Desalination by the Numbers

December 16, 2015

Sure it's finally raining, but we will never have enough water unless we do something about demand (moderate growth) and supply (reservoirs and desalination). The later option goes on line in San Diego this week. The SacBee noted:

A giant water desalination plant will open this week north of San Diego. It will produce 50 million gallons of fresh water each day, meeting 7 percent to 10 percent of the San Diego County Water Authority’s demands and buffering the region against supply shortages for decades to come.

Oh, and it will be expensive – ridiculously so, in the minds of some critics. Built by privately owned Poseidon Water of Boston for $1 billion, the plant will deliver some of the priciest water found anywhere in California. It will cost twice as much as the water San Diego gets from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides the bulk of San Diego’s supplies.

Yet San Diego officials say the Carlsbad project, representing a comparatively small slice of its overall water supply, will add only a few dollars a month to customer bills. Besides, with Metropolitan’s prices relentlessly rising, San Diego officials say desalination eventually will become competitive with the region’s other water sources.

Click through to read more about the permitting and such, but here is the bottom line

Depending on how much it buys each year, San Diego has agreed to pay $2,131 to $2,367 an acre-foot for Poseidon’s desalinated water, including the cost of piping the finished product to the authority’s aqueduct. By comparison, Kerl said the authority pays just under $1,000 an acre-foot for water imported from Northern California and delivered to San Diego’s doorstep by Metropolitan. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons.

Does that sound "ridiculously expensive"? Two-thirds of a cent a gallon? Anyone got a better plan?

Posted in Water

5 responses to “Desalination by the Numbers”

Hanging Around

December 17, 2015

Desalination also uses a massive amount of energy. That energy needs to come from somewhere–power plants–and increases emissions.
Desalination isn’t a panacea.
hollyroller@hotwire.com

December 17, 2015

Dear Joe,
I do not know if your last comment regarding two thirds of a cent is serious or not.
No matter how much gold, diamonds, property you have, with out water; no food, no shelter, no safe place to live.
H20 will eventually be the most valuable element available…
Then again, Sam’s Sandwich’s may sustain “life as we know it.”
Joe

December 17, 2015

Holly: I’m just doing the math from the article. $2,200 per acre-foot divided by 326,000 gallons per acre-foot is .67 cents per gallon. And for Hanging Around, the cost of the energy to do desalinate is included in the .67 cents–that is why it is twice as expensive as the water SoCal steals from NorCal. My last question stands: Do you have a better plan?
non grouch

December 18, 2015

Instead of grousing like a bunch of grumpy old men (and women, sometimes), why don’t you applaud that people in this state and elsewhere are working hard at finding solutions for this problem?
Like many science and engineering problems, if we invest enough effort into this, it is highly likely that cheaper, more efficient methods for desalination will be found.
Maybe we can harness all the negative vibes on this site to power the desal plants.
Hanging Around

December 18, 2015

Finances aren’t the only costs to generating and using power.
Whenever there is a limited supply of something, efficiency needs to be a prime consideration. There are ways of increasing the supply (such as desalination, improving and building new reservoirs, improving the state’s aqueducts, or even piping). Regardless, efficient and reasonable use needs to be part of the conversation. Probably the main part of the conversation.

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