies written by 12 year old experts. There haven't been any meme replies yet, just wait. And finally you have people who just make replies trying to be witty like this one.
    • ACalcutt, on 04/26/2008, -1/+14And the person complaining about everyone else's comments
    • EntropyNine, on 04/26/2008, -0/+7IZ REPLYIN TO UR POST, FUFILLIN UR PROFECY.



      god I feel dirty.
    • xedd, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1Welcome to the internets! Don't forget to tip your waiter.
    • TheMachine1, on 04/26/2008, -1/+0The article title is misleading. "Water desalination becoming more realistic" my interpretation was the opposite from the article. People use 100+ gallons of water per day per person. No desalination
      method could make water on that scale economically.
  • patm1987, on 04/26/2008, -2/+5They're trying to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
  • warragul, on 04/26/2008, -0/+8There is a large solar powered plant not far from where I live. It has been separating water and salt for maybe sixty years or more. There are hundreds more around the world, some hundreds of years old. It's just that they dump the water into the eco-sphere and keep the salt.
    Why a desalination plant couldn't have industrial salt as a by-product is beyond me. That would have to reduce the costs.
    • MrESaulved, on 04/26/2008, -1/+3One of the best kept secrets of the modern world is how to make fresh from fetid, saline water. Easily, safely, perpetually.

      All you need to do is look up...
  • PurpleSfinx, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1Well I sure HOPE it's a good idea, they're already building one in my city.
  • Ihatenicks, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1Desalination is easy in small scale.. Boil water, condensation is pure, salt gathers in the bottom of pot.

    Good to know if you are stuck on a desert island. :D
  • mvandam, on 04/26/2008, -3/+0If water is not enough for humans... what will hapend widh animals? I'm shure if there is no animals no humans will survive.
    • Nintendesert, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1It's ok. We can clone them now.
  • gcnaddict, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?vi ...

    Problem solved?
  • ApolloXLII, on 04/26/2008, -2/+1i never got it... they can smash two atoms together but it takes this long to remove salt from water?
  • Emrtr4, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1I was working on a start up to fix this solution, www.waterstandard.com beat us to it.
  • cubicledrone, on 04/26/2008, -2/+1The technology to desalinate water has existed for millenia. This is stupider than the story about water on Mars. Yes, we know there's water on Mars because we can see the ***** ICE CAPS DUMBASS!

    For a country that is so obsessed with science, it is amazing how unbelievably stupid we are.
  • Whammo, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1Wow, science is just realizing this... now?
  • bandgeek217, on 04/26/2008, -3/+0here's the process
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtRNIckKrvU
  • pagemap, on 04/26/2008, -0/+5Just like in SimCity 2000!
  • foofightrs777, on 04/26/2008, -0/+1Hmm I know Aruba gets most, if not all of its water, in this fashion. So, how is this "becoming realistic"? It's already here.

    PS: Aruba water is some of the best I've tasted!
  • p51d007, on 04/26/2008, -1/+1Oh I can hear the nutjob environmentalist lining up to stop this. It might destroy the ocean, kill the fish, bla bla bla. Those idiots have so screwed up the world, they aren't going to stop til they actually destroy it!
  • DeskFlyer, on 04/26/2008, -0/+1Navy's been going it for decades.
  • 1charmedlife, on 04/26/2008, -0/+1Well, that's good news. Finally, a productive way to combat the predicted global rise in ocean levels due to global warming.
    If we desalinate it and drink it fast enough, maybe all the beach houses will be saved!!!
    QUICK! Drink Faster!!!
    Er... maybe not?
  • andytandreou, on 04/26/2008, -0/+3I live in (Cyprus) a small country in Europe and we've had desalination plants here for the past few years. Our water supply was erratic and unpredictable, during droughts the government would supply water only a few times a week. Since the plants where built we have had non stop water supply of fresh, clean, drinkable water at stable prices. This article is not so accurate. The desalination plants are a god send to people with water issues. The only other option available REALLY is to pray to god for rain, trust me, some people tried that here too. The energy to run a plant can be from renewable sources like solar and the salty sludge can be dumped back into the sea over great distances. It's not like we could possibly make the sea saltier. We aren't storing the water on land and it still rains above oceans so really, it's impossible to make the sea around you saltier even if you wanted to. This technology is a god-send. We are building more plants for all towns and cities now as we are facing the worst drought in 90 years. it rained twice this winter, just twice. All dams are empty and the fish in them have probably died. But desalination keeps our standard of living high by giving us water that we could not live without. Even golf courses are getting in on the act.
  • atarijedi, on 04/26/2008, -1/+0Here's what they can do, setup some of those Solar Heat Towers that melt salt and use it as a heat transfer medium to make steam and turn turbines, however instead of turning turbines, put the steam into a condenser, then into a reservoir.

    Problem Solved!
  • tolgafiratoglu, on 04/26/2008, -0/+0Here's a very similar article which tells how this can be reality in Africa:
    http://digg.com/environment/Can_solar_energy_becom ...
    viva solar revolution.
  • beauley, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1In the News as one possible answer to our dependence on fossil fuels and most important...Pollution.
    Millions of years supplying the Earth's needs...
    http://www.quazen.com/Science/Technology/Solar-Pow ...
    Solar Power, Source of Endless Energy
  •  

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