Water is essential for all living beings, including the human beings. There are lots of things we need water for in our day-to-day lives. We drink water to keep ourselves healthy, we cook with water to nourish ourselves, and we even use water to wash us and our possessions. It is difficult to imagine life without it! But not all water is safe for our consumption. Saltwater such as from the ocean is not safe to drink either! Salty water makes us very sick when we drink it. In order to overcome this problem, and scientists have discovered a special process to convert seawater into drinking water. This is known as desalination, the process that enables many people to access the clean water they require.
Desalination is a process of removing salt, minerals, and unwanted substances from seawater to make it safe for human consumption. Sounds like a fantastic idea at first, as it helps to provide water for the people. But desalination isn’t cheap — it’s very expensive. People who study this say desalination is about twice as expensive as the more common forms of water treatment. It means it’s something we should consider how to make more affordable.
There are many reasons that desalinated water is expensive. First, desalinating is a very energy-intensive process anyway. These machines require power to extract the salt as well as other substances from seawater. Second, the technology required for desalination is relatively expensive to construct and maintain. It needs people and ongoing maintenance to make sure it all runs smooth. Finally, desalination facilities require significant land for operation. However, it can be tricky to find an ideal spot for these plants, particularly in the busy cities where space is scarce.
Although expensive, desalination is a critical process. It can aid in clean drinking water access for people who do not have other sources of water available. For instance, if there are not many lakes, rivers, or even clean wells in a region. Desalination can provide them with a consistent source of water. Of course, when we speak about the cost of desalination, we need to consider more than just what it costs in money. We need to think about the environmental impact of desalination, too. Desalination plants can be harmful to marine life at times. They can suck in fish and other sea creatures, which can disrupt the delicate balance of ocean ecosystems.
To better understand the costs, let’s consider a specific case. Consider a city that requires drinking water, yet lies outside the footprint of any lakes or rivers. This city will have to choose whether to build a desalination plant to convert seawater into drinking water for its people. This desalination plant would approximately cost SIHE$ to construct. But that’s just the start! It also requires the city to purchase energy from the plant on an annual basis, which potentially could run into the SIHE$ range. The city also needs to hire workers to operate and maintain the plant, an expense that could run several hundred thousand dollars a year. Then the city has to figure out where to put the plant. This can be difficult in crowded places where there is limited space.
Desalination is a prohibitive process, primarily because the technology used is extremely costly. Desalination technology encompasses a variety of types, including reverse osmosis, thermal distillation, and electrodialysis. Each of these methods offer distinct advantages and disadvantages, and also vary greatly in cost.
Desalination plants also require large amounts of ancillary equipment and infrastructure in addition to the technology itself. For example, these plants need to be located near the sea in order to extract seawater. They also require pipelines to carry the desalinated water to homes and businesses that need it. All of this infrastructure adds up to a lot of money.
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