Desalination plant moves ahead

[Jason]

Desalination plant moves ahead

January report to say if $1.2B complex will be on land or offshore

By PETER GUINTA  |   More by this reporter  |  peter.guinta@staugustine.com  |   Posted: Thursday, September 24, 2009 ; Updated: 12:27 AM on Thursday, September 24, 2009

MARINELAND -- Engineers and water experts planning the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Project said Wednesday night that their first report, due in January, will say whether the complex will be based on land or on a 900-foot ship offshore.

Five consultants working on this project held a panel discussion at Whitney Lab on Wednesday to discuss the progress made on the $1.2 billion plant, which probably will be built in Flagler County.

About 60 local residents attended.

Jerry Salsano, a consultant hired by St. Johns River Water Management District, said groundwater sources are nearing depletion due to growth, so alternative sources of water must be found.

"These can take eight to 10 years to come on line," he said. "Sources we've been using in this region for quite some time are not sustainable into the future. Florida's got 1,260 miles of coastline. It will look to the sea."

The partners in the project include the Water Authority of Volusia; Flagler, Marion and St. Johns counties; Dunes Community Development District; plus the cities of Palm Coast, DeLand, Mount Dora, Leesburg, Bunnell and Flagler Beach.

The district pledged $5 million toward construction and has been planning this since 2005.

The report determining what kind of plant, land or sea, ends the first phase. The second phase, testing and preliminary design, begins next year and ends 2013.

Final design and construction is scheduled from 2014 to 2017.

Salsano said that, if the plant isn't built, cities and counties would look toward the Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers for water.

Consultant Ed Buchon said 6.7 billion gallons of desalinated water per day are used globally.

"There are ways to do this without impact to the environment," he said.

He added that to get the water to all the project members would involve 190 miles of pipe.

"That could be phased in over time," he said.

The question of whether the plant should be land or sea based may be decided on cost alone.

From a land-based plant, the cost would be $5.22 to $6.08 per 1,000 gallons. From the vessel, those prices would range from $9.03 to $9.14 per 1,000 gallons.

Jorge Aguilar, a member of Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C., consumer advocacy organization, said that desalination is very energy intensive and that only about 50 percent of the seawater taken into the plant is made into drinking water.

The rest remains in a brine solution that the plant would pump back into the ocean.

"You said they won't kill any fish, but there are microorganisms that are taken up, and a lot of marine life relies on those microorganisms," Aguilar said.

Buchon said the plant was not a "done deal," and that's why scientists and water experts were investigating these early phases.

"Some of the partners will know that at the end of Phase I they can opt out or stay in," he said.

The first desal plant was built in the Middle East in 1975 and there are 1,500 worldwide today.

Hal Wilkering of the district staff said that conservation can do a lot, and the district is implementing a $5 million plan, sharing the cost with utilities, to reduce landscape irrigation.

"But it's hard to predict what benefit we will get," he said. "How much water supplies we develop will depend in part how we do in conservation."

Source: http://www.staugustine.com/stories/092409/news_092409_025.shtml

[buckethead]

Solar Powered Desalination?

[Dog Walker]

Large scale desal plants take thousands of horsepower for the pumps to push water through the membranes.  It would take acres and acres of solar panels to power one.

[fsu813]

people will suck the earth dry of resources like a orange sucked dry.

[buckethead]

people will suck the earth dry of resources like a orange sucked dry.

Water will remain as long as our magnetic field is intact. Quality water? That's another question.

[Dog Walker]

If only we could go back in time and murder the guy who invented the water flush toilet!  We take perfectly good drinking water, mix it with our own body wastes and then have to clean it up again at great expense and effort.  I wonder just what percentage of our fresh water use is for toilets?  There's got to be a better way.

[buckethead]

I agree! Some smart person somewhere has probably already discovered or engineered a bacteria that can render human waste into something useful.

Something that could exist in our homes perhaps? But then how do you collect it without the existing sewage system?

[chipwich]

If only we could go back in time and murder the guy who invented the water flush toilet!  We take perfectly good drinking water, mix it with our own body wastes and then have to clean it up again at great expense and effort.  I wonder just what percentage of our fresh water use is for toilets?  There's got to be a better way.

I don't know about you, but I use the bathroom everyday and I take great joy in watching it flush away and not sit there and stinking up the place.  I like indoor plumbing and am more than willing to sacrifice a few small fish and microbes for this privilege.

Perhaps the better alternative is to get rid of golf courses and tell people to stop watering their lawns/gardens.  We take very perfectly good drinking or reclaimable water and throw it on grass to look pretty or have the ability to rolls balls around on it.

[Jason]

I agree! Some smart person somewhere has probably already discovered or engineered a bacteria that can render human waste into something useful.

Something that could exist in our homes perhaps? But then how do you collect it without the existing sewage system?

Funny you should say that.  I've worked with a company that has created a system that takes processed sewage "sludge" and through a simple chemical process produces a completely sterile by-product that has been working as an amazing fertilizer.  At first they were paying to get rid of it and now it has become a very lucrative source of income.

The technology is there and it is becoming more and more commonly used by waste facilities.

[mtraininjax]

If we can get methane from TRASH, we can get a positive by-product from human fecal matter.

[Dog Walker]

In rural villages in India, cow manure and human and kitchen waste is put into big concrete vats where bacteria produce methane gas (same as natural gas) which is then piped to the village huts for cooking and for lights.  When the vat cannot take anymore waste, the residue inside is safe to use for fertilizer on the fields.  Maybe we could turn the Buckman plant into a source for methane to run generators.

In India it is called Gobar gas after the research center where the inexpensive digesters were developed.

[Jason]

The system I mentioned above is a cheap add-on to our existing wastewater treatment plants and it produces a sellable product.  Clay, St. Johns, Putnam, Bradford, and some other Central and South Florida counties and municipalities are already using it.  Supposedly JEA has been in negotiations with the company (BioChem Resources) as well.

[Captain Zissou]

If only we could go back in time and murder the guy who invented the water flush toilet!  We take perfectly good drinking water, mix it with our own body wastes and then have to clean it up again at great expense and effort.  I wonder just what percentage of our fresh water use is for toilets?  There's got to be a better way.

In many new green buildings, they use "gray water" for the conveyance of waste and irrigation.  Gray water is non-potable water that is cleaned to a degree and recycled.  Rain water can be harvested and turned into gray water and stored under the building to be used as a conveyance for waste.

Does anyone have pictures of a floating desalination plant?? Sounds like sci-fi to me.

[buckethead]

Grimshaw Architects are convinced. Apparently so is Spain

Some other linkys:

http://www.radianceweekly.com/105/1998/TYRANNY-Vs-TERRORISM/2008-04-25/Muslim-World/Story-Detail/FLOATING-DESALINATION-PLANT-IN-JEDDAH.html

http://scorpio_teddy.instablogs.com/entry/india-develops-worlds-first-floating-desalination-plant/

http://12degreesoffreedom.blogspot.com/2008/04/greek-desalination-plant-powered-by.html

http://imagesme.net/igreenspot/teatro-del-agua-solar-desalination-plant2.jpg

[CS Foltz]

Ship board system seems to me long way around the issue! Land system makes much more sense and maybe one day full solar but not quite yet! Either way we do need to take into account population growth and the lack of potable water........desalination would git er done!