Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Desalination in California

Salt is the enemy, at least if you want to use ocean water for drinking or irrigation. With the world running out of fresh water, and plenty of salty ocean water at hand, no wonder people want to do industrial-scale salt removal. It's easy to do, and the only obstacle has been the cost. Is that changing? Will we turn to the ocean for our fresh water supplies?

Here's the latest, the largest ever desalting plant in the US up for final approval in Southern California.

Desalination, desalinization, desalinisation, salt removal...whatever you call it, it may be an idea whose time has finally come.

1 comment:

Kate said...

What does it mean for coastal wildlife and shallow ocean life? Has California looked carefully at what this has done in Florida?