First U.S. Desalination Plant Goes Online 41
DrEnter writes "According to this AP article on Yahoo!, the first full-time desalination plant has gone online in the U.S. to provide fresh water for the Tampa Bay, Florida area (from Tampa Bay itself). While common in the mideast and other parts of the world, this is the first in the U.S. to be used as a regular source of fresh water (there are a couple others in the U.S. that are only for emergency use). It will also (arguably) be one of the least expensive to operate, producing 1000 gallons selling for about $2. There is some more information at Tampa Bay Water's web site."
They need to try this in Texas and Louisianna... (Score:1)
In regards to the Tampa area project, I didn't see anything on their page about the salinity of the waste water from the desalination process. Could this create problems? That salt has t
Re:They need to try this in Texas and Louisianna.. (Score:1)
In regards to the Tampa area project, I didn't see anything on their page about the salinity of the waste water from the desalination process. Could this create problems? ...
There is some reference to this in the Yahoo! article. Apparently, they are directing the "brine" into a river or the like. This plant won't cause any problems, but if they build too many more dumping into the same place it might, so they are spending some money on long-term monitoring of the waste effects.
Salt content (Score:2)
A total of 44 million gallons of salt water a day is processed and all the salt is rejected to 19 million gallons of brine. Therefore the rejected brine has about 2.3 times as much salt as normal sea water. Since sea water is about 3% salt the brine would be about 7% salt. For reference the dead sea is about 32% salt.
Re:They need to try this in Texas and Louisianna.. (Score:2)
Wars over oil (Score:1)
The nice thing is that those wars can be prevented with the right technology. Desalination plants might be more useful than we think.
USVIs (Score:3, Informative)
--Mike
Geographic Illiteracy (Score:2)
cool! (Score:1)
Re:cool! (Score:1)
The desert idea would work, but anything marshy is likely to fall under lefty liberal big brother control.
Re:cool! (Score:2)
Our revolutionary hero, Oliver Cromwell, became radicalised through the struggle to keep the Fens of East Anglia flooded. A grand scheme to clear, drain and develop on them was resisted by the communities that lived and worked there.
Ironincally once in power Cromwell oversaw the clearing, draining and development of the very same Fens.
There is talk today of reflooding much of then Fens and bringing the native flora and fauna back.
in the US... (Score:1)
Re:cool! (Score:3)
yes, of course chlorine works.. (Score:1)
Some older techniques are so good, that it's cool to keep them, others if viable alternatives exist, making them better/faster/chea
This is not the first operational US desal plant (Score:3, Informative)
Read here [ca.gov] for details provided by the California coastal commission. You'll have to page down a bit.
Re:This is not the first operational US desal plan (Score:1)
The Santa Catalina desalination plant was built because a condominium project would not get a construction permit unless the developers made the development self-sufficient with regards to their water needs. The developers agreed to build a desalination plant and the excess water not used by the condominiums is sold to the rest of the island.
Re:This is not the first operational US desal plan (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is not the first operational US desal plan (Score:2)
There are other commercial plants too, such as in Cape Coral, FL. Google gave me this (I'm sure there are more, this was the first site listed) article [edwardwillett.com] which says:
The funny things is that the Tampa people should know better since Cape Coral is only
Cost analysis is important (Score:3, Interesting)
I sure hope they've done to cost calculations correctly. The Santa Barbara desalination plant is an example of jumping before thinking. During the drought years of the late 80s and early 90s, Santa Barbara undertook the expensive proposition of building a desalination plant. A few months after it went online, rainfall boosted water reserves to a high enough level that drought conditions were no longer in effect. Because it's darn expensive to run and maintain a plant like this, Santa Barbara shut down its plant indefinitely. All that money spent and the city doesn't even use it. Click for more details. [ca.gov]
Bottom line: make sure you really need something before you go building it. I hope the Tampa Bay people have done their math right.
GMD
Re:Cost analysis is important (Score:1, Interesting)
des-alienation??? ;-) (Score:2)
as desALIENation plant? (As in desinfection,
but cleaning up aliens and their remains
from crashed UFOs)
Anyway...
Paul B.
Clarify (Score:2)
It's about time... (Score:1)
city (Score:2)
That's Tampa, Florida. "Tampa Bay" refers to a body of water.
Re:city (Score:2)
Guess this solves the arguement between my wife (Score:3)
I say water is plentiful (70% of the earths surface seems to be covered with it). She says it's a finite resource (I always thought it was recyclable).
I guess the true answer lies in the ability to process said water to an acceptable clean level.
Re:Guess this solves the arguement between my wife (Score:2)
there is an example where the water has been lost for ever.
Some seas are too radioactive to use for water. tere is another area where ater is lost for ever.
If you have a polluted body of water, then water falling into it become polluted.
First US Desalination Plant? (Score:1)
Uh, there are some in the US already. (Score:3, Informative)
http://darenc.com/Water/papers/desalcmg.htm
ht
I can't wait... (Score:2)
Not first desalination plant in US! (Score:2)
http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/desalination . htm [edwardwillett.com]
Now, the plants in Key West may no longer be in use (I don't know if that is true or not), but "the first full-time desalination plant ... in the U.S." is certainly not in Tampa. You might get by with "the only" (and I doubt that is even the case), but "
brilliant news!!!!! (Score:2, Funny)
This should bring down the cost of salt!!! There will be more salt than the US can ever use! Salt for everyone!!!!! They ought to build one of these in costal Africa! More Salt than the third world can ever use!!!
Salt (Score:1)
Big deal... (Score:2)
Let's have a think about the "negative" aspects (Score:1)