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.
I actually watched a documentary about the devastation to this plant last night and wondered if desal could have played a part there. In regards to the emergency response, how long would the envisaged modular systems take to set up and respond with clean water?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the nature of the response: at the simplest level a mobile desalination barge can be in place as quickly as it arrives, but the infrastructure connections between the barge and the 'users' may be more tricky. And of course, the distances between coast and users is critical here. In the case of Subsea International Ltd, their barge design includes the water reels to get water to the shore and small land-based mobile transfer units. See my image in Mobile desalination 1.
ReplyDeleteFor longer term use (e.g.) months-years, more permanent installations can be established in a few weeks.
Apparently, many innovations in mobile desalination were driven by military needs, to provide water for battlefield scenarios - mobile tactical desalination units - with a short-term (e.g. 30 day) operating life.
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