I've seen some discussion that California should be adopting large-scale desalination to solve it's ongoing water shortages. I'm curious if anyone has any back-of-the-napkin math for the cost for megaprojects to supplement California's water system with desalination plants to meet it's current and projected agricultural, domestic, commercial, etc consumption, including the increased energy capacity, ongoing maintenance costs. Use current tech. Let's assume we mitigate the environmental impact of brine through diffusers and smart deployment of outflows. For the purposes of this discussion, you can choose to either power it by the cheapest energy sources, or via carbon neutral energy (assuming they are different)—just let us know.

Anyone have any numbers?

I am working on a thesis project where I have to quantify the impact of independence for isalnds among various sectors (energy, water, mobility, waste) for some aspects (direct economic impact, employment, co2 emissions). The main difficult is to fidn data about costs and quantity. Not finding data water costs I would like to elaborate a simple model to estimate them aproximately identifying some specificality for different islands (ex. for desalination technology I could insert some parameter considering temperature and salinity of ocean water in different regions because these factors impact energy consumption of the process and costs consequently). Estimating costs for different technologies I could estimate savings switching from actual technology (often tank shipped from mainland) to an indipendent scenario.

My 6th grade daughter is planning a desalination experiment for her science fair project using reverse osmosis. I am trying to find a reverse osmosis membrane for this experiment- we are going to try to push water through with a bicycle pump or using gravity (though this may be too slow). Does anyone have a recommendation for a reverse osmosis membrane for this purpose? Most of the ones I see online seem to be replacement membranes for home reverse osmosis systems. Would an aquarium reverse osmosis membrane work for this purpose?

• I was looking for a website, book, social media pages, or any good reference that has good comparison between RO (Membranes) vs Thermal desalination based on real life view, thermodynamics, and experience not only academic papers and give a conclusion which is better or preferable under which situations. Same thing for NF, UF etc where can I find a good reference containing real-life experience, challenges and solutions and comparisons?

Course link

https://preview.redd.it/8visxe8yhn0e1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=37e717cab30a33be8e330a48f8f48ad27eb9260e

My understanding is that reverse osmosis has several expensive components, but I want to focus on the power requirements for pushing the salty water through the membrane.

If we set up a membrane at about 1,000m below sea level, perpendicular to gravity, the pressure would be approximately the upper bound required to push salty water through it. Assuming all the technical issues of protecting the membrane, having a fresh water gathering space below, and a pipe to the surface, why wouldn’t this work?

I’m really just interested in the theory, so disregard the engineering and environmental challenges here, as I know they are many. (Unless you’re just feeling the need to think it through.)

Thanks!

https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-desalination-breakthrough-to-bolster-global-water-security-as-planet-warms

I saw this tech and it seems awesome. It's been a while since I read it but I'm just wondering why a bigger deal isn't being made about it?

And one of the solutions for the brine issue could just be mining the brine. Sodium batteries, lithium...

Tbh I just want to terraform earth for my own enjoyment lol, and that needs water.

Maybe it's not really that legit? Idk.

Let's say around 10L a day of sea water to turn them into however many liters of drinkable water. What would it take in terms of energy, equipment, space,...

I'm on the cusp of starting a company in this space and seeing a myriad of different companies offering this solutions.

Too name a few:

https://www.newterra.com/applications/desalination/

https://www.watertechnologies.com/products/reverse-osmosis/seawater-packaged-desalination

http://www.nxtlvlwater.xyz/projects/

https://www.osmosun.com/en/

https://ide-tech.com/en/water-solutions/sea-water-desalination/pre-fabricated-design/

https://www.fluencecorp.com/desalination/