water+desalination-Alight

= = =__Water Desalination __=

//The Energy and Water Crisis of my Generation//
 //“Water, say the World Bank and the United Nations, is a "human need," not a "human right." These are not semantics; the difference in interpretation is crucial. A human need can be supplied many ways, especially for those with money. No one can sell a human right.”//

 Every Generation faces its own sets of challenges. Fresh water supplies are dwindling, as it is only three percent of earths water is fresh water and less than one percent of that we can actually use. Right now thirty one countries are under stress as they have little to no clean water. Over one billion people do not have clean water. But don’t think companies havnt seen this. Whether people are aware to it or not right now water is becoming more valuable than anyone can imagine. Right now all eyes are on how to produce energy or how to reduce carbone dioxide emmissions. However companies are buying up areas of fresh water wherever they can. Coca-Cola is buying entire rivers in India for its water bottle supplies. The areas in which these rivers lie are under extreme droughts and brutal business tactics are not helping. But its not only Coca-Cola that is buying water, one company rationalizes its callous tactics by saying "(water is a) rationed necessity that may be taken by force". The World Bank is not helping things either, by offering discounts to third world countries who buy water from the water corporations. If water is not the fastest growing commodity on the market today, I would bet everything I own that it will become it in the next decade.

The reason water is such a great commodity in today’s market is because lets face it the world is not such a small place anymore. The world’s population is expected to reach seven billion people in 2011. Every person on this earth needs to drink everyday. That combined with the fact that every year sales of bottled water increase by 20% each year, its no wonder why people want water. Everyone is drinking. When will the faucets run dry? The hopeful answer is never, but skeptics are saying sooner than anyone would like to imagine.

But we knew about this issue long before anyone cared about CO2 emmissions or global warming. In 1999 as our population hit six billion an article was published on our water running out. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1661.

Which brings me to Water Desalination. With water running out, and only less than one percent of it useable, why not use the rest of it? Everyone knows the old saying “water water everywhere but not a drop to drink” but that saying could soon be rendered antiquated soon. The process of Water Desalination is removing the non-consumable parts from water (mainly “saline” or salt) and leaving it as potable drinking water. This technique is already being used in places such as the United Arab Emirates and Tampa Bay. But there are many ways to go about taking non-potable water and creating pure drinkable water.

How? RO- Reverse Osmosis MSF- multi stage flash Comparison Page

How do we turn all of these things into a large scale water production? All of these require massive quantities of electricity, so i suggest we put water treatment facilities on the coastline, and setup wind power mills near them. We can use the turbines in the ocean to power the water treatment plant, combined with solar power, and if such a thing exists tide power. (using the waves to push turbine perhaps? or maybe building a wall on the coast that water flows creating a dam along the coast.) With that much electricity we can easily power atleast some water treatment plants. However i believe that the greatest way to funnel electricity would be africa. If we put solar generators in the sahara and other deserts we can fuel power to the coast of africa and use water treatment plants there. This is not a solution for America, but go figure.

Also building wind generators on places like Mnt. Washington would generate a ton of electricity for water purification.

Water purification is already happening in Saudi Arabia on a large scale. Because electricity is not an issue because of the massive amounts of oil, they can create massive water purification plants for water.

experts see water desalination as a viable option, but as we are in an energy crisis at the moment, its not the best option because it requires so much energy.