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Water scarcity woes point to big opportunities in desalination
Lee Bruno, VentureBeat, June 12, 2008
Excerpts from the article:
...there’s actually a triple threat to the water supply poised to drive business their way: Climate change, water scarcity and decaying infrastructure.
The economics of desalination are changing, but remain difficult for most municipalities. One plant under construction in Carlsbad, California expects to pay $1.10 in electricity to produce 1,000 gallons of water, down from $2.10 at the mothballed Santa Barbara plant. According to Meng Lean, manager of microfluidic systems at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), the energy cost of desalination runs at about eight times that of conventional water, with the most efficient plants requiring 15 watts per gallon, per hour.
A little known fact, however, is that desalination technology costs have fallen by as much as 80 percent over the past few years, by some estimates. Couple that stat with the total global desalination capacity growth of more than 47 percent over the past five years, according to a recent Credit Suisse investment report, and all of a sudden, desal looks a bit more attractive.
One company benefiting from the good news is Energy Recovery...
Another promising technology in the world of desalination systems is innovative membrane technology. “Nano-engineered membranes are probably one of the most promising technologies out there,” says PARC’s Lean. These ultra thin nano-membranes from startups like NanoH20 in Los Angeles and Aqua Via in Hayward, Calif. are still in their early days of testing and will take several years before they’re ready to scale up to large deployments.
Lean says PARC researchers have also been working on membrane-less filtration systems that have a very low energy cost of roughly .11 watts per gallon per hour. This system, called the spiral concentrator, could eventually be used in pre-treatment for desalination systems, he adds.
As with gasoline, there’s the potential that water costs in the United States, which average $2.50 per thousand gallons, will rise to something closer to the standard European price of three to five times more. Between shortages and rising prices, it looks like a big opening is appearing for new desal technologies.
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