California is as good asout of fresh water.
The state is thrown into drought conditions with everyless-than-abundant-rain year, and a series of dry years (like now) decimatereservoirs beyond sustainable thresholds. The fiscal situation is comparablydire; like freshwater, Californiauses more than they've got coming in, a fundamentally unsustainable equation inboth finance and ecology. How convenient and unusual that a silver bulletexists to solve both problems: desalination.
Desalination is the process of removingsalt from seawater, yielding drinkable fresh water. The process is not easy orcheap. It involves extensive processing of water between membranes,distillation and more. It occurs in power-plant sized campuses in coastalareas. Desalinsation plants, or "desal" for short, typically consume enough electricity per yearto power a city the size of Bostonand surrounding suburbs. The power needs are enormous; one could devote a largepower plant just to powering a desal facility.
Desal is what to do when thereis no other option available; for example Saudi Arabia, mostly desert, hasrelied on large scale desal for a decade. Yet, Californians are also out ofhydrologic options, though we still have denial to spare.
California is not the only state in thisbind; all Western states are at the beginning of what climatologist believe isa permanent turn for the drier. Not just a drought, but an altogetherdrier environment due to climate change. This, taken with the fact that manyWestern states are growing- Arizona, New Mexico- faster than they can possiblyacquire water resources and you've got scarcity. Where there is scarcity, thereis value. Where there is value, there is a market. California should developlarge scale desal and sell the water, both in state and to our thirstyneighbors. This solves water and financial problems in one fell policy.
Desalination is very practical. Surfacewater- freshwater running in streams and pooling in lakes- is already used tothe max by humans. Additionally, the environment needs a certain amount ofwater to run in streams to support fisheries and riparian habitats. Thoughsurface water is used up, thanks to global warming and fracturing glacialmasses, seawater is increasing. In fact, very large scale, internationaldesalination could play an important role in combating rising sea levels.
Practicality may not be enough to givedesal legs. The idea has been unpopular among environmentalists and NIMBYsalike ever since it existed.
Desalination does yield environmentaldamage; animals get sucked up into the same tubes that suck up the water fromthe ocean. Additionally, what do you think happens to all that salt? Often itgoes back into the ocean, at toxic concentrations, killing entire zones oflife. And desal, as mentioned earlier, requires a stunning amount of power.However many of the environmental concerns are assuaged through advances intechnology and renewable energy. Some desal plants can fuel themselves afterinitial input through cogeneration or combined heat and power, where the wasteheat given off by the plant as it functions is recycled back into steam power.
After soothing the environmentalists,rest assured that no one in LA will want a desal plant to grace Santa Monica'ssandy beaches. NIMBYs, "Not In My Back Yard" activists who work studiously toprevent unpleasant projects in their own neighborhood, become a true problem inthis context; every speck of California coastline is spoken for. Where willdesal go?
California should put their best mindstowards giving desalination policy the traction to get off the ground in amassive, war-time effort manner. Doing so now will yield results in a decade orso, about the time water is Western US freshwater forecasted to be in a direstate from population growth alone, holding supply steady. Water is the nextcash cow; blue is the new green. California should be bullish on water's futurevalue and commit to desal.