Thoughts and ideas – Day 2, IDA conference, Portofino

1. Charging for water is important – even if the charge is small. It gives the user a sense of value of water and encourages wise use.

2. At face value there is huge opportunity for renewable energy RO in the developing world: the coincidence of water stressed regions with sunshine hours and wind. Wind power is a proven example in the case of Perth. The need for an electricity grid is essential in this case and so there is close association and dependence between energy provider and water provider. Is this association necessary? I like the idea of the sub-grid, particularly if the ‘buffer’ can be over-production at times of lots of wind to provide for lesser production under low-wind cases. So far, no papers or examples of combined wind/solar PV facilities.

3. I have reservations about desalination of groundwater because desalting groundwater may lead to further depletion of the groundwater water resource. My fear is that desalination wont necessarily deal with the fundamental imbalance between the water withdrawal and water use, but it does have role to play concerning contaminated in-flow.

4. Sustainable energy provision is already a huge issue in the developing world and a reliable and consistent supply of electricity may not be possible. If desalination is reliant on grid electricity then the uncertainty of electrical production may lead to an uncertainty of water production. If there are electrical load guarantees to desalination facilities, could this mean that electricity is diverted from other areas of need?

5. The big-small debate…

...is small scale is the most practical desalination solution I the developing world?

My understanding of the presentations is that small-scale production is advantageous because it puts water production in the hands of local communities and may foster greater stakeholder control over the water resource. Small community projects a can be a source of income generation and micro-finance opportunities for entrepreneurs.

What are the sustainable development implication scenarios? My thoughts:

If there is local accountability and understanding then there may be a better understanding and acceptance of the costs charged for water (e.g. through water kiosks run by local people). The systems must be robust and maintenance light. They may be modular and so can be easily scaled-up/down as the need requires. Charging for the water encourages a sense of value and efficient use.

A local community-based project is likely to be in sync with local understanding of the water environment.

‘Simple’ systems I describe as ‘slow’ desal systems (e.g. low pressure UF) and may not require pre-treatment. There will still be a waste product (if only the spent UF cartridge) and the discharge of this product into the environment cannot be ignored.

Small local facilities require less movement of the product water and the costs of water transfers are minimised. At the ‘water kiosk’ level the burden of transfer of water falls to the water user.

Large scale projects are increasingly centralised and regulated. This may bring greater opportunity for price control and subsidy – charging users who can afford to pay more to provide for those who cannot afford so much, for example a stepped/incremental tariff system.

Is water quality regulation more rigorous at the large scale?

Robust sustainable desalination in developing world cases

Florian Bollen. Sustainable Water Supply for a Developing World.

Bollen reminds us that many aquifers – essential for the lives of many people around the world – are becoming increasing saline as a result of increasing evaporation, poor irrigation practices and saline intrusion in coastal locations.

Desalination offers an opportunity to desalt saline groundwater in these environments... I have my reservations in closed basins. Is this sticky-plaster that accentuates an underlying challenge of over-use? I accept that desalination can have an important role to play in the treatment of contaminated return flows to closed basins/aquifers.

Bollen describes a vacumn multi-effect membrane distillation product to serve local water needs. It’s described as a small modular based system that is highly robust, requires little pre-treatment (and so minimises the need to purchase pre-treatment chemicals) and can be turned on and off as the power is available. Bollen notes that it is made largely from plastics and can be built cheaply and it’s recyclable.

Bollen illustrates the application of these units in the developing world and the work of the recently established Aquiva Foundation (www.aquiva-foundation.com). Micro-finance initiatives will be considered to create opportunities for local entrepreneurs to create a business from the sale of water. Bollen notes that water should be charged but the costs are likely to be much less than what domestic users may presently pay for water – for example bottled water in Indonesia is cited to cost $25 per m3, and there is no guarantee for the safety of this water.

Desalination in Mexico - responding to reduced natural flows

Dr Felipe Correa-Diaz. Desalination in Baja California, Mexico.

The Mexican example of Baja California interests me – I see that after years of cross border flows from the Colorado River system going south to Mexico, the changes in flow regime of the Colorado and demand for water in Baja California mean that, potentially at least, Mexico has the opportunity to export water to the USA. Presently the area gets 94% of it’s water from the Colorado River aquaduct but water managers are anticipating a 8-10% reduction in flow – partially attributed to the consequences of climate change.

Correa-Diaz outlines four new desalination facilities panned for the Pacific coast of Mexico.

I must follow this up… are there parallels to the SA case study?

Waste water desalination - Spanish experiences

Antonio Casanas. Water reuse using UF and RO – An old story in Spain.

There is good potential for the development of desalination of wastewater to meet human needs. Casanas presents the Spanish example, citing 67% of water is used for agricultural purposes and only 11% of treatment schemes include membranes. He notes the process of double membrane filtration and multi-barrier solutions for bacteria and pathogen removal to produce ‘safe’ water.

‘Early’ use membranes were not apparently well suited to trated wastewater RO because of high fouling rates, but recently bespoke technologies have improved this.

Casanas gives three case studies of wastewater reuse in Spain:

1. Tias, Lanzarote: agreement in 1992 and in 1994 the first water reuse experiment centre using ultrafiltartion (UF) and RO in combination. Production 240m3 per day for gardens, agriculture, leisure. The facility used standard brackish water membranes – nobody considering the fouling problems at this time. In the Canaries since there have been further developments (Teide, Galdar with 3500m3 per day each) and the expansion of the Tias facility.

2. Ricon de Leon, Alicante: a large scale UF+RO reuse plant taking an effluent mixture from industrial and municipal sites and producing water for irrigation. Since 2006 there has been the addition of tertiary treatment.

3. Camp de Tarragona, Vilaseca (Catalonia): a 19K m3 per day facility but likely to double in size. The facility is expected to start up later in 2011 and will be piloting new bespoke elements from Dow Filmtec.

A question from the audience asked whether this product water could be used for domestic consumers? Casanas answered that it too early to say… It would be interesting to know whether this is because it is technologically tricky or cost prohibitive, or whether this is more a case of public perception.

Environmental protection and compliance and sustainability - reflections of a presentation concerning the Perth RO facility

Patrice Guguin. Environmental protection and sustainability: Perth seawater desalination plant experience.

I have observed that the Perth desalination facility is often lauded as a baseline example of good environmental practice. It’s a large-scale facility for which the energy, brine discharge and waste product issues are reported to have been considered in depth before construction and during operation. I recall a similar presentation at the IDA Dubai World Congress in 2009 that investigated the concept of a life-cycle analysis of a desalination plant – I cannot recall whether this included Perth as an example?

A few facts and figures provided by Guguin: the facility has a production capacity of 144Ml/day and serves 1.8M people who had previously “10 years of water scarcity”.

The speed with which the plant was developed is incredible: 2004 announcement, 2005 contracts awarded, 2006 environmental licence granted, Nov 2006 first water produced. To me, this highlights why desalination must figure favourably for similar cities seeking solutions to urgent water problems. If it can be done in Perth with reported environmental compliance then this model can be developed elsewhere. The facility is also reported to have won the 2006 Global Water Award for ‘Desalination Plant of the Year’.

However, I do not believe that environmental protection and compliance is the same as sustainability…

Personally, the life cycle analysis provides a more comprehensive insight into sustainability. There is no mention of construction or end-of-life decommissioning impacts in Guguin’s assessment (although, of course, there may not have been sufficient time in the presentation to consider these issues). For me, sustainability should also be measured in the behavioural impact of the water users – I would have liked to have discovered whether people in Perth use less water per head now or whether desalination has a lit a green light to greater water use? So what if it has? Devil’s advocate could conclude that if the energy costs can be 100% accounted by wind and the environment is shown not to be adversely affected by the facility then maybe Western Australians should continue to water their lawns? Perhaps this is another research question for another time…

Guguin detailed the environmental assessment undertaken. I have specific notes concerning brine dilution, brine toxicity, monitoring protocols (of the discharge and the marine environment) and can discuss in comments if required.

Guguin also provided a helpful slide regarding the wind farm that provides the energy for the facility (reproduced below). In the light of the earlier presentations concerning wind-RO production this inevitably threw up more questions for me than it answered.

Finally, I asked Guguin a question concerning the relative cost of the EIA process compared to the build cost of the facility – if this is lauded as a gold-standard in environmental compliance then it would be interesting to know the spend on this: 50%, 5%, 0.5%. Unfortunately Guguin could not answer this question. It’s possible it a tad ambiguous and if I were to research this more fuller I guess I’ll need to define my terms of reference a bit more clearly.

A responsibility of the desalination industry at large to the world's water poor...

Dr Emilio Gabbrielli. Water resources in sustainable development and the role of the desalination industry.

Water affects all other MDG targets, for example health and education.

“The poor cannot afford cheap water” Gabbrielli notes the paradox and notes that we must have cost recovery and accountability. Must recognise the real cost of water and make sure minimum quanties are available.

Gabbrielli’s slide considering the definition of cost are good (note to obtain these if possible), in order of reach, from: full supply cost, full economic cost, full cost.

In this context of developing water crisis there has been an unprecedented development of the desalination industry.

Gabbrielli provides a longer term perspective, stating that desalination is not new and has been practiced for centuries to fulfil very specific water need. Examples cited from Chile include: a solar still in Las Salinas built in 1872 and operational until 1912) providing water for mules working the mines, Antofagasta in 1882, mobile desalination plants providing water for the military and small facilities servicing the Chilean trains.

Global water scarcity is considered and spatial and temporal inequalities are highlighted. I was interested to see the striking slide Gabbrielli presented for GDP and rainfall plotted over the 20^th century to see the coincidence. I’m interested to know if there is a term in the literature used to describe such water centric relationships?

Gabbrielli staes that the desalination community at large has a responsibility to the world’s water poor (be that areas suffering long-term scarcity or short-term crises, perhaps brought about through natural disasters. He states that the IDA is looking at the “possible establishment of a Humanitarian Committee” and ends on a note of optimism that water can be an agent to bring people together.

Wind powered seawater desalination 2 - a note on offshore wind energy

Jorge J Malfeito, Accione Agua, Spain. Synergy between RO desalination and offshore wind power.

Offshore wind energy adoption is driven by: increases in the demand for energy; increases in the cost of fossil fuels, and government support (Spain is cited by Malfeito).

Malfeito notes that there are several advantages of offshore wind production such as larger scale project opportunities, less turbulence and lower environmental impact [sic].

By comparison to land-based wind power offshore wind energy is said by Malfeito to require twice the initial investment and six times the maintenance cost. This includes the challenges involved with offshore installation and grid connection.

Malfeito says there are 38 operational offshore wind farms in Europe and more than 160 in planning. In Spain there are 32 projects planned. Europe has the largest share of global offshore wind production and this is likely to remain: in 2020 75% of installed offshore wind energy will remain in Europe.

The Spanish EOLIA project is a Spanish government funded project promoting the development of offshore wind production and technology. Malfeito highlighted the opportunities for offshore wind supported RO, not least the spatial coincidences.

It’s possible to use direct mechanical power from offshore wind – possibly generating lower pressures required for onshore pumping and pre-treatment of seawater prior to RO.

Wind powered seawater desalination 1

Mr Joachim Kaeufler, SYNWATER. Wind powered seawater desalination (RO) – technical and economical specifics.

Mr Kaeufler notes that the world is in transition from fossil fuel economies to renewable economies and notes that Germany will achieve 30% renewables by 2020.

Renewables may be unreliable and Kaeufler notes must integrate and have backup, extending electricity grid systems to balance regional wind variations.

Load management is the process of responding to a fluctuating energy source: when you have more wind than you need you can store either electrical energy or water.

For Ro desalination, tyoically 30-60% of the cost is energy cost.

Kaeufler states that wind power can compete with fossils in terms of cost per KWh. PV and solar thermal is presently expensive by comparison, although a question from the floor notes that the figures presented for solar are quite high.

Seawater desalination at the coast is coincidently a good location for wind energy production.

Wind power is said to be ‘non-volatile’ and Kaeufler states that, “once the investment is done you can say how much the energy will cost for the next 20 years.” This is believed to be attractive for investors.

Different operating options are considered to account for the variation in load with high and low winds:

1. Wind energy into the ‘national’ grid at times of high wind / draw energy from the grid at times of low low. However, Kaeufler notes that operators may subject to the tariffs and interventions of an independent operator. I think this is the system used in the case of the Perth RO facility?… I must check this.

2. Sub-grid: remove the ‘national’ grid and use this only as a backup solution.

At a mean-level (overall balance between generation and consumption is equal) you will still require a buffer to account for the times when there is no wind/excess wind.

Kaeufler illustrated three options for buffering:

1. Buffer the electrical energy: batteries. But this is said not be cost effective. I think this could be a consequence of the high cost of batteries and the energy losses associated with battery storage?

2. Buffer on the product side. There must be enough RO capacity to account for the high wind periods, but these may not be required at low wind times. Store the excess water.

3. Buffer by the over-run. Have an RO system that can account for higher energy periods.

My observation is that electrical energy is also needed to pump water to the distribution system. Why not store water at a low level reservoir and at time of excess electrical production use this energy to pump water to the higher level aquifer?

Desalination by concentrated solar energy

Mr Choong-Hyun Kim. Seawater desalination and water purifcation harnessing direct concentrating solar thermal energy.

Desalination can be a very capital intensive process with high energy consumption and high maintenance requirements. It may not be ideally suited to many water poor areas of the world.

Research into alternatives: example US Department of the Interior funded research for direct wind power desalination – direct water pressure. Use in Pacific Islands and remote communities but is suitable for seawater because it’s not possible (in this case) to generate sufficient pressure: 400psi seawater, 40psi brackish water.

Concentrated solar device. Solarsido

Insolation is focused, boils seawater, steam condenses and flows to another chamber.

Simplicity of the device. Because the water is evaporative water and no filtration is involved there is no need for antiscalants etc. It is cited as being affordable (low purchase price and low maintenance cost) and reliable (no moving parts).

Energy is required to pump the seawater into the ‘chambers’, but this is low pressure and may be achieved manually.

IDA Portofino Day 2, Session 5: Renewable Desalination

I'm looking forward to this session. From the conference guide: "This session is aimed at providing an overview of the major sustainability issues related to desalination technologies with regard to the minimisation of an energy footprint, application of renewable energy resources to desalination technologies, and the impact of process discharge streams in the environment."

Reflections from day 1 of the IDA Portofino conference

The terms sustainability and sustainable development are referred to but tomorrow’s presentations appear more specific.

Economic: economic considerations are high on the agenda. Energy efficiency features consistently. Under emergency situations there is the acceptance that the economic accounting changes the urgency of the situations. It would be interesting to investigate the costs of mobile units for emergency and contingency use.

Social: a couple of presentations today kicked off with the ‘big picture’ – rapid growth in regional water demands set against a decreasing freshwater resource base. There were statements of acceptance that manufactured water must be affordable and confidence expressed in the desalination industry will.

Environment: environmental considerations are generally concerned with energy. Energy efficiency improvements are observed to be made through incremental gains. The maps presented (by Eisharqawy) showing areas of global water scarcity and insolation were striking: the areas of greatest water need are ‘in phase’ [sic] with areas of greatest solar energy potential. I’m asking the question why hasn’t this already happened? Solar PV is mentioned but I think there will be more on this topic tomorrow, along with wind power.

Interesting to have mention of the recyclability of desalination components, for example, RO filters, end of life products. This would make a terrific research investigation. Mention also of a ‘leave no trace’ approach to mobile desalination: the idea that a facility can set up, operate and decommission with no lingering trace. It would be interesting to test this assumption…

Emergency response is wide ranging, from immediate intervention through to systems that take a longer- term, semi-permanent approach - installation of facilities to meet ‘medium’ term/contingency needs until such a time as a more permanent solution is found. In the latter case, I am thinking of the situation in Sedgefield, South Africa, that follows this model closely: a relatively small scale operation introduced under emergency measures. There are similarities to the example cited by Subsea Infrastructure for Cyprus (assume Limassol). This contingency measure has operated for the last three years.

Centalisation/decentralisation: the larger the scale of the operation the larger the degree of centralisation. Centralisation brings benefits (economies of scale, cost efficiencies, etc.) but the talk from Rhett Butler from SkyJuice Foundation illustrated that if we are to meet the UN’s MDGs we have got to disregard centralised systems and states that technologies must be affordable, simple and, where possible require minimal energy. The SkyHydrant and SkyTower solutions illustrated use gravity driven, low pressure ultrafiltration to effectively treat water. Fundamental to the sustainability of this system is that people should pay for the water (a price encourages a sense of value), but the production costs are affordable to the world’s poor.

Solar desalination 1

A map by Dr Mostafa H Eisharqawy illustrates that regions of global water scarcity are closely ‘in phase’ with areas of terrestial insolation. Solar energy in passive and active modes has great potential to desalt water.

Enery efficiency can be measured in terms of Gain Output Ratio (GOR) – see the image above. High efficiency equates to a high GOR ratio: large freshwater outputs from minimal energy inputs.

Solar still technology has been understood for many years – example cited for Chile in the 1850s. These may be described as passive solar desalination systems. Solar stills are very inefficient in terms of their energy use, but considering the energy is essentially ‘free’ this may not be significant. GOR ratios are typically of the order 1-4 (by comparison to RO at 42).

By comparison to passive solar still technology, Photovoltaic Reverse Osmosis (PV-RO) presently suffers from: high initial cost, sensitivity to water input quality, membrane fouling.

More information on PV-RO to follow...

Low cost ultrafiltration

Rhett Bultler from SkyJuice Foundation Inc

Rhett Butler described a low-cost water treatment system that may be used to treat water for users at the 'bottom of the water pyramid'.

By introduction we discover that to meet the UN's MDGs we must connect 375,000 people per day to quality water supplies. Drinking water treatment systems must have community involvement, must be simple in design and reliable.

The system is a low cost, minimal energy system using gravity fed ultrafiltration (there may be no electrical requirement). RO is not particularly suitable because of the high set up costs and the operating costs for energy, chemicals, etc.

Materials may include reused ‘end of life’ components of RO desalination facilities.

Sky hydrants are described as small individual systems that cost less than $2K each and may treat up to 20m³ per day of water.

‘Sky Towers’ may be sold in kit form at a cost of $5-6K each. These may be sold to local entrepreneurs to set up ‘water kiosks’.

To date 850 units have been sold in 42 countries.

Mobile desalination 1

Emergency and contingency responses – a role for desalination

Mohamad Amin Saad and Murray Eldridge presentations

Mobile floating barges can provide water in steps to meet emergency water or contingency water needs – medium term operation.

Barges may have several advantages: they can be fully independent, mobile and may be deployed quickly. Barges may be modular and scale-able – the number and size can be chosen appropriate to the challenge.

Their operation must meet environmental requirements and legislation of the site – their use must be able to adapt to the marine environment. This may place restrictions on the use of flocculants and acids used to reducing membrane fouling

Barges may be popular in places where investors don’t want to invest money in permanent facilities, for example at locations where they may be uncertainties regarding long term funding – they can be removed as quickly as they can be set up.

Challenges with mobile and medium term units: who funds? Who delivers? Who manages? For example, it may be difficult for the companies to break into the market where conventional (water tankers, ships, bottled water) may be seen as more tried and tested, even though these conventional solutions may be more expensive.

Barge costs may be shared between users in ‘water alliances’: several locations can share the barge as it moves periodically between locations.

Note that in some cases the barge concept can be utilised on land. This has been the case in Cyprus where the system can be set up on a medium term basis. Installation is described as taking about 7 weeks (and can be removed equally quickly).

I question the EIA proceedures under such interventions? At what point do 'emergency measures' over-rule the environmental imperatives?

Opportunities for desalination for water-disaster relief

Presentation by Dr Nobuya Fujiwara and Mr Isao Takekoh.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster on 11th March 2011 left 25,000 people dead, injured or missing, destroyed 1.6 million homes and created 500,000 refugees.

Water resources were severely affected:

Water supplies of drinking water through the disabling of water treatment facilities, loss of infrastructure through the fracturing of pipelines (particularly older pipes). Emergency water tankers were operated by the military but were poor to provide sufficient water in the immediate aftermath. Destruction of roads and ports hampered the relief. The second 'phase' of the water shortage problem was addressing secondary water needs for washing and cleaning clothes.

Waste water was affected through the loss of sewage works. Of the 147 plants operating in three affected provinces, 21 were shut down and 47 were damaged. Infrastructure (pipes) is similarly affected as water supply.

Desalination?

1. The ability for desalination to provide emergency water relief? This is a topic that will be discussed in forthcoming presentations.

2. Desalination as a means to treat radioactive water (e.g. at the affected power plant). 99.9% of radioactive contaminants can, in theory, be removed by reverse osmosis. The problem concerns the degradation of the membranes that are sensitive to radioactivity.

3. The future for nuclear desalination in Japan is connected to the future acceptability of nuclear energy as part of Japan's fuel mix. Nuclear is still considered part of the Japanese agenda in the near future: it's considered 'safe' except the issues concerning location and necessary for now as the timescales for the introduction of renewables is considered too far away.

Views to Santa Margherita harbour

The conference is held at the Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita, a few kilometres north of Portofino.

IDA conference, Portofino

I am attending the International Desalination Association conference in Portofino, Italy, from Monday 16^th May to Wednesday 18^th May 2011.

The conference is titled, Desalination Industry – Action for Good. The IDA: “The main topic of conversation is how to leverage innovation… so that desalination can be used to produce water in a sustainable, socially responsible and more affordable way, not only today but also for future generations.”

I will observe and note the key areas discussed at the conference and welcome your comments and questions.

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This is a blog by Stuart Downward, School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at Kingston University, London, UK. The blog aims to promote discussion and debate on all aspects of desalination-integration to support sustainable water management.

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