Desalination

There are currently two main proven methods to separate salt from salt water. The first is

Distillation and the second is Reverse Osmosis.

The Distillation process is simple, at least on the surface.

This is a simplistic example of how anyone can do it right in your own kitchen.

Get a pot and put an empty glass (Pyrex or metal is safer) cup inside in the center.

Slowly pour some salt water into the pot. Do not over fill. Stop well before the water level has reached the mouth of the glass. Make sure no salt water splashes into the glass while boiling.

Place the pot cover upside down so the highest point or handle is facing down directly above the glass.

Bring the water to a slow boil. A violent full boil can contaminate the drinking water by splashing into the glass.

As the water boils it becomes vapour, which condenses in the air as steam and on the cover's surface as water droplets, which then runs down to the lowest point (the handle) and drips right into the glass. As you probably know, when water boils, it becomes pure vapour, leaving behind anything that was dissolved in it. (This will probably take 20 minutes or more.)

To wait a little while before drinking the water from inside the glass should be obvious, since both the water and the glass will be very hot.

Distillation on a large scale, in which raw salt water is evaporated and then condensed as freshwater, requires high temperatures and a ton of energy, so that method is used mainly in the Middle East where oil is plentiful.

Also using the rejected waste heat from power plant operations can cut energy expenditures greatly, when available.

More commonly, however, desalinization plants rely on a technology called RO, which is based on running the salt water through high-tech polymer membranes that let the water through but block the dissolved salts.

Scientists call this phenomenon Osmosis.

In the 1950’s and 60’s scientists realized they could reverse the process by applying pressure to the more concentrated solution, causing water molecules to traverse the membrane, leaving behind condensed brine.

To counter the osmotic pressure that arises between the solutions and force the water back through the membrane, the plants have to use extremely high pressures of 1,000, to 1,200 pounds per square inch.

These advances, in combination with energy-recovery devices are slowly but surely making desalinization more affordable.

Current RO facilities desalinize seawater for 68 to 90 cents per cubic meter. The average delivery price of municipal water in the U.S. is around 60 cents per cubic meter.

Presently there are some 13,000 desalinization plants producing 13.8 billion gallons of potable water a day in operation. But that is only a half percent of global daily water use.

So after presenting some facts about the current science behind desalination,

I think it’s time the whole world got serious about this growing problem.

If you agree with most reputable scientists that we are in the throes of a global warming period in human history regardless of it’s ultimate timetable, or duration, don’t you agree that now’s a good time to start investing in whatever it takes to work with what Mother Nature laid at our shores. After all, there is more ocean than land on this blue ball floating in the heavens we were graciously allowed to exist on.

If you believe in anything, that fact alone should tell us something of our fate, much less the blessings we often so easily ignore.

Even though this is a world wide issue, I don’t live, nor am responsible for the world, so I’d like to concentrate only on California with my BS, err, I mean humble opinions.

California’s worsening drought is raising the stakes for a $15 billion plan endorsed by Governor Jerry Brown to build two 30-mile water tunnels under an ecologically sensitive river delta east of San Francisco Bay.
The tunnels, each as wide as a two-lane interstate highway, would ship water more reliably from northern California to thirsty farms and cities in the south.

The next proposed gigantic expenditure is the California High-Speed Rail system. The latest price estimate by the Authority for a Full Build option is $91.4 billion according to the 2012 Business Plan.

It’s projected by 2029, the system will run from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin in under three hours at speeds capable of over 200 miles per hour. The system will eventually extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles with up to 24 stations.

So, here’s my humble proposal. Take the combined cost of $106.4 Billion for both those questionable projects along with any other wasteful government expenditures (can you imagine how much that would be?) and instead apply every penny of that money to establish a high tech modern, fully equipped science center. Then find the best and brightest scientists that can be recruited. For the sole purpose of coming up with whatever it takes to make the Desalination process a financially viable and doable product.  Make this a 24/7 operation with only one goal. That would be to make water a complete non-issue, not only in California but also in the entire world community.

Part of my humble premise is based on the fact that I’ve always considered the human scientific mind to be literally mankind’s ultimate savior in every way. Whatever your beliefs about our place and how we got here, it’s a stone cold fact we arrived with not only a fully functioning mind but minds that continually grow and prosper as time moves us toward whatever fate we’re destined to explore and enjoy.

So therefore, I’ve always thought we should not only revere sciences exalted place in the scheme of life but never get in it’s way with our small sometimes narrow minded approach toward new findings and discoveries. 

To put in simply:

Let Science be!