Will Desalination Solve our Water Problems?

Throughout my blogs I realized that I had always put an emphasis on depletion of our natural resources such as fossil fuels, but I have ignored one of our most essential resources: water. Life would not exist without water with some critical life support features such as:

70% of our oxygen is provided by phytoplankton in our oceans. 

Drinking water from rivers, lakes and groundwater. 

Nutrition for the food we grow. 

But climate change is causing water depletion, a significant problem occurring across the globe. Droughts are becoming too common as people are facing a lack of water availability. Due to factors such as overdevelopment, population growth (check out my blog on this), pollution, and global warming, water is beginning to become a sacred resource. Mankind needs to stop treating water like it is endlessly renewable and begin to emphasize its conservation.

Going into the statistics, humans are only left with a limited supply of water. 

• Only around 3% of the world’s water is freshwater, and only half of a percent of that is available for human consumption. And people around the world are already struggling with water scarcity. 
• Over 2 billion people live in countries where water supply is inadequate. Following our current trajectory, this number will not improve as half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by 2025. 
• Even worse, it is estimated that around 700 million people could be displaced by the scarcity of water by 2030. Our children are destined to be doomed if this generation does not make significant progress towards water conservation as roughly 1 in 4 children by 2040 will be living in areas of high water stress. 

The most straightforward effect of a lack of water is drought- prolonged periods of time without precipitation. Conserving water can help alleviate the effects of water shortages. In the United States, California is currently in a drought crisis. In 2014, California suffered its driest 3 year stretch since 1985. In 2022, the West Coast broke nearly 1,000 temperature records throughout a ten day heat wave. California has to get its water from hundreds of miles away in the Colorado River. However, drought and climate change have caused the reservoirs to plummet. Climate change has also caused the shrinking of the snowpack that feeds into the river. As a result, the 7 states that rely on water from the river have claimed far more water than is available. Droughts in California have also caused the massive number of ongoing wildfires which have burned roughly 4% of California’s total land, a portion equivalent to the size of Connecticut. 

One new technology out there is desalination, the process of removing salts from ocean water in order to produce drinkable water for humans. The minerals and salts removed from water forms a concentrated solution called brine which has a much higher salt concentration than normal saltwater, bringing about disposal challenges. Although desalination seems like a good idea due to the massive supply of ocean water, the process is extremely energy-intensive. Depending on the energy source, it can increase greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change and global warming. Furthermore, it is dangerous to marine biodiversity as its water pipes can suck in underwater wildlife, threatening unstable marine ecosystems. It is estimated from the State Water Resources Control Board that desalination pipes can kill approximately 70 billion fish larvae yearly.

As always, looking at price, desalination’s energy-intensive freshwater production process is extremely costly. The average price per acre foot of desalinated water is 2-4 times more expensive than local freshwater sources, making it infeasible for commercial adoption. Furthermore, it is inefficient: desalination requires around 2 gallons of ocean water for every gallon of drinkable water.

Although desalination in its current stage is not very promising, technological improvements to its process can make it the future of water security. As is the same for all emerging green technologies, costs and efficiency are currently not on the same scale as nonrenewable sources. With constant improvements and updates, we should see a larger emergence of desalination plants, so I definitely think we should keep up with R&D on new desalination techniques. Purdue University developed a new desalination process called ‘double-acting batch reverse osmosis.’ This process uses a piston tank and desalinates seawater in different batches, offering the lowest energy consumption of all desalination processes. 

Innovative and emerging desalination processes are a promising solution to the pressing issue of water scarcity. Once the current drawbacks, including high energy consumption, environmental impact, and cost inefficiency, are addressed, water management in the face of the looming water crisis can be revolutionized. As we strive to safeguard our planet’s most precious resource, continued focus on refining desalination techniques remains crucial. 

Works Cited

United Nations. “Water and Sustainable Development | International Decade for Action “Water for Life” 2005-2015.” Un.org, 2015, http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/water_and_sustainable_development.shtml.

“The Importance of Water Sustainability and Our Future.” Www.routledge.com, http://www.routledge.com/blog/article/water-sustainability-and-our-future.

“The Power of Water.” Www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org, 3 Aug. 2020, http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/articles/the-power-of-water.

Heal The Bay. Ocean-Water Desalination: A Solution or a Problem?

Pike, Jared. “Breakthrough in Reverse Osmosis May Lead to Most Energy-Efficient Seawater Desalination Ever.” Purdue University, 12 May 2021, http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q2/breakthrough-in-reverse-osmosis-may-lead-to-most-energy-efficient-seawater-desalination-ever.html.