Desalination plants, which convert seawater into potable water, have long been considered a possible solution, as residents, developers and policymakers look to capture the water crashing against the California shores.
The Huntington Beach plant has prominent backers, including the state’s governor, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Chamber of Commerce and a slew of other state and local officials. But experts say siphoning water from the sea isn’t a simple answer to a complex and burgeoning crisis.
Experts being used as a synonym for activists with a knife blade to grind.
It simply is not true that someone interested in a subject is expert in it.
Ha ! I’ll have you know that I am an expert in EVERYTHING !
wibble
But experts say siphoning water from the sea isn’t a simple answer
And there will undoubtedly be some greens warning that the Pacific will run dry if we extract too much water. Many of them lack numeracy, like one I know who’s utterly convinced we’re going to run out of silicon if we don’t recycle our electronics. This in spite of the fact it’s the second most common element in the planet’s crust at ~28%.
But all they themselves ever have are simple answers. Like ‘stop using your car/flying/heating your house’…
Thinking about, the have a point. Calif’s electricity supply is so screwed that any plants would never achieve full capacity without plunging most of Orange County into darkness.
Doomed
Desalinisation is pretty well proven technology, with options like reverse osmosis, distillation and multi-stage flash all available for different requirements.
A fundamental problem for today’s world, though, is that it’s an energy-intensive process, which requires a plentiful and reliable power supply.
So, no problem in the Middle East where you’ll see vast desalinisation plants right next to big oil-fired thermal power stations; but not at all suitable for a local grid plagued by instabilities, brown-outs and shutdowns as the wind decides not to blow at the Pollyanna speed and clouds mute the sun, with the thermal stations shut down in the name of Net Zero or not built because “nuclear power – no thanks!”
One of the reasons the “experts” our host points out are opposed to the idea, is precisely because of those complications… which exist because the “experts” made it so. Can’t have people be accountable for the consequences of their actions and decisions, can we?
Well you’re right Jason. There is a simple solution; lots and lots of nukes.
But the lady seems to feel that ‘the disadvantaged’ drinking recycled piss is a more attractive approach.
Having spent a great deal of my youth body surfing in front of said location, I am probably as expert on this as anyone. The location is an old oil fired thermal electric generator. The attraction for a desalination plant is there is a large pipe, originally used for cooling water, running into deep water offshore.
The locals have four main objections: The construction would disturb possible hazardous waste at a nearby oil field (?). The construction would disturb a nearby lagoon and attendant wildlife. The brine from desalination would wreck the offshore ecology. And, of course, NIMBY.
As the beach there was built by dredging sand from deep water 70 years ago, and oil extraction preceded that, the area has seen ecological disturbance for nearly 100 years.
It is my experience that most activists are profoundly ignorant of the area of their activism…
“But experts say siphoning water from the sea isn’t a simple answer.” Bloody right. Syphoning water from sea level to a higher point where the desalination plant would be built is not just unsimple but actually impossible.
And another thing: wouldn’t the desalination plant be at near-immediate risk from rising sea levels? Have Feinstein et al just admitted that they don’t believe in a rising sea level calamity?
And yet another: how will they get the power for the plant? Do they plan to burn coal or natural gas, or build a nuke? Or will it be powered by the wind, the sun, and unicorn farts?
DM
The sun. People get thirstier when it’s sunny…..