Tag: Environment
-
US farmers look to water reuse, as reservoir level drops
Water reuse in agriculture is gaining ground in the USA as farmers and water technologists seek to overcome the domestic water supply shortages caused by drought. The latest figures from the US Bureau of Reclamation show that water levels at Lake Mead, Nevada, the largest reservoir by capacity in the USA, hit a record low…
-
Sydney’s SWRO desalination project – working towards sustainability
Sydney’s desalination project will produce 250,000 m /d of drinking water, which equates to approximately 15% of Sydney’s supply. Sydney is currently solely reliant on surrounding dams for water. Seawater desalination will form a supplementary water source with water from the plant directly injected into Sydney’s drinking water network. In planning for the plant, Sydney…
-
Conference report: IDA/GWI Blue, Green & Gold – Zurich
Appropriately staged in Zurich, this year’s International Desalination Association finance and desalination conference, held jointly with Global Water Intelligence on 27-28 April 2009, attracted around 320 delegates, mainly from desalination, but also from the finance, environment and general water sectors. The historical symbiotic relationship between money, water and environment was now out of balance, said…
-
Perth provides world desalination sustainability model
As the USA finally starts its second large SWRO plant at Carlsbad, Australia is already into a second generation, with contracts let for the Southern Seawater desalination plant, the second to serve the Perth region. The author has for many years been a strong advocate of desalination and has promoted the technology around the world.…
-
Looking back on two years of change in desalination
At the start of Lisa Henthorne’s presidency, at the Maspolomas Congress in 2007, the board of the International Desalination Association initiated a five-year Strategic Plan. Already parts of the plan, such as better public relations, membership growth, including a Young Leaders program, and the new IDA Journal are all up and running. D&WR asks Henthorne…
-
MEDVSA: a methodology for design of brine discharges into seawater
Desalination is increasing fast in Spain, especially on the Mediterranean coast. The brine generated in the process is discharged into the sea, producing a negative impact on the endemic and stenohaline marine ecosystems, for instance, the Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa meadows. MEDVSA is an R&D project, subsidized by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment…
-
Carlsbad project plan for green SWRO
The largest and most advanced seawater desalination project under development in the USA today is the 189,000 m³/d plant in Carlsbad in southern California. This project is collocated with the Encina coastal power generation station, which currently uses seawater for once-through cooling. The Carlsbad seawater desalination project is developed as a public-private partnership between Poseidon…
-
San Francisco study proves impaired source still feasible
The Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD), near San Francisco, USA, has been exploring seawater desalination to provide a drought-proof supplement to its over-extended water supply. Desalination of San Francisco Bay water presents challenges for pretreatment due to the frequent changes in water quality from the ebb and flow of the tides and winds, seasonal changes…
-
Gold Coast’s twin intake/outfall tunnels save space and environment
A key part of the anti-drought strategy in Queensland, Australia, has been the construction of a 125,000 m³/d seawater reverse-osmosis desalination plant, located at Tugun on the Gold Coast, due to start producing water in November 2008. This plant will supply up to 20% of the average demand for the Brisbane/Gold Coast Region. The Gold…
-
Qatari research aims to
The Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) and Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop two pilot projects that could ‘radically reduce the cost and energy use’ of desalination.