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.