1AC
Inherency
Desalination is inevitable. As the climate becomes warmer, areas become drier. Costal
communities will look to desalination to reverse this trend.
Pappas 2011 Michael. “Unnatural Resource Law: Situation Desalination in Costal Resource and Water
Law Doctrines.” Tulane Law Review 86 (81): 81-134
We have a water problem. The United States has exploited nearly all of its freshwater resources, and
nonetheless its freshwater demands continue to grow. To make matters worse, climate change
threatens to make dry areas drier, significantly diminishing existing freshwater supplies in places with no
water to spare. The solution: make more water. At least that is the approach some policy makers,
developers, and consumers have taken in embracing seawater desalination as an option for meeting
water needs. By converting saltwater into freshwater, desalination offers new, renewable, and droughtproof supplies of freshwater. Moreover, recent technologies have made desalination potentially feasible
at a municipal scale. Thus, desalination, with its promise to defy historical concepts of water supply and
limitation, has become a central proposal for climate change adaptation and water supply planning in
coastal communities.
Unfortunately, only 1% of desalination plants are powered by renewables now
because they are not cost competitive
Isaka in 12 (Mirei, March, project director for the international renewable energy agency, “Water
Desalination Using Renewable Energy”,
http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENAETSAP%20Tech%20Brief%20I12%20Water-Desalination.pdf)
Until now, the majority of desalination plants have been located in regions with high availability and low
costs of energy. Current information on desalination shows that only 1% of total desalinated water is
based on energy from renewable sources. Renewables are becoming increasingly mainstream and
technology prices continue to decline, thus making renewable energy a viable option. With increasing
demand for desalinated water in energy-importing countries such as India, China and small islands,
there is a large market potential for renewable energy-powered desalination systems worldwide.
Fiat
Plan: In order to promote seawater desalination in the United States, the United
States federal government will increase subsidization for solar desalination. All future
desalination plants in the United States will be required to use solar power for their
energy needs. Funding and enforcement through normal means.
Solvency
Solar desalination is key to fight the next American drought, especially in California.
However, federal support is needed. The plan is key.
New Water Supply Coalition 05’, The New Water Supply Coalition is a national organization of
water agencies and utilities, ”America's Drought” 3/1/05
http://www.newwatersupply.org/issue/whitepapers.pdf
Desalination is a reliable flow of freshwater that can quench America’s thirst: With the U.S. facing a
water supply crisis of immense proportions, all reasonable, cost-effective and environmentally benign means
of developing new potable water supplies that are immune to drought conditions should be pursued.
Desalination – the process of removing salt from seawater and brackish water – is exactly such a means. Desalination
plants produce guaranteed amounts of freshwater at increasingly lower costs every year, even through
drought conditions. Given further advances in technology, desalination holds the promise of being a
component of the long-term solution to America’s drought. Desalination is a cost-effective component
in the fight against drought: Although desalination has been utilized for centuries, the energy intensive
nature of the technology had made it an impractical water source except for oil-rich nations such as
Saudi Arabia (which depends on desalination for 70% of its water supply). However, significant advances in membrane and other
technologies have dramatically reduced the costs associated with desalination. The cost for traditional water supplies has risen to the point
where desalination technology is now very competitive. In 1992, the cost to desalinate an acre-foot of water was about $2,000. Now, that cost
is less than $800 per acre-foot. For example, Tampa Bay Water officials have indicated that, at the desalination plant there, current water
supplies cost roughly $3/1,000 gallons to produce, while it is expected to produce water at close to $2/1,000 gallons. Cost savings from the
project are anticipated to be worth $300 million over a 30-year period. Desalination can help relieve drought conditions for inland areas: While
the advantages of building desalination plants along coastal regions are obvious – with their unlimited access to seawater – many interior states
stand to benefit due to supplies of brackish water that can be converted into water for drinking. Virtually no state in America is immune from
drought conditions. Coastal states, such as California and Washington, have been as hard hit as states located in America’s interior such as
Kansas and Nebraska. Developing a vibrant desalination industry will help drought-stricken interior states by reducing the need to draw ever
greater amounts of water from common sources. For example, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah Wyoming and New Mexico are five interior
states that depend upon water from the Colorado River. By
utilizing desalination of seawater to a greater degree,
California, which also relies on Colorado River water, would require less water from that seriously
depleted source. What should the federal government do? Once a dream, desalination technology is now at
a stage where, with the involvement of the federal government working with the private sector, it can
become an integral component of a long-term solution to America’s water shortage problem.
And, a modest investment from the federal government is enough to spur investment.
Rhinerson ’05, U.S. Desalination Coalition Board of Directors member and past chairman, San Diego
County Water Authority Board of Directors member
"Testimony of Bernie Rhinerson." . US Desalination Coalition, 24 May 2005. Web. 15 July 2014.
<http://www.newwatersupply.org/news/testimony5_24_05.pdf>.
The goal of the U.S. Desalination Coalition is to encourage the Federal government to create a new
program to provide financial assistance to water agencies and utilities that successfully develop
desalination projects that treat both seawater and brackish water for municipal and industrial use. The Desalination
Drought Prevention Act of 2005, introduced by Representative Jim Davis and Representative Jim Gibbons, will achieve this goal
in a fiscally responsible way. Similar legislation has been introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Mel Martinez of
Florida. I am delighted to be here today in support of this legislation and tell you how it will positively affect the San Diego
County Water Authority. Despite the tremendous advances in desalination technology that have reduced the
costs of desalinating water, energy costs remain quite high and are responsible for more than 30% of
the overall cost of desalinated water. H.R. 1071 directs the Secretary of Energy to provide incentive payments to water
agencies or utilities that successfully develop desalination projects. This would be a competitive, performance-based program
that will help to offset the costs of treating seawater and brackish water. Under the proposed program, qualified desalination
facilities would be eligible to receive payments of $0.62 for every thousand gallons of fresh water produced for the initial ten
years of a project’s operation. The legislation would also insure that there is a balance in the amount of money going to
seawater and brackish water projects in any one year. The rationale for this approach is that while the cost of
desalinating water has dropped dramatically over the last decade, the energy costs associated with
desalination are still quite high. Most experts believe that these costs will continue to come down over
time and that desalination will eventually be widespread. But waiting for this to occur is a luxury that, in
my opinion, we cannot afford. A modest investment to jump-start the development of these projects
today is the smart thing to do. It is true that the approach suggested in H.R. 1071 to encourage the development of
seawater and brackish groundwater desalination projects is different from the traditional approach of providing construction
grant funds. That difference is by design. First, while the availability of energy assistance grants will encourage the development
of desalination projects, these grants will be performance based. In other words, the Federal government will not be betting
“on the come” that these projects will be technically and economically sound and will actually get built. Only the very best
projects will get built by local sponsors and only those will receive financial support.
Specifically, federal subsidies make solar desalination cost competitive. If this is done,
solar desalination could be an important part of our energy future.
Goosen et al. 2014 Mattheus F. A. Goosen, Hacene Mahmoudi, and Noreddine Ghaffour. “Today's and
Future Challenges in Applications of Renewable Energy Technologies for Desalination. Critical Reviews in
Environmental Science and Technology. 44:929-999.
Renewable energy technologies are rapidly emerging with the promise of economic and environmental
viability for desalination. There is a need to accelerate the development and scale-up of novel water
production systems from renewable energies. These technologies will help to minimize environmental
problems. Our investigation has shown that even though there are concerns that government policy
may undermine market incentives, there is great potential for the use of renewable energy in many
parts of the world. Solar, wind, wave, and geothermal sources can provide a viable source of energy to
power both seawater and brackish water desalination plants. Recent trends have show improvements in
technical efficiency, which should ultimately help to reduce the costs of these technologies. The decreasing
cost of renewable energy equipment, and experience from hybrid renewable energy desalination implementation are also
driving the cost down. PV panels, for example, have reduced in price in the last few years. At the same time,
the cost of conventional water supplies is increasing, especially in isolated sites. Therefore renewable
energy desalination is becoming competitive. One worrisome trend, noted in this study, is that
renewable energy sources have consistently accounted for only 13% of the total energy use over the
past 40 years. When considering which renewable energy desalination system to select, stand-alone electric generation
hybrid systems are generally more suitable than systems that only have one energy source for the supply of electricity to offgrid applications, especially in remote areas with difficult access. During the last few years, reverse osmosis has become the
optimal choice in even larger units. Under special conditions hybrid systems such as solar and wind can offer increased and
more stable production of freshwater. The utilization of conventional energy sources and desalination technologies, notably in
conjunction with cogeneration plants, still appears to be more cost effective than solutions based on only renewable energies
and, thus, is generally the first choice. Major challenges identified in this study are the necessity to formalize the renewable
energy desalination community into organizations that would represent the sector and would lobby for their interests; the
need to target at least a 5% share of new installations in the global desalination market over the next decade; the requisite to
support the wider establishment of renewable energy desalination education and training activities for students, professionals,
and decision makers including raising awareness about the technology, the environmental benefits and demonstrating its
market potential; the responsibility to coordinate the development of a comprehensive market analysis on a country by country
basis; and the need to develop and promote appropriate legal structures and policies on a regional basis. In order to aid
commercialization, different types of governmental policy instruments (e.g., tax breaks, low interest
loans) can be effective for different renewable energy sources. However, broad-based policies, such as
tradable energy certificates, are more likely to induce innovation on technologies that are close to
competitive with fossil fuels. There is also a need to eliminate subsidies for fossil-fuel energy systems or taxing fossil-fuel
production and use to reflect the costs of environmental damage. Another major barrier is that in some instances government
renewable energy policy may undermine and subvert market incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little longterm promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security. It is possible that
whatever jobs are created by renewable energy promotion may vanish as soon as government support is terminated.
Econ
Desalination is key to solving current and future droughts, preventing agricultural
collapse. However, environmental concerns prevent desalination from being adopted.
If we use solar power we can overcome these problems.
Walsh 14’, Bryan Walsh 2/14/14 (Journalist of New York, and TIME)“California’s Farmers Need Water.
Is Deslaination the Answer?” TIME
President Obama will get to see California’s disastrous drought first hand today on a visit to the farming city of Fresno. It won’t be a pretty
sight. While
the conditions are arid across the state, with 91.6% of California in severe to exceptional
drought, agricultural areas are suffering the worst. The state’s Central Valley has long been the fruit
and vegetable basket of the country, growing nearly half of U.S. produce. But farms in the valley exist
only thanks to irrigation—the Central Valley alone takes up one-sixth of the irrigated land in the nation.
And thanks to the drought, there’s been little rain, and irrigation has been virtually cut off. California
officials have already said that they won’t be able to offer any water to farmers through the state’s
canals, and the expectation is that federal reservoirs won’t be of any help either, leaving farmers to their
own dwindling supplies of groundwater. The California Farm Water Coalition estimates that the drought
could translate to a loss of $11 billion in annual state revenue from agriculture. Obama will try to offer
some help in his visit to Fresno, announcing that the federal government will make available up to $100
million in aid for California farmers who’ve lost livestock to the drought, as well as $15 million in aid to
help farmers and ranchers implement water conservation policies. But while efficiency and conservation
can go a long way to stretching dwindling supplies of water, the reality is that California is an arid state
that consumes water—80% of which goes to agriculture—as if it were a wetland. If it wants to continue
as the nation’s number one farming state—producing a record $44.7 billion in agriculture receipts last
year—it’s going to need more water. And if scientists are right that the current drought is the worst
California has faced in 500 years, and that the state could be on the brink of a prolonged dry period
accentuated by climate change, that water is going to have to come from new sources. As it happens,
California sits next to the biggest source of water in the world: the Pacific Ocean. The problem, of
course, is that seawater is far too salty to drink or use for irrigation. Desalination plants can get around
that, using large amounts of electricity to force seawater through a membrane filter, which removes the
salt and other impurities, producing fresh water. There are already half a dozen desalination plants in
California, and around 300 in the U.S., but the technology has been held back by cost and by
environmental concerns. A $1 billion desalination plant capable of producing 50 million gallons of water
a day is being built in the California town of Carlsbad, but San Diego will be buying water from the
facility for about $2,000 per acre-foot, twice as much as the city generally pays for imported water,
while producing enough water for 112,000 households. Desalination can have a major carbon
footprint—the Carlsbad plant will use about 5,000 kilowatt hours of electricity to produce an acre-foot
of water. And because desalination plants in general needs about 2 gallons of seawater to produce a
gallon of fresh water, there’s a lot of highly salty brine left over, which has to be disposed of in the
ocean, where it can pose a threat to marine life. Still, while efficiency and conservation will always be
lower cost and lower impacts solutions to any water crisis, it’s hard not to see desalination playing a
bigger and bigger role in California’s efforts to deal with lingering drought. The process of desalination is
improving—the Carlsbad plant uses reverse osmosis technology, which is more energy efficient and
environmentally friendly than older methods —and it has the advantage of being completely droughtproof. In a world where water is more valuable and more valued, desalination can begin to make more
sense. “Desalination needs to be judged fairly against the other alternatives,” says Avshalom Felber, the
CEO of IDE Technologies, an Israeli company that is helping to construct the Carlsbad plant. If
desalination could be powered by renewable energy, some of those environmental concerns would melt
away. And that’s what a startup called WaterFX is trying to do in the parched Central Valley. While
farmers in the valley generally depend on irrigated water brought in from hundreds of miles away, the
land itself isn’t short of groundwater. But most of that water is far too salty for use in farming.
WaterFX’s technology uses a solar thermal trough—curved mirrors that concentrate the power of the
sun—to evaporate salty water. The condensate that’s later collected and cooled becomes freshwater,
leaving salt and other impurities behind. “Solar stills are an old technology, but this has a new twist that
makes it very efficient and very cost effective,” says Aaron Mandell, the CEO of WaterFX. Because it uses
solar power, WaterFX’s desalination has virtually no carbon footprint, and the company says that it has
a 93% recovery rate, much higher than conventional desalination. But its biggest advantage might be its
modularity—Water FX’s solar stills can be set up locally, allowing farms to recycle their own runoff,
rather than having freshwater pumped in from afar. That saves energy and money. “You can create a
closed loop where the water is reused over and over again,” says Mandell. Right now the company is
working on a pilot with the Panoche Water District in the Central Valley, producing almost 500 gallons of
clean water a day. WaterFX has plans to expand to a commercial plant with a 2 million gallon capacity.
Of course, the technology would have to be scaled up massively to even make a dent in California’s
irrigation needs, given that the state sends billions and billions of gallons of water to farms each year.
But if California really is on the edge of a great dry, every drop will help.
Solar Desalination is key to ensuring our water security. Current programs are too
expensive. Subsidies are needed.
Balch, 14 Oliver. "Is solar-powered desalination answer to water independence for
California?." theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 18 July 2014.
<http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/solar-power-california-water>
Thousands of acres on the west side of California's San Joaquin Valley lie fallow. In official speak, the former agricultural land has
been "retired". Water supplies have always been a problem for thisdrought-prone region. Yet what's pushed the area over the brink
is salinity. The problem is in large part caused by farm irrigation, which picks up the salt that naturally occurs in the rocks and soils
of the Central Valley and transfers it through drainage. Compounding the problem is the tidally influenced water that is pumped into
the area from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Astudy by the University of California estimates that, left to continue, the Central
Valley could be facing reparation costs of up to $1.5bn by 2030 and the loss of up to 64,000 jobs as agricultural production slides. A
California-based startup thinks it might have the answer. WaterFX's solution comes in the unlikely shape of a vast bank of parabolic
mirrors and an advanced "multi-effect" evaporating unit. The
Aqua4 system offers a renewable method of
desalinating briny water, which, if its developers prove right, could put California "on a path to
water independence".How does it work? Unlike conventional desalination, which uses a highpressure reverse osmosis system that forces salt and other solids through a membrane,
WaterFX cleans water through use of a 400-kilowatt solar "trough" – hence the mirrors.
This concentrated solar still collects the sun's energy, which heats a pipe containing natural oil,
providing heat for the subsequent distillation process.”We wanted it to be highly modular and highly scalable so
the same system is usable for very small applications all the way up to very large scale," says Aaron Mandell, founder and chairman
of WaterFX, which is piloting the idea in the Californian water district of Panoche. The potential of renewable desalination is exciting
interest in other corners of the globe. For example,Sundrop Farms, which is based in the Isle of Man, has installed a desalination
plant near Port Augusta, South Australia. Located 100 metres from the shore, the solar-powered plant treats salt water pumped
directly from the sea. As well as returning freshwater, the plant uses hot water generated during the desalination process to heat
nearby greenhouses. Interest is also on the rise in the Middle East and North Africa, which currently suffers a gap in water demand
of about 42 cubic kilometres per year – a figure that could increase nearly fivefold between now and 2050, according to a
recent World Bank report (PDF). Experimentation in renewable desalination is already under way in Qatar, where Norway's Sahara
Forest Project has embarked on a pilot scheme. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has plans to build a solar-powered plant in the Al-Khafji
governorate, with talk of more besides. From
a sustainability perspective, the upside of the technology is
huge. The US federal government is currently pumping in about seven million-acre feet of water
into California's Central Valley every year. Replacing a "meaningful percentage" of that figure –
say, 20%-30% - would be enough to have a dramatic impact on securing water security for the
area, says WaterFX's Mandell. The implications for sustainable agriculture are also vast. After a successful proof of concept
stage, Sundrop is now building a 20-acre greenhouse, which promises to produce 2.8m kg of tomatoes and 1.2m kg of pepper a
year. As well as making desert land productive, Sundrop maintains that its approach reduces pesticide use, cuts food miles and
Saudi
Arabia's 30 or so desalination plants, for instance, currently use about 300,000 barrels of crude oil
equivalent a day. The trend in other Gulf countries, as well as in Algeria and Libya, is similar. "The status quo is not
sustainable," concludes the World Bank, which describes the elimination of fossil fuel use in desalination as
"critical". As with all new technologies, the key consideration is whether the idea is scalable. The first question is whether the
science actually works. The initial pilots look promising. WaterFX's test facility, which started operations six months ago,
is successfully producing up to 14,000 gallons of fresh water a day. Plans are now under way to
expand the demonstration project, which will push up its capacity to 65,000 gallons a day over
the same 6,500 sq ft area. A big stumbling block is cost. Solar-powered desalination currently
averages about $1.52-$2.05 per cubic metre of water produced, depending on technology,
energy costs and location, according to the World Bank. Conventionally, alternatives typically cost half that or
less. The cubic-metre costs of desalinised water in Israel's traditional Hadera and (newer) Sorek plants, for example, are $0.65
results in better tasting produce. The arguments from a climate-change perspective appear especially attractive.
and $0.52 respectively.
Water security is key to the economy and food prices.
Stroud 12’, Matthew Stroud, 07/2012, “SOLAR DESALINATION IN THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES”
http://www.cap-az.com/Portals/1/Documents/2012-07/Paper-Stroud.pdf
Water transfers also encompass water moved from one basin to another; usually doing so by a
combination of canals and dams. At a regional scale, transfers are not a new source of water. They are
often contentious as well. Although water rights are property in the traditional sense, water is not. The hydrogeology affecting a
series of rights may not necessarily fit with the intended transfer, leading some consumers to worry that they must do without. Water
availability is an underpinning factor of a Southwestern community’s ability to thrive: no water, no
economy. There are additional cautions and limitations regarding water transfers. When diverted surface water
rights are repurposed for urban use the quality of water delivered to downstream appropriators typically degrades (e.g. Sullivan et al 2011).
Farmers or municipalities accustomed to receiving water containing mostly fertilizer runoff now receive a blend of surface water and treated
sewage, leading to quarrels, public outcry and additional treatment cost. Food
security is another water transfer issue.
Whenever farmland is fallowed through water right transfers, crops formally grown there are frequently
outsourced to a different country, effectively reducing the United States’ ability to produce food, or
regulate food production (e.g. NRC 2008). Apples once grown in Arizona may be imported from Mexico or elsewhere, where labor
laws and agricultural practices are further from the eye of regulators and consumers. Often, when compared to the original production
location, more transportation energy is expended as well, increasing agricultural carbon footprint. Transporting food over longer distances also
increases the potential for transporting foreign and invasive species. Water transfers are a useful tool, but negatively affect water quality; shift
economic potential of Southwestern communities from local agriculture; and increase greenhouse gas production and reliance on foreign
agriculture. Like groundwater and dams, water transfers have augmented supply in the Southwest, but there are limited buyable rights; rights
not structured around sustainability, simply ordered through a superimposed water market.
Economic decline causes great power wars—multiple studies
Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the US Dept. of Defense, 10
[Jedidiah, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic
Crisis,” Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal, and Political Perspectives, 2010
p. 205-224]bg
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict . Political
science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent
states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins
(2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
in the global economy are
associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one preeminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a
redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances,
increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of
power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a
declining power (Werner, 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the
likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and
security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a
significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits
from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the
expectations of future trade decline,
particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases,
as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the
trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves
by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level.
Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write,
The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in
tum returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other.
(Blomberg & Hess, 2002, p. 89) Economic
decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of
terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external
tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. 'Diversionary theory' suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising
from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996),
DeRouen (1995), and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated.
Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than
autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen
periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential
statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.
(2000) has provided evidence showing that
popularity, are
And, food shortages lead to war—leaves developing countries devastated
CBS News 9 (“IMF Head: Food Shortages Can Spark War,” CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/2100202_162-4026125.html, accessed 7/9/13)
The head of the International Monetary Fund warned Friday that soaring world food prices can have dire
consequences, such as toppling governments and even triggering wars. Dominique Strauss-Kahn told
France's Europe-1 radio that the price rises that set off rioting in Haiti, Egypt and elsewhere were an "extremely serious" problem. "The
planet must tackle it," he said. The IMF chief said the problem could also threaten democracies,
even in countries where governments have done all they could to help the local population. Asked
whether the crisis could lead to wars, Strauss-Kahn responded that it was possible. "When the tension goes above and
beyond putting democracy into question, there are risks of war," he said. "History is full of wars
that started because of this kind of problem." Strauss-Kahn was appointed last year to head the IMF. He was a finance
minister in the late 1990s in France. Also on Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested a global partnership among financial
institutions, governments and the private sector to tackle the reasons for rising food prices. He also said France is doubling its food aid budget
this year to about $95 million because 37
countries are experiencing "serious food crises." Globally, food
prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007. The increases hit poor people hardest, as food
represents as much as 60-80 percent of consumer spending in developing nations, compared to about
10-20 percent in industrialized countries, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization has said. The World Food Program blames soaring food
prices on a convergence of rising energy costs, natural disasters linked to climate change, and competition for grain used to make bio-fuels like
ethanol. Program spokesperson Benita Luescher told CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller, "What we're seeing is a perfect storm."
Meanwhile, officials said Thursday that United Nations programs will distribute 8,000 tons of food and other help for Haitians in coming days as
part of efforts to confront unrest over rising prices that set off recent rioting. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said food provided by the
World Food Program will focus on children, pregnant women and nursing mothers in the north, west and central regions of Haiti, the poorest
nation in the Western Hemisphere. Anger over surging food prices has threatened stability in the Caribbean nation, which has long been
haunted by chronic hunger. Haitian lawmakers fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis over the rioting. Mamadou Bah, spokesman for the
U.N. country team in Haiti, said the 8,000 tons are available stock and will be distributed over the next two months starting Thursday. The U.N.
Children's Fund will double its child feeding program to combat malnutrition and spend some $1.6 million on water and sanitation projects in
the northwest and Artibonite regions, Montas said. Globally, food prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007. Haiti is particularly affected
because it imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. Once productive farmland has been abandoned as farmers
struggle to grow crops in soil devastated by erosion, deforestation, flooding and tropical storms. Protests and looting in Port-au-Prince left at
least seven dead last week, including a Nigerian officer in the 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force who was pulled from a car and killed
Saturday. Three Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured by gunfire early last week. Brazilian members of the U.N. peacekeeping force distributed
14 tons of rice, beans, sugar and cooking oil to 1,500 families in the capital's sprawling Cite Soleil slum Tuesday
Climate change
Global warming is real. Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut now in order to reverse
this trend.
Peters 12 - Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (Peer Reviewed Journal,
Glen, “The challenge to keep global warming below 2 [deg]C, Glen P. Peters, Robbie M. Andrew, Tom
Boden, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Corinne Le Quéré, Nature Climate Change,
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n1/full/nclimate1783.html)
On-going climate negotiations have recognized a “significant gap” between the current trajectory of global greenhouse-gas emissions and the “likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5
°C above pre-industrial levels”1. Here we compare recent trends in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, cement production and gas flaring with the primary emission scenarios used by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Carbon dioxide emissions are the largest contributor to long-term climate change and thus provide a good baseline to assess progress and examine consequences. We find that
current emission trends continue to track scenarios that lead to the highest temperature increases. Further
delay in global mitigation makes it increasingly difficult to
stay below 2 °C. Long-term emissions scenarios are designed to represent a range of plausible emission trajectories as input for climate change research2, 3. The IPCC process has resulted in four generations of
emissions scenarios2: Scientific Assessment 1990 (SA90)4, IPCC Scenarios 1992 (IS92)5, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES)6, and the evolving Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)7 to be used in the upcoming
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. The RCPs were developed by the research community as a new, parallel process of scenario development, whereby climate models are run using the RCPs while simultaneously socioeconomic and
In the past,
decadal trends in CO2 emissions have responded slowly to changes in the underlying emission drivers because of inertia and path dependence in
technical, social and political systems9. Inertia and path dependence are unlikely to be affected by short-term fluctuations2, 3, 9 — such as financial crises10 — and it is probable that
emissions will continue to rise for a period even after global mitigation has started11. Thermal inertia and vertical mixing in the ocean, also delay the
emission scenarios are developed that span the range of the RCPs and beyond2. It is important to regularly re-assess the relevance of emissions scenarios in light of changing global circumstances3, 8.
temperature response to CO2 emissions12. Because of inertia, path dependence and changing global circumstances, there is value in comparing observed decadal emission trends with emission scenarios to help inform the
prospect of different futures being realized, explore the feasibility of desired changes in the current emission trajectory and help to identify whether new scenarios may be needed.
Global CO2 emissions
have increased from 6.1±0.3 Pg C in 1990 to 9.5±0.5 Pg C in 2011 (3% over 2010), with average annual growth rates of 1.9% per year in the 1980s, 1.0% per year in the 1990s, and 3.1% per year since 2000. We
estimate that emissions in 2012 will be 9.7±0.5 Pg C or 2.6% above 2011 (range of 1.9–3.5%) and 58% greater than 1990 (Supplementary Information and ref. 13). The observed growth rates are at the top end of all four
generations of emissions scenarios (Figs 1 and 2). Of the previous illustrative IPCC scenarios, only IS92-E, IS92-F and SRES A1B exceed the observed emissions (Fig. 1) or their rates of growth (Fig. 2), with RCP8.5 lower but within
uncertainty bounds of observed emissions. Figure 1: Estimated CO2 emissions over the past three decades compared with the IS92, SRES and the RCPs. The SA90 data are not shown, but the most relevant (SA90-A) is similar to
IS92-A and IS92-F. The uncertainty in historical emissions is ±5% (one standard deviation). Scenario data is generally reported at decadal intervals and we use linear interpolation for intermediate years. Full size image (386 KB)
Figures index Next Figure 2: Growth rates of historical and scenario CO2 emissions. The average annual growth rates of the historical emission estimates (black crosses) and the emission scenarios for the time periods of overlaps
(shown on the horizontal axis). The growth rates are more comparable for the longer time intervals considered (in order: SA90, 27 years; IS92, 22 years; SRES, 12 years; and RCPs, 7 years). The short-term growth rates of the
scenarios do not necessarily reflect the long-term emission pathway (for example, A1B has a high initial growth rate compared with its long-term behaviour and RCP3PD has a higher growth rate until 2010 compared with RCP4.5
and RCP6). For the SRES, we represent the illustrative scenario for each family (filled circles) and each of the contributing model scenarios (open circles). The scenarios generally report emissions at intervals of 10 years or more and
we interpolated linearly to 2012; a sensitivity analysis shows a linear interpolation is robust (Supplementary Fig. S14). Full size image (112 KB) Previous Figures index Observed emission trends are in line with SA90-A, IS92-E and
IS92-F, SRES A1FI, A1B and A2, and RCP8.5 (Fig. 2). The SRES scenarios A1FI and A2 and RCP8.5 lead to the highest temperature projections among the scenarios, with a mean temperature increase of 4.2–5.0 °C in 2100 (range of
3.5–6.2 °C)14, whereas the SRES A1B scenario has decreasing emissions after 2050 leading to a lower temperature increase of 3.5 °C (range 2.9–4.4°C)14. Earlier research has noted that observed emissions have tracked the upper
SRES scenarios15, 16 and Fig. 1 confirms this for all four scenario generations. This indicates that the space of possible pathways could be extended above the top-end scenarios to accommodate the possibility of even higher
emission rates in the future. The new RCPs are particularly relevant because, in contrast to the earlier scenarios, mitigation efforts consistent with long-term policy objectives are included among the pathways2. RCP3-PD (peak and
decline in concentration) leads to a mean temperature increase of 1.5 °C in 2100 (range of 1.3–1.9 °C)14. RCP3–PD requires net negative emissions (for example, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) from 2070, but some
scenarios suggest it is possible to stay below 2 °C without negative emissions17, 18, 19. RCP4.5 and RCP6 — which lie between RCP3–PD and RCP8.5 in the longer term — lead to a mean temperature increase of 2.4 °C (range of
1.0–3.0 °C) and 3.0 °C (range of 2.6–3.7 °C) in 2100, respectively14. For RCP4.5, RCP6 and RCP8.5, temperatures will continue to increase after 2100 due to on-going emissions14 and inertia in the climate system12. Current
emissions are tracking slightly above RCP8.5, and given the growing gap between the other RCPs (Fig. 1), significant emission reductions are needed by 2020 to keep 2 °C as a feasible goal18, 19, 20. To follow an emission trend that
can keep the temperature increase below 2 °C (RCP3-PD) requires sustained global CO2 mitigation rates of around 3% per year, if global emissions peak before 202011, 19. A delay in starting mitigation activities will lead to higher
mitigation rates11, higher costs21, 22, and the target of remaining below 2 °C may become unfeasible18, 20. If participation is low, then higher rates of mitigation are needed in individual countries, and this may even increase
mitigation costs for all countries22. Many of these rates assume that negative emissions will be possible and affordable later this century11, 17, 18, 20. Reliance on negative emissions has high risks because of potential delays or
failure in the development and large-scale deployment of emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage, particularly those connected to bioenergy17, 18. Although current emissions are tracking the higher scenarios,
The historical record shows that some countries
have reduced CO2 emissions over 10-year periods, through a combination of (non-climate) policy intervention and economic
it is still possible to transition towards pathways consistent with keeping temperatures below 2 °C (refs 17,19,20).
adjustments to changing resource availability. The oil crisis of 1973 led to new policies on energy supply and energy savings, which produced a decrease in the share of fossil fuels (oil shifted to nuclear) in the energy supply of
Belgium, France and Sweden, with emission reductions of 4–5% per year sustained over 10 or more years (Supplementary Figs S17–19).A continuous shift to natural gas — partially substituting coal and oil — led to sustained
These
examples highlight the practical feasibility of emission reductions through fuel substitution and efficiency improvements, but additional factors such as
carbon leakage23 need to be considered. These types of emission reduction can help initiate a transition towards trajectories consistent
with keeping temperatures below 2 °C, but further mitigation measures are needed to complete and sustain the reductions. Similar energy transitions could be encouraged and coordinated across countries in the next 10 years using available technologies19, but well-targeted technological innovations24 are required to sustain
the mitigation rates for longer periods17. To move below the RCP8.5 scenario — avoiding the worst climate impacts — requires
early action17, 18, 21 and sustained mitigation from the largest emitters22 such as China, the United States, the European Union and India. These four regions together account for
mitigation rates of 1–2% per year in the UK in the 1970s and again in the 2000s, 2% per year in Denmark in the 1990–2000s, and 1.4% per year since 2005 in the USA (Supplementary Figs S10–12).
over half of global CO2 emissions, and have strong and centralized governing bodies capable of co-ordinating such actions. If similar energy transitions are repeated over many decades in a broader range of developed and
emerging economies,
the current emission trend could be pulled down to make RCP3-PD, RCP4.5 and RCP6 all feasible futures. A shift to a pathway with the highest
likelihood to remain below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels (for example, RCP3-PD), requires high levels of technological, social and political innovations, and an increasing need to rely on net negative emissions in the future11, 17,
timing of mitigation efforts needs to account for delayed responses in both CO2 emissions9 (because of inertia in
and also in global temperature12 (because of inertia in the climate system). Unless large and concerted global mitigation
efforts are initiated soon, the goal of remaining below 2 °C will very soon become unachievable.
18. The
technical, social and political systems)
Unfortunately, desalination in the status quo is energy intensive. Solar desalination is
the only sustainable solution.
NRDC in 2014, National Resource Deffense council, May 2014, “Proceed with Caution:
California’s Drought and Seawater Desalination”, http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/files/ca-droughtseawater-desalination-IB.pdf
A 2011 life-cycle energy assessment of California’s alternative water supplies commissioned by the California Energy
Commission found that, while a desalination system can have a wide array of impacts depending on the water source: “In all
cases, the energy use is higher than alternative water supply.”15 Energy accounts for 36 percent of the cost to run a reverse
osmosis seawater desalination plant.The seawater desalination plant under construction in Carlsbad will require 47 percent
more energy than water delivered to San Diego from the State Water Project Transfers—currently the highest energy demand
in the region’s water supply portfolio. In some areas, seawater desalination is more than twice as energy intensive as other
water supply options. The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation found ocean desalination to indirectly create
more greenhouse gases than any other water source. The Inland Empire Utilities Agency has similarly reported that ocean
desalination would use more than ten times more energy than water recycling in its service area. California’s current water
management system is already extremely energy-intensive: “water-related energy use consumes 19 percent of the state’s
electricity, 30 percent
of its natural gas, and 88 billion gallons of diesel fuel every year.”20 In its 2008 Climate Change Scoping
Plan, the California Air Resources Board noted that one way for the state to reduce GHG emissions is to replace existing water
supply and treatment processes with more energy efficient alternatives. Because seawater desalination is so energy intensive,
extensive development of this technology could lead to “greater dependence on fossil fuels, an increase in greenhouse gas
emissions, and a worsening of climate change.” To effectively minimize the impacts of climate change and reduce GHG
emissions, the state should prioritize water supply and treatment alternatives that are energy efficient, such as those
described in the Recommendations section.
Market dominance of fossil fuel based desalination technology guarantees that future
approaches to water security and sustainability will remain environmentally
destructive and contribute to global warming – targeting the cost-competitiveness of
renewable energy-driven desalination tech is key
Hilal, 05/27/14
[Nidal, Professor in the College of Engineering at Swansea University, The Water Challenge – Why
Desalination Technology Deserves Your Vote, May 27th, 2014, http://www.envirotechonline.com/news/water-wastewater/9/nesta/the_water_challange__why_desalination_technology_deserves_your_vote/30225/]
The rapid development of water desalination technologies and its market in the last decade clearly reflects their growing importance. However,
in spite of the significant technological advances and successes in reducing energy requirements (mainly in membranebased processes), desalination remains an energy-intensive process, contributing to greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and thus having a contributory effect on climate change. In some GCC/MENA (Gulf Cooperation
Council/Middle East-North Africa), countries, the situation is especially challenging in terms of the cost of energy use, because thermalbased processes such as multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) dominate the market; these processes
depend directly on the availability and cost of fossil fuel. Furthermore, they rely on the availability of good prior
experience gained in these technologies, and must often deal with challenging seawater quality, especially in the Gulf region. To meet these
and other related challenges, there
is currently a tremendous interest in identifying breakthrough solutions
that address these global problems of water security and sustainability of water resources at a lowercost, while also being more environmentally friendly. To be clear, our objectives should be to target a
reduction in the specific energy consumption of seawater desalination to reach 2 kWh/m3 in the near-term, and
to develop more sustainable desalination processes which are less dependent on conventional energy
sources and more environmentally friendly in the longer term. This will be enabled by exploring the
development of new and emerging low-energy and renewable energy-driven desalination
technologies. Research towards this should focus on the hybridisation of forward osmosis (FO), membrane distillation (MD), and
adsorption desalination (AD), coupled with or standing alone from conventional desalination processes such as MED and reverse osmosis (RO).
In particular, both nanotechnology and membrane processes are set to play a key role as enabling technologies; global demand for membranes
alone is set to increase by 9% annually, with a forecast of more than US $20 billion in the water sector by 2015. There is a clear and urgent
need to undertake fundamental research in the water sciences and advance the development of water technologies to deliver innovative
solutions that address these global challenges of sustainable and secure water resources. Key research objectives that will have immediate
impact globally include to: • Research and develop novel technologies for water desalination and reuse; • Optimize and hybridise desalination
and reuse technologies for enhanced performance; • Promote water technologies for sustainable urban, agricultural and industrial applications;
• Research urban and natural hydrologic systems to enable improved water resource understanding and management; • Disseminate
knowledge through demonstration, engagement and technology transfer. Water
security is the biggest challenge we face
on the planet. The Longitude Prize 2014 can be the catalyst that helps us to do something about it. We must act urgently and
move ahead, if these technologies are to be available and deliver the needed solutions in time
Renewable desalination is the most feasible and environmentally friendly optioncurrent desalination proves negative consequences
Cooley , Heather, and Matthew Heberger. ’13 Cooley- Director of Pacific Institute’s Water Program.
Heberger- Research Associate with Pacific Institute’s Water Program, water resources engineer ”Key Issues
For Seawater Desalination in California." . Pacific Institute, 1 May 2013. Web. 17 July 2014.
<http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/desal-energy-ghg-full-report.pdf>.
Removing the salt from seawater is an energy intensive process and consumes more energy per gallon
than most other water supply and treatment options. On average, desalinations plants use about 15,000 kWh per million
gallons of water produced (kWh/MG), or 4.0 kWh per cubic meter (kWh/m3).We note, however, that these estimates refer to the rated energy
use, i.e., the energy required under a standard, fixed set of conditions. The actual energy use may be higher, as actual operating conditions are
often not ideal. The overall energy implications of a seawater desalination project will depend on whether the water produced replaces an existing
water supply or provides a new source of water for growth. If water from a desalination plant replaces an existing supply, then the additional
energy requirements are simply the difference between the energy use of the seawater desalination plant and those of the existing supply.
Producing a new source of water, however, increases the total amount of water that must be delivered, used, and disposed of. Thus,
the
overall energy implications of the desalination project include the energy requirements for the
desalination plant plus the energy required to deliver, use, and dispose of the water that is produced. We
note that conservation and efficiency, by contrast, can help meet the anticipated needs associated with growth by reducing total water demand
while simultaneously maintaining or even reducing total energy use.
Energy requirements for desalination have declined
dramatically over the past 40 years due to a variety of technological advances, and desalination designers and
researchers are continuously seeking ways to further reduce energy consumption. Despite the potential for future energy use reductions, however,
there is a theoretical minimum energy requirement beyond which there are no opportunities for further reductions. Desalination plants are
currently operating at 3-4 times the theoretical minimum energy requirements, and despite
hope and efforts to reduce the energy
cost of desalination, there do not appear to be significant reductions in energy use on the near-term
horizon. The high energy requirements of seawater desalination raise several concerns, including sensitivity to energy price variability. Energy
is the largest single variable cost for a desalination plant, varying from one-third to more than one-half the cost of produced water (Chaudhry
2003). As result, desalination creates or increases the water supplier’s exposure to energy price variability. In California, and in other regions
dependent on hydropower, electricity prices tend to rise during droughts, when runoff, and thus power production, is constrained and electricity
demands are high. Additionally, electricity prices in California are projected to rise by nearly 27% between 2008 and 2020 (in inflation-adjusted
dollars) to maintain and replace aging transmission and distribution infrastructure, install advanced metering infrastructure, comply with oncethrough cooling regulations, meet new demand growth, and increase renewable energy production (CPUC 2009). Rising energy prices will affect
the price of all water sources, although they will have a greater impact on those that the most energy intensive. It is important to note that water
from a desalination plant may be worth more in a drought year because other sources of water will be limited. Thus, building a desalination plant
may reduce a water utility’s exposure to water reliability risks at the added expense of an increase in exposure to energy price risk. Project
developers may pay an energy or project developer to hedge against this uncertainty, e.g., through a long-term energy purchase contract or
through on-site energy production from sources with less variability, such as solar electric. The hedging options, however, may increase the
overall cost. In any case, energy price uncertainty creates costs that should be incorporated into any estimate of project cost. The
high
energy requirements of seawater desalination also raise concerns about greenhouse gas emissions. In 2006,
California lawmakers passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, or Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Thus, the state has committed itself to a program of steadily reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in both the
short- and long-term, which includes cutting current emissions and preventing future emissions associated with growth. Action
and
awareness has, until recently, been uneven and slow to spread to the local level. While the state has
directed local and regional water managers to begin considering emissions reductions when selecting
water projects, they were not subject to mandatory cuts during the state’s first round of emissions reductions. As the state moves
forward with its plans to cut carbon emissions further, however, every sector of the economy is likely to come under
increased scrutiny by regulators. Desalination – through increased energy use – can cause an increase in
greenhouse gas emissions, further contributing to the root cause of climate change and thus running
counter to the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals. While there is “no clear-cut regulatory standard related to energy use
and greenhouse gas emissions,” (Pankratz 2012) there are a variety of state programs, policies, and agencies that must be considered when
developing a desalination project. These include environmental review requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act, the
issuance of permits by the Coastal Commission, the Integrated Regional Water Management Planning process, and policies of other state
agencies, such as the State Lands Commission and the State Water Resources Control Board. These agencies have increasingly emphasized the
importance of planning for climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While none of these preclude the construction of new
desalination plants, the state’s mandate to reduce emissions creates an additional planning element that must be addressed. There
is
growing interest in reducing or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by powering desalination with
renewables, directly or indirectly, or purchasing carbon offsets. In California, we are unlikely to see desalination plants that are directly
powered by renewables in the near future. A more likely scenario is that project developers will pay to develop renewables in other parts of the
state that partially or fully offset the energy requirements of the desalination plant. Offsets can also reduce emissions, although caution is required
when purchasing offsets, particularly on the voluntary market, to ensure that they are effective, meaningful, and do no harm .
Powering
desalination with renewables can reduce or eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a
particular project. This may assuage some concerns about the massive energy requirements of these
systems and may help to gain local, and even regulatory, support. But it is important to look at the larger context. Even
renewables have a social, economic, and environmental cost, albeit much less than conventional fossil
fuels. Furthermore, these renewables could be used to reduce existing emissions, rather than offset new emissions
and maintain current greenhouse gas levels. Communities should consider whether there are less energy-intensive options available to meet water
demand, such as through conservation and efficiency, water reuse, brackish water desalination, stormwater capture, and rainwater harvesting. We
note that energy use is not the only factor that should be used to guide decision making. However, given the increased understanding of the risks
of climate change for our water resources, the importance of evaluating and mitigating energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are likely to
grow.
Irreversible climate change risks extinction and ecosystem collapse
Kirschbaum, 3/20 –PhD Environmental Biology in the Australian Nation in 1986, BSc Agriculture,
Researcher at Landcare Research (Miko, “Climate-change impact potentials as an alternative to global
warming potentials,” 2014, IOP Science, Miko U F Kirschbaum 2014 Environ. Res. Lett. 9
034014)//VIVIENNE
2.1.2. Rate-of-warming impacts The rate
of warming is a concern because higher temperatures may not be inherently worse
cause problems for both natural and socio-economic systems. A slow
rate of change will allow time for migration or other adjustments, but faster rates of change may give
insufficient time for such adjustments (e.g. Peck and Teisberg 1994). For example, the natural distribution of most species is
than cooler conditions, but change itself will
restricted to narrow temperature ranges (e.g. Hughes et al 1996). As climate change makes their current habitats climatically unsuitable for
many species (Parmesan and Yohe 2003), it
poses serious and massive extinction risks (e.g. Thomas et al 2004). The rate
of warming will strongly influence whether species can migrate to newly suitable habitats, or whether
they will be driven to extinction in their old habitats. 2.1.3. Cumulative-warming impacts The third kind of impact
includes impacts such as sea-level rise (Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009) which is quantified by cumulative
warming, as sea-level rise is related to both the magnitude of warming and the length of time over
which oceans and glaciers are exposed to increased temperatures. Lenton et al (2008) listed some possible tipping
points in the global climate system, including shut-off of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation and Arctic sea-ice melting. If
the world
passes these thresholds, the global climate could shift into a different mode, with possibly serious and
irreversible consequences. Their likely occurrence is often linked to cumulative warming. Cumulative
warming is similar to the calculation of GWPs except that GWPs integrate only radiative forcing without
considering the time lag between radiative forcing and resultant effects on global temperatures. The
difference between GWPs and integrated warming are, however, only small over a 100-year time horizon and diminish even further over longer
time horizons (Peters et al 2011a). 2.2. The relative importance of different kinds of impacts For devising optimal climate-change mitigation
strategies, it is also necessary to quantify the importance of different kinds of impacts relative to each other.
Without any formal assessment of their relative importance being available in the literature, they were therefore assigned here the same
relative weighting. However, the different kinds of impacts change differently over time so that the importance of one kind of impact also
changes over time relative to the importance of the others. The notion of assigning them equal importance can therefore be implemented
mathematically only under a specified emission pathway and at a defined point in time. This was done by expressing each impact relative to the
most severe impact over the next 100 years under the 'representative concentration pathway' (RCP) with radiative forcing of 6 W m−2 (RCP6;
van Vuuren et al 2011). 2.3. Cumulative damages or most severe damages? Any
focus on maximum temperature increases,
such as the '2° target', explicitly targets
the most extreme impacts. However, that ignores the lesser, but still important, impacts
that occur before and after the most extreme impacts are experienced. Hence, the damage function used here sums all impacts over
the next 100 years. Summing impacts is different from summing temperatures to derive initial impacts. For example, the damage from
tropical cyclones is linked to sea-surface temperatures in a given year (Webster et al 2005). Total damages to society, however, are the sum of
cyclone damages in all years over the defined assessment horizon. 2.4. Impact severity Climate-change
impacts clearly increase
with increases in the underlying climate perturbation, but how strongly? By 2012, global temperatures
had increased by nearly 1 °C above pre-industrial temperatures (Jones et al 2012), equivalent to about 0.01 °C yr−1,
with about 20 cm sea-level rise (Church and White 2011), and there are increasing numbers of unusual weather
events that have been attributed to climate change (e.g. Schneider et al 2007, Trenberth and Fasullo 2012). By the time
temperature increases reach 2°, or sea-level rise reaches 40 cm, would impacts be twice as bad or increase more sharply? If impacts
increase sharply with increasing perturbations, then overall damages would be largely determined by
impacts at the times of highest perturbations, whereas with a less steep impact response function,
impacts at times with lesser perturbations would contribute more to overall damages. Schneider et al (2007)
comprehensively reviewed and discussed the quantification of climate-change impacts and their relationship to underlying climate
perturbations but concluded that a formal quantification of impacts was not yet possible. This was due to remaining scientific uncertainty, and
the intertwining of scientific assessments of the likelihood of the occurrence of certain events and value judgements as to their significance. For
example, Thomas et al (2004) quantified
the likelihood of species extinction under climate change and
concluded that by 2050, 18% of species would be 'committed to extinction' under a low-emission
scenario, which approximately doubled to 35% under a high-emission scenario. Given the functional redundancy
of species in natural ecosystems, their impact on ecosystem function, and their perceived value for society, doubling the loss of
species would presumably more than double the perceived impact of the loss of those species. The scientifically derived estimate of species
loss therefore does not automatically translate into a usable damage response function. It requires additional value judgements, such as an
assessment of the importance of the survival of species, including those without economic value. It is also difficult to quantify the impact
related to the low probability of crossing key thresholds (Lenton et al 2008). It may
be possible to agree on the importance of
crossing some irreversible thresholds, but it is difficult to confidently derive probabilities of crossing
them. But despite these uncertainties, some kind of damage response function must be used to quantify the marginal impact of extra
emission units. As it is difficult, if not impossible, to employ purely objective means of generating impact response functions, we have to resort
to what Stern called a 'subjective probability approach. It is a pragmatic response to the fact that many of the true uncertainties around
climate-change policy cannot themselves be observed and quantified precisely' (Stern 2006). Different workers have used some semiquantitative approaches, such as polling of expert opinion (e.g. Nordhaus 1994), or the generation of complex uncertainty distributions from a
limited range of existing studies (Tol 2012), but none of these overcomes the essentially subjective nature of devising impact response
functions. Figure 1 shows some possible response functions that relate an underlying climate perturbation to its resultant impact. This is
quantified relative to maximum impacts anticipated over the next 100 years for perturbations such as temperature. The current temperature
increase of about 1 °C is approximately 1/3 of the temperature increase expected under RCP6 over the next 100 years, giving a relative
perturbation of 0.33. For the quantification of CCIPs, impacts had to be expressed as functions of relative climate perturbations to enable equal
quantitative treatment of all three kinds of climatic impacts. Economic analyses tend to employ quadratic or cubic responses function (e.g.
Nordhaus 1994, Hammitt et al 1996, Roughgarden and Schneider 1999, Tol 2012), but there is concern that these functions that are based only
on readily quantifiable impacts may give insufficient weight to the small probability of extremely severe impacts (e.g. Weitzman 2012, 2013,
Lemoine and McJeon 2013). A response function that includes these extreme impacts would increase much more sharply than quadratic or
cubic response functions (e.g. Weitzman 2012). The relationship used here uses an exponential increase in impacts with increasing
perturbations to capture the sharply increasing damages with larger temperature increases (as shown by Hammitt et al 1996 and Weitzman
2012). Warming by 3/4 of the expected maximum warming, for example, would have about 10 times the impact as warming by only 1/4 of
maximum warming. The graph also shows the often-used power relationships (e.g. Hammitt et al 1996, Boucher 2012), shown here with
powers of 2 (quadratic) and 3 (cubic), and a more extreme impacts function (hockey-stick function) presented by Hammitt et al (1996).
Compared to the power functions, the exponential relationship calculates relatively modest impacts for moderate climate perturbations that
increase more sharply for more extreme climate perturbations. It is thus very similar to the 'hockey-stick' relationship of Hammitt et al (1996).
2AC
Inherency
General we need Desal
Desalination needs to happen
Carter ’09, NicoleT (Specialist in Natural Resources Policy)
“Desalination: Status and Federal Issues” Congressional Research Service Reports
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=crsdocs
In the United States, desalination is increasingly investigated as an option for meeting municipal
water demands, particularly for coastal communities that can desalinate seawater or estuarine water,
interior communities above brackish groundwater aquifers, and communities with contaminated water
supplies. Adoption of desalination, however, remains constrained by financial, environmental,
regulatory, and other factors. At issue is what role Congress establishes for the federal government in
desalination research and development, and in construction and operational costs of desalination
demonstration projects and full-scale facilities.
Need for desalination programs is widespread
WGA ’05 "WSW Issue #1617." . Western Governor's Association, 13 May 2005. Web. 16 July 2014.
<http://www.westgov.org/wswc/1617.html>.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) Commissioner John Keys testified in support of S. 895, expressing strong support for provisions that would
allow communities to approach BOR early in the process, complete their own appraisal and feasibility studies, and appropriately determine a
community’s capability to pay their share of study costs, as well as operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. Further, he suggested that
exploring local desalination opportunities, particularly treating brackish ground waters for potable uses,
may be a viable alternative to rural water supply projects that pump and transfer water from rivers over
great distances at great expense. He also expressed support for requiring interagency coordination. The Administration also likes the
Title II loan guarantee program, but Keys said he is still studying several aspects of S. 895. He noted the apparent need for some
type of overall programmatic framework to guide how projects once authorized are planned, built and
managed. He also suggested the Committee add criteria for economic and financial impacts for project assessment and feasibility
studies.Others testifying included: Jim Dunlap, President of the Upper La Plata Water District in New Mexico and Chairman of the New Mexico
Interstate Stream Commission; David Lansford, Mayor of Clovis, New Mexico and Chairman of the Eastern New Mexico Water Authority,
accompanied by Vice Chairman Orlando Ortega, Mayor of Portales; and Harold Frazier, Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South
Dakota.Chairman Frazer painted a compelling picture of his people as the “poster child” for rural water needs on a “scale most American’s can’t
envision.” An
obsolete water system “cobbled together” with various federal grants could leave 14,000
Indians and non-Indians across the patchwork reservation without water by August. Its intake is threatened by the
fall levels of Lake Oahe on the Missouri River and cannot be extended further. Estimated water needs are more than ten times
the current plant’s treatment capacity. There is no water to supply new homes, and last year four children
died in a house fire that couldn’t be quenched because of a lack of water. The community also suffers due
to elevated levels of heavy metals in streams caused by upstream mining activities. Unemployment in the county,
one of the poorest in the country, is 78% and direct assistance may be the only recourse for aid, as they probably couldn’t qualify for loans, even
with the proposed federal guarantees. Mr. Frazer concluded noting the Sioux phrase “Mni Wiconi,” the name of one rural water supply project,
means “Water is Life.”
The Southwest region of the United States faces severe drought causing a crippling
effect on the economy and the environment.
Domanick 14’, Andrea Domanick, March 2014, Las Vegas Sun Reporter, “The Ripple Effect of less water”, The
Las Vegas Sun Reporter, http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/mar/30/ripple-effect-less-water/
Higher food prices, water bills and utility rates. Greater wildfire risk. Shrinking communities, fewer
jobs and weakening economies. Amid growing concern that the drought gripping the West isn’t
history repeating itself but instead is a new normal brought about by climate change, the effects of
the dwindling water supply in the region are beginning to become all too clear. As a pattern of longer
dry periods and shorter wet cycles continues, the effects will be felt across the region by millions of
people from farms to cities, faucets to wallets. More than 70 percent of the West — a zone spreading
across 15 states — is experiencing some form of abnormal dryness or drought, with 11 drought-affected
western and central states designated as primary natural disaster areas by the Agriculture Department. Here’s
what’s coming for residents of the West — or, in some cases, what’s in progress: Agriculture and food prices
Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is at 12 percent of the annual average, making the drought in California especially severe. With 2013 being
the state’s driest year on record, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency, imploring residents to cut water use by 20
percent. The State Water Project announced zero water allocation to agencies serving 25 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland.
The drought threatens to cripple California’s $44.7 billion agricultural industry, cutting yields and
sending food prices soaring. A recent food price inflation outlook issued by the USDA found the consumer
price index rose by 1.4 percent in 2013, and food prices are expected to rise another 2.5 to 3.5 percent this
year. Record-high beef prices, which rose 5.4 percent over the past year, are “here to stay. Wildfires Drier
conditions mean drier trees — which means better fuel for forest fires. A rash of powerful, fastmoving wildfires made headlines in the past year, from Las Vegas’ Carpenter 1 fire that ravaged 20,000 acres on Mount
Charleston to Arizona’s deadly Yarnell Hill fire. As the drought persists, such events are expected to increase in size,
intensity and frequency as moisture remains concentrated in the Rocky and Sierra mountain ranges.
While surrounding northern states bask in precipitation, much of the Southwest misses out, leading to dangerously dry conditions. “It’s looking
like classic Dust Bowl-type pictures that are emerging, from Arizona into New Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado, up to about the San Juan
Mountains,” said Kelly Redmond, a climatologist at Desert Research Institute. Political After decades of water wars, California, Nevada, Arizona,
Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Mexico are working to share Colorado River water. The new era of cooperation crystallized in 2007,
when the states agreed to a rationing system should Lake Mead’s elevation continue to drop. The first of these shortage declarations, which
would trigger cuts in water supplies to each state, could go into effect as early as next year. Further provisions will carry the region through
several more years of decline on the river, but if the drought worsens and Lake Mead’s levels continue to drop, all bets are off. Once the
reservoir hits 1,025 feet of elevation, just 80 below its current level, the states would be forced back to the bargaining table to negotiate more
cuts. Ecological The
drought doesn’t just affect humans — entire ecosystems feel the burn. As water levels
shrink, nutrients, sediments and pollutants become more concentrated, hurting the health of
surrounding ecosystems. Desert wildlife become particularly susceptible to drought as ponds and similar
sources of drinking water begin to disappear. Similarly, cattle herds grazing on public land may be forced to curb their
appetites as the Bureau of Land Management curtails foraging allotments as the amount of available water decreases.
While some creatures suffer, others thrive. Insect infestations are a common consequence of drought,
allowing populations of destructive species to grow while old growth forests weaken. The effects can
be devastating, affecting everything from carbon cycles to wildfires. Air pollution Droughts affect how we
breathe as well as what we drink. Dusty, dry environments and wildfire outbreaks leave populations
in affected areas vulnerable to air pollution. Without precipitation to clear the air, airborne particles
like pollen, smoke and fluorocarbons accumulate in the atmosphere, irritating the lungs and bronchial
passages, increasing the risk of acute respiratory infections and exacerbating chronic respiratory
illnesses. Droughts can lead to the release of airborne toxins originating from freshwater
cyanobacteria blooms, which have been associated with lung irritation and other adverse health
effects. Drinking water Drinking water sources are among the most protected and will be the last to suffer.
Major Southwestern cities have plans extending more than a decade covering where and how they’ll get
their supply. But as supplies from mountain snowpack and rivers dwindle, tapping new sources to sate
populations will have hefty price tags. Locally, protecting our water supply in the face of drought has
cost $817 million — the price of a third intake straw at Lake Mead. If the situation worsens, it could result in a
controversial $3 billion plan to pump groundwater in from rural Nevada to feed the mouths (and lawns) of
Las Vegas. Elsewhere, dwindling water supplies could mean taxing ground reservoirs, costly construction
on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or building promising but controversial (and expensive)
desalination plants to make seawater potable.
Desalination is inevitable in status quo
Roach, John, 2014, Staff Writer for NBC News, “Parched California Pours Mega-Millions into
Desalination Tech,” http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/california-drought/parched-california-poursmega-millions-desalination-tech-n28066
Limited water resources on the Monterey Peninsula hindered master development plans for the small
town of Sand City, Calif., which was restricted from any new construction until the city increased its
water supply. Regional efforts to find solutions ran into financial and political constraints for more than
20 years. Frustrated, the city struck out on its own to develop a desalination plant. The city partnered
with California American Water for the $14 million project, which started producing 300 acre feet of
freshwater a year in 2010. The plant draws brackish water from wells, which is less salty than seawater,
meaning its energy requirements are less. The salt content of the leftover brine is about equal the
ocean's, so it can be discharged without damaging the marine environment. The city currently uses
about a third of the annual output; the rest is shared among other cities on the water-short peninsula.
This allows the water company to reduce its reliance on the stressed Carmel River, which is under state
protections.
"Our plant has two benefits, we brought our own water and also we allow the water company to reduce
pumping from the illegal source," Sand City Mayor David Pendegrass explained to NBC News. To further
alleviate pressures on the river, American Water is pursuing a larger desalination plant on the Monterey
Peninsula. Ultimately, she said, seawater desalination will become part of the solution to California's
ongoing water woes — something to consider along with other supply options, including increased
wastewater recycling. "The key questions," Cooley said of the desalination plants, "are when do you
build them and how large do you build them?"
Gov Subsidies Needed
Government subsidies increase feasibility- minimizes profit venture
Stroud, 2k12
[Matthew, MA from the University of Arizona in Hydrology, Solar Desalination in the Southwest United
States: A Thermoeconomic Analysis Utilizing the Sun to Desalt Water in High Irradiance Regions, Masters
Thesis]
Potential model pitfalls and limitations are found in use regime and cost assumptions. Typically, only
private entities can capitalize on subsidies whereas large water providers are usually government
agencies. Alternative funding structures can be created, allowing private, subsidizable utilities to step in
as power plant purchaser. However, privately funded ventures seek maximum return on investment,
and most likely offer little, if any, cost advantage over grid power. An alternative at the institutional level
may involve creating government owned corporations able to accept subsidies. Capital ability and
traditional energy cost are also important feasibility factors. Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) was
calculated using a 3% interest rate over 30 years; a small rate increase can change solar
competitiveness. In a similar way, competition energy prices can change feasibility. Solar power’s
economic feasibility hinges on traditional energy costs being higher than LCOE. Using photovoltaic
reverse osmosis (PV-RO) model parameters, solar filtration desalination becomes uncompetitive at
traditional energy prices below 0.067 $/kWh. Short-term feasibility as a function of financial structure
can be increased by acquiring subsidies, securing a low interest rate, and increasing plant life (lowering
LCOE). Little can be done actively about competition energy; prices are set by a global market. Though,
this dilemma may not be an issue: at the time of this study, Southwest water providers were paying
higher rates for electricity than photovoltaic LCOE: between 0.075 and 0.12 $/kWh depending on
interruptibility (e.g. TEP 2011). Cost-volatile natural gas was being sold to public utilities for 0.66
$/therm—double the cost of CST process heat in the Southwest.
Subsidies result in economic gain- consumers spend elsewhere in economy
Stroud, 2k12
[Matthew, MA from the University of Arizona in Hydrology, Solar Desalination in the Southwest United
States: A Thermoeconomic Analysis Utilizing the Sun to Desalt Water in High Irradiance Regions, Masters
Thesis]
A thorough investigation of western water total costs is a study in and of itself. Agricultural consumers
typically do not pay true water costs, so comparing the explicit cost of an alternative water resource
option to subsidized rates can be misleading. Western water funding policy relies on a broad implicit
principal of adding cost elsewhere in the economy in order to ensure agriculture is profitable and
therefore available to produce food. The food is consumed by tax payers who all share the cost of water
and pay a discounted rate for groceries at market. Financial benefit is not guaranteed, but cost efficiency
can be gained by centralizing water appropriations; payback is theorized to occur by allowing consumers
to generate economic gain spending less on food and more in other sections of the economy which are
more likely to expand wealth at a higher rate, like technology.
Americans want the federal government to support desalination projects
Furman, No Date Hal. Executive Director of the US Desalination Coalition, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science during the Reagan Administration "Majority of
Americans Support Desalination Projects." . North American Precise Syndicate, n.d. Web. 17 July
2014. <http://www.napsnet.com/pdf_archive/91/64085.pdf>.
The vast majority of our planet’s surface consists of seawater. Pure, clean water is something that many take for granted, unaware that a mere
A water crisis exists because our sources of
clean, drinkable water are rapidly diminishing. There is, however, one
solution that most Americans believe should be actively pursued—
desalination. A recently conducted national survey found that a vast majority of Americans believe the
three percent of the earth’s water is fresh.
potential for a water shortage is a significant issue. Additionally, eight out of ten Americans favor
desalination as a means to help solve the growing water shortage. Moreover, seventy percent favor
using federal funding to facilitate the construction and operation of desalination plants. The American
people want the federal government to support desalination projects. A growing number of members
of Congress believe the time for action is now. To date, nearly 40 members of the U.S. House of
Representatives have sponsored legislation to provide assistance to desalination plants (H.R. 1071) and
the bill is being introduced in the U.S. Senate. Under this proposal the Department of Energy would provide financial assistance
Whether desalination projects get
built in time to address the mounting water supply crisis may depend on whether the Federal
government invests in this new infrastructure. Given the ever worsening water crisis we now face in
this country, doesn’t it make sense that we take action to utilize the oceans to solve our water crisis? I
believe the answer is “yes”; particularly since the technology now exists to convert seawater and brackish
water to clean drinking water cost-effectively. As one environmentalist said, “desalination is no longer the
crazy aunt in the attic.”
to partially offset the cost of the electrical energy needed to operate these facilities.
Solvency
Solar Desalination proves to be a cleaner, more cost effective and energy efficient
source to clean water.
Peter Kelly-Detwiler, January 2014, Contributor / Author in Forbes Business, “WaterFX Sees Solar Desalination As
One Way To Address The Worlds Water Problem”, Forbes Business
Aaron Mandell, Founder and Chairman of WaterFX, looks at California’s water issue like a classic entrepreneur. Where others see problems, he
sees opportunity for improvement and profit. And that opportunity is huge. It is
common knowledge that access to clean
water is a mounting problem across the globe. However, few places have water issues as complex and
challenging as California, which has been dealing with the water issue for generations (some may remember the 1974 Jack Nicholson,
Faye Dunaway film ‘Chinatown’ that focused on the California Water Wars of the early 1900s). In that state, the issue is highly complex, layered
Water issues are also
inextricably linked to energy issues: it takes an enormous amount of energy to pump, treat, and move
water. So the water problem is not only limited to H2O, it’s a costly energy issue as well Mandell
hopes to change that reality. He has a vision for how to make that happen, starting with a clean and modular technology and
an open source approach that he hopes will stimulate a growing community of solutions providers. His company, WaterFX has created
a solar-powered desalination system to treat agricultural drainage that is not only benign from an
energy standpoint, but also leaves the agricultural environment in better shape. WaterFX has
successfully piloted a 6,500 square foot system with California’s Panoche Water District over the past
six months, producing almost 500 gallons of clean water per hour. Panoche is one of the water districts in California
in a complicated history of rights, claimants, and the physical reality of too much demand for a limited supply.
taking a leading role in addressing the state’s water crisis. Following on the pilot’s success, the Water District has now agreed to work with
Mandell’s company to expand the system to produce 2,200 acre-feet per year. Here’s how the system works: Instead of the
traditional desalination approach normally used to treat seawater, which uses a high-pressure reverse osmosis system that forces salt and
other solids through a membrane, WaterFX
cleans water through use of a Concentrated Solar Still. It uses
existing technology, adapting 400 kilowatt parabolic solar troughs originally designed for power
generation. The solar troughs concentrate the sun’s energy and heat a pipe containing heat transfer
fluid that transfers the heat to a heat pump, further increasing efficiency. This heat is then utilized in a
distillation process to evaporate clean water out of source water (in this case, agricultural drainage water that
contains salts, fertilizers, and other impurities). The condensate is then recovered as pure H2O. Since the sun
doesn’t always shine, a thermal storage system is used to hold the excess heat so that the process can
function around the clock. Mandell – who studied groundwater engineering in school and has been involved in previous waterrelated start-ups – migrated to energy work in recent years and became convinced that the energy-water nexus was an area worth devoting
attention to. Like many people, I started looking at population growth and constrained natural resources and came to the conclusion that
water is the most significant limiting factor to economic growth in many parts of the world. Water will
always use energy, so the question is how do we sustainably deal with the water we use – it comes
down to consumption and linkage between water and fuel. This project began as an experiment to see if we could
break the linkage between fuel consumption and water production, and to see if we could scale without a significant impact. The equipment for
the pilot at Panoche is exactly what you will see in the commercial application. The equipment doesn’t get bigger, you just add more solar
As you scale, the underlying costs go down and the operating costs are very low. The
experience of the pilot created the confidence that expansion would be feasible. We’ve been running the pilot
collectors.
since June. Our first objective was to show we could treat the water reliably, and then to show we could scale up to a cost point that works for
the agricultural industry that has not yet adopted desalination as a reliable and cost-effective source of water. The new site is about 50 acres
and we think we can improve efficiencies over time and double the density. Mandell also recognized that to be successful, his technology must
be superior to other approaches. He notes that in a traditional reverse osmosis approach, fuel represents 60-70% of the overall costs.
Mandell is confident that his technology at scale can be at a minimum 20-30% cheaper with much
more capability, especially if one looks at overall operating costs. WaterFX’s total operating costs are
approximately $450 acre-foot, and he expects these to decline with scale and coming down from
there. In California the most logical cost reference point is the Carlsbad desalination plant in San Diego where the total operating cost is
about $900 per acre foot and can escalate based on electricity pricing. The other reference point that people focus on in the ‘desal’ community
is $.60/cubic meter, which works out to about $740/acre foot, but this is very often not the true cost of desalinated water. He comments that
not only are his costs lower, but the overall approach is better as well. You have to understand that with a traditional
desalination
plant, you get 50% of water treated as fresh water, and all of the rest goes back into ocean. You are
discharging concentrated brine back into the sea. We are not just recovering 50% of water, but we
get over 95% as useable water, which goes back to farming. What remains are salts, chemicals,
fertilizers” He believes that these recovered elements may have value as well. “We haven’t gotten to the point where we can market the
byproducts, but it could be our most profitable revenue stream, as there is a lot of value in dissolved salts and metals.” In order to scale this,
one would think that the start-up needs venture capital. Not so, says Mandell. The financial vehicle supporting the new project comes from
monetizing the water contract itself. The entire facility will be around $30 million. Our business model is to finance these
projects ourselves, like an independent utility. Panoche benefits by getting back large volumes of treated drainage water. It’s a wheeling
arrangement. Panoche exchanges the water they would normally draw from the San Luis reservoir and in turn, the right to that contract water
can be transferred. Because we are creating more water, the additional water can be sold to somebody else, such as Southern California where
water is very valuable. Water users become net producers and the end result is more water.Mandell notes that there is another reason he has
eschewed venture money, which he notes can be very helpful in the right instance. The venture community might not find his open source
approach to their liking. While Mandell naturally hopes to profit from the venture, he also has a broader mission in mind, which is to change the
way people think about water issues and leverage what he has learned for greater social benefit. We’re funded privately, with some state
funding, and from some of our customers. We use an open source model to show others how the technology can be used. Our view is that we
can disseminate information to educate the broader community. If we approach this as open source to the community, we think we can do
better. The more people we can educate that solar desalination is valuable, and provide basic building blocks to the user base, the better off
we will all be. Mandell thinks on a large scale, and his dream is to have a global impact. If we roll out the technology … we could produce 8% of
all the water used in California, with just the land that was fallowed during the last drought. That’s enough water for over 7M acres of irrigated
farmland. You would begin to change the economics and change the course of how water is used. The whole idea is to wean the State off of the
Central Aqueduct and become water independent. The current system is unsustainable and unreliable. What we are trying to do is to develop
a model that can be replicated. The problems in California are identical to those in many parts of the world. China is depending on delicate
river systems to provide water for all types of economic growth that will not be sustainable. We could also do this in Saudi Arabia – they use an
enormous amount of oil for water consumption, to evaporate or move water around the country. At the same time, he notes that one can
improve the agricultural environment. The problem related to accumulated salts in irrigated soils is not a new one. In fact, the agricultural
output of Mesopotamia was vastly crippled by buildup of salts in irrigated soils, eventually leading to its decline. Mandell sees enormous
potential in soil rehabilitation through the technology. There is more value than just the water, because we address the drainage problem. Salt
buildup results in yield reduction for food crops. So by cleaning the water we are able to maintain high yields. Let’s say you are a farmer
averaging $8,000 of revenue per acre of crops. If your yields drop 25% due to salt intrusion into the soil from inadequate drainage, that is
$2,000 lost per acre of land – multiply this across a 10,000 acre farming operation, that is $20M every year. At
the end of the day,
Mandell believes that WaterFX has an approach that is cost-effective, environmentally superior, and
relatively easy for an open source community to adopt. And he hopes his technology can stimulate an entirely new
approach. It only takes about 6 months to build the plant since it’s modular. The idea is for everything to be easily installable and fully
automated. You don’t need skilled operators. We hope to show that this solution can benefit everybody. The idea here is to begin to reuse
water, and put the state on a path to water independence. And its good for the economy – we can create an entirely new industry.
Desalination is a viable solution but depends on subsidies- cost still too high without
financial support
Stroud, 2k12
[Matthew, MA from the University of Arizona in Hydrology, Solar Desalination in the Southwest United
States: A Thermoeconomic Analysis Utilizing the Sun to Desalt Water in High Irradiance Regions, Masters
Thesis]
A solar desalination model utilizing Southwest climate data and current technology was constructed,
generating cost data. Short and long-term viability of solar desalination in the Southwest was
determined, and used to assess what role solar desalination should play in the region Solar desalination
was found to be feasible in both the short and long-term. This result depends on subsidies, the cost of
money and competing energy costs; bearing that in mind, using current solar and desalination
technology in the Southwest is financially viable in the short-term. Long-term technology trends favor
improved solar and water conversion rates. Intuitively, solar desalination viability should increase with
time; even so, solar desalination feasibility compared to traditional methods does not address
desalination as a new, alternative water source. Furthermore, water in the Southwest is a fundamental
social force: politics and institutional arrangements necessary for wide scale implementation are
significant feasibility factors. In general, motivated and collaborative water resource managers,
politicians and other leaders acting together over the entire Southwest in advance of impending water
crises will increase solar desalination feasibility. Solar desalination cost still remains higher than
efficiently using renewable water sources, but through greater solar and water conversion efficiency,
strategic conveyance, and ecofriendly waste management, solar desalination has considerable potential
as a groundbreaking, sustainable source of water in the Southwest.
While the states could manage desalination projects, there are many benefits to using
the federal government. Overall, the federal government should be preferred.
Pappas 2011 Michael. “Unnatural Resource Law: Situation Desalination in Costal Resource and Water
Law Doctrines.” Tulane Law Review 86 (81): 81-134
As discussed above, the federal government holds sovereignty over saltwater unless it conveys such
sovereignty to the states. Thus, the federal government is in the position to clarify, via federal
legislation, whether it wishes to retain sovereign control and federally administer desalination projects
or to follow the example of the SLA and expressly grant the states proprietary control over saltwater for
desalination purposes. Ultimately, this choice between federal and state control comes down to a policy
decision, and while there is significant room for debate on the issue, this Article suggests that federal
control over desalination is a preferable approach. There are a number of possible benefits to federal
administration of desalination projects. First, a federalized desalination program would create a degree
of uniformity in desalination programs that, as demonstrated by the example of groundwater law, is
lacking in state-based water law regimes. Rather than allowing each state to dictate its own doctrines
and limitations regarding desalted water, a uniform, federalized approach could allow for more
efficiency in managing and distributing water resources, particularly if a desalination plant were to
distribute water to multiple states. Additionally, the experience of the federal government, particularly
the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, in executing large water projects may give
it an advantage over states in managing major desalination facilities. Further, a federal approach to
desalination could make it easier and less expensive to construct and maintain desalination plants
because the federal government could manage multiple plants, rather than individual states managing
one or few. Finally, a consolidated, federalized system of desalination would allow easier integration
with federal environmental laws and policies. For example, federal planning makes sense in such an
energy consumptive context as desalination, which could benefit from integration with greenhouse gas
emission initiatives, possible Clean Air Act controls, or National Environmental Policy Act review.
Further, federal planning of desalination projects could promote more integrated, ecosystem-based
coastal planning.
The federal government can administer the plan without encroaching on state rights.
There is no link to federalism.
Pappas 2011 Michael. “Unnatural Resource Law: Situation Desalination in Costal Resource and Water
Law Doctrines.” Tulane Law Review 86 (81): 81-134
On the whole, the advantage tips in favor of federal control over desalination, which could allow greater
efficiency and integrated planning as desalination advances. While federal control over desalination
processes defy the tradition of state control over water resources, the emergence of desalination itself is a
break from traditional water sources, and federal control of seawater desalination is sufficiently cabined
that it would not substantially encroach upon states' power over property rights in water. Further, because
desalinated water is provided via contract, federal control over desalination is unlikely to conflict with
states' existing statutory or common law water doctrines. Thus, while federalized control over
desalination may initially appear at odds with traditional state management of water resources, practically
speaking it would not greatly impact states' powers in regulating water rights.
Subsidies are important in promoting solar desalination. Studies prove they have
worked in the past.
Goosen et al. 2014 Mattheus F. A. Goosen, Hacene Mahmoudi, and Noreddine Ghaffour. “Today's and
Future Challenges in Applications of Renewable Energy Technologies for Desalination. Critical Reviews in
Environmental Science and Technology. 44:929-999.
In a related regulatory and policy area, Johnstone et al. (2010a; 2010b) examined the effect of
environmental policies on technological innovation in the specific case of renewable energy. The
analysis was conducted using patent data on a panel of 25 countries over the period 1978–2003. They
found that public policy plays a significant role in determining patent applications. Different types of
policy instruments were effective for different renewable energy sources. For example, broad-based
policies, such as tradable energy certificates, were more likely to induce innovation on technologies that
are close to competitive with fossil fuels. Johnstone et al. (2010a, 2010b) argued that more targeted
subsidies, such as feed-in tariffs, are needed to induce innovation on more costly energy technologies,
such as solar power. There was a high growth in ocean energy patenting recently. However, there
appeared to have been little growth in innovation levels in the area of geothermal and biomass/wasteto-energy since the 1970s. Empirical results generated by Johnstone et al. (2010a, 2010b) indicated that
public policy has had a very significant influence on the development of new technologies in the area of
renewable energy. The passage of the Kyoto Protocol, for example, had a positive and significant impact
on patent activity with respect to wind and solar power, as well as renewable energy patents overall. In
addition, public expenditures on research and development (R&D ) have had a positive and significant
effect on innovation with respect to wind and solar power in all of their models, as well as with
geothermal and ocean sources in some of their models.
Desalination needs U.S. investment- Private and state investment leads to a lack of
regulation and systematic decision-making
Sellers 14’, Jeffery. Department of Political Science at University of Southern California. Ph.D. Political Science
"Desalination Policy In a Multi-Level Regulatory State." Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas - UNAM. Instituto de
Investigaciones Jurídicas - UNAM, n.d. Web. 16 July 2014.
<http://www.usc.edu/dept/polsci/sellers/Publications/Assets/Sellers%20ch%2014.pdf>.
Desalination in the United States stands at the threshold of a breakthrough that is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the many
regions of the world where future water needs are likely to prove more extensive and more severe, such as India and China. The new reverse
osmosis plants being developed in California will mark the first large-scale community water provision by this means in the United States, and
have the potential to pioneer technical and organizational solutions that could provide the foundation for a global market and a real solution to
the looming world water crisis. In
the United States itself, desalination is forecast to provide no more than 10%
of water, but in certain regions will emerge as a major supplement to overcome droughts. Although cost
considerations still limit the applicability of emerging desalination technologies, public subsidies in states like California and Texas now
offer the prospect of profitability for firms contemplating investment in the new desalination
technologies. It seems likely that the further refinements that are likely to occur will finally bring desalination
across the threshold of cost-effectiveness, at least for certain types of communities with the right combination of seawater or
brackish water access and need. Indeed, local opposition on environmentalist grounds of the sort that arose in Huntington Beach has remained
only scattered. In
poorer communities like Long Beach (California) or Brownsville (Texas), there has been no sign of
regulatory challenges to plans for desalination. Even the critical issue of energy use for desalination
has rarely been framed as a greenhouse gas issue the way it has in Mexico or even in other areas of U.S. environmental
policy discussion. Instead, the energy problem has been framed mostly as a matter of added cost. Despite the
much more centralized context of policymaking toward desalination in Mexico and other developing countries, and the greater limits on
resources to invest in these technologies, substantial lessons can be drawn from this ongoing story. First, it
appears likely that even
before the cost of desalination has fallen to make it marketable by itself, it can be made widely costeffective with a combination of private investment and public subsidy. Despite rising costs for the necessary
energy, growing technical efficiencies are likely to continue to chip away at the costs and energy
requirements for desalination. More far reaching are the implications for the ways that any kind of
system for public or private provision of water through desalination should be organized. Private
investment may be unavoidable above all for desalination to be carried out in developing countries, as it is unclear how
else adequate investment can be generated to make the more efficient larger scale reverse osmosis
projects feasible. To make privatized arrangements accountable, however, protections through regulation at
multiple levels, including local review, are critical. The presence of mechanisms for local
accountability like those at work in Huntington Beach is a significant virtue of the U.S. regulatory system. As the case
of Huntington Beach also suggests, the localized, fragmented process that has helped provide for this accountability in the United States also
has major disadvantages. The
localized nature of most regulation means that little attention is given to equity
among places. Not only was this issue almost entirely missing from debates at Huntington Beach, but the opposition centered partly on
objections that the water might be distributed beyond the limits of this wealthy town itself. Moreover, it is only in the most
privileged communities like Huntington Beach that the U.S. regulatory process has given rise to challenges
that have forced more attention to environmental concerns. The problems of fragmented governance
extend beyond this question of social and environmental equity to issues of overall efficiency. The
implantation of desalination plants in the United States has largely followed the patterns of public
investment, gravitating toward the most subsidized state of California. But beyond this tendency, however, public
planning or more systematic collective decision-making has mostly been missing. The placement of
new plants has proceeded according to logics of private investment rather than policy guidance. It is
by no means clear that the current placement of plants corresponds to the public need for
desalination or even the demand of local consumers. Instead, investors like Poseidon appear to be
focusing on communities with greater ability to pay for the investments in plants and infrastructure for
desalination technologies. Finally, the case of Tampa and the debates in Huntington Beach suggest that private investment itself
may still be too unreliable by itself to furnish the basis for investment in desalination. State or federal
regulation may ultimately be necessary to establish a stable basis for market investments and
accountability in desalination projects within the United States. In these respects as well, current developments in the
area in the U.S. provide a cautionary tale for other countries.
New Desal methods are not only are more energy efficient but produce byproducts
which can be sold to help offset the cost of production more.
Gammon 14’ , 05/18/2014, By Katharine Gammon, Take Part, Staff Writer,
http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/05/18/better-desalination-save-california-drought
Katharine Gammon has written for Nature, Wired , Discover, and Popular Science. A new mom, she lives
in Santa Monica.
One drawback of desalination is the enormous amount of energy it takes to turn saltwater into freshwater. A potential solution has launched in
the dry heat of California’s Central Valley, where a pilot project is using solar energy to operate a new kind of desal system. In San Joaquin
Valley’s Panoche water and drainage district, where the experimental solar desalination project is based, the water is brackish—less salty than
the ocean but still too salty to be easily used for agriculture. Plants that can handle brackish water, such as pistachios and wheatgrass, dot the
landscape, watered by reclaimed runoff. Salts from the soils accumulate every time the water is reused, and eventually the water becomes too
salty to be usable. That’s where the new technology comes in. The salty stuff can now be turned into freshwater by a row of curved mirrors that
bend the sun’s rays, focusing it on long tubes containing mineral oil. The heat from the oil generates steam, which separates water from the
minerals and salts. Because heat can be held in a thermal storage unit, the system can also run at night or when the sun isn’t shining. Sound
simple? At its core, it is. “Basically, all we’re doing is boiling water,” explains Matt Stuber, cofounder of WaterFX, the
company that created the technology. “We’re distilling the water, capturing the heat in the steam so we can reuse
it in a very efficient manner.” With freshwater becoming more and more scarce desalination technologies are popping up
everywhere from Israel to Australia. Most use reverse osmosis, which pushes water through a series of membranes to squeeze progressively
more stuff out of the liquid. That takes a lot of energy, and only about half the water going in comes out clean. The remaining sludge is a supersalty mixture that often gets discharged back into the ocean, which can have deleterious effects. WaterFX’s technique, on the other hand,
makes 93 gallons of clean water for every 100 gallons of brackish water coming in. The remaining material
comes out as a solid cake of selenium and salts that can be used as filler in building projects or fertilizers,
or purified and sold as sea salt. Another problem with reverse osmosis is that it only works well near the ocean. “The water
chemistry in groundwater is very different from seawater, and the chemistry happens to be predominantly the things that are contribute to
technology failures—the worst things you ever want to deal with,” says Stuber. WaterFX’s system only uses
about a third of the
energy of a similarly sized reverse osmosis operation, which makes the price competitive, Stuber adds. In
California’s Central Valley, where roughly a third of American produce is grown each year, the prospects aren’t good. The region likely won’t
receive any water deliveries this year through the federal irrigation program, and the historical record indicates the potential for droughts that
last a century. Even if the current drought were to end, the salinization of the soil from decades of intensive irrigation is turning more of the
valley into marginal cropland—making Stuber’s technology a potential fix regardless of what the weather does. WaterFX plans to expand. The
pilot project can put out about 11,000 gallons of freshwater per day. If all goes well, the company will build a larger plant capable of producing
2 million gallons of treated water per day, which Stuber claims is at the lower end of the scale. The plant design is modular, so it only takes
about six months to build one.
Desalination provides a long term solution to water shortages
Griggs 14’, 7/16/14, Brandon Griggs, CNN, “How oceans can solve our freshwater crisis”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/26/tech/city-tomorrow-desalination/
CNN) -- It's been a cruel irony for ancient mariners and any thirsty person who has ever gazed upon a
sparkling blue ocean: Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. But imagine a coastal city of
the future, say in 2035. Along with basic infrastructure such as a port, roads, sewer lines and an
electrical grid, it's increasingly likely this city by the sea will contain a newer feature. A desalination
plant. Thanks to improved technology, turning ocean water into freshwater is becoming more
economically feasible. And a looming global water crisis may make it crucial to the planet's future. Can
surveillance make life easier? Should smart cities from scratch? Smart garbage: The future of stink
LAPD's data mining program has CIA roots Secrets behind this super-green building Giant wind turbines
vs a tiny bird The genius evolution of the park bench The United Nations predicts that by 2025, twothirds of the world's population will suffer water shortages, especially in the developing world and the
parched Middle East. Scientists say climate change is making the problem worse. Even in the United
States, demand for water in drought-ravaged California and the desert Southwest is outpacing supply.
Some environmentalists are wary of desalination, which consumes large amounts of energy, produces
greenhouse gases and kills vital marine organisms that are sucked into intake pipes. But proponents
believe the technology offers a long-term, sustainable solution to the globe's water shortages. One
entrepreneur has even built an experimental solar desalination plant in California's San Joaquin Valley.
"The key question with ocean desalination is how much are you willing to pay for it? The amount of
energy required to desalt ocean water can be daunting," said Bowles, adding that operating costs at the
Santa Barbara plant alone are estimated at $5 million per year. But advocates believe the price of
desalination will continue to decrease as the process improves. This will be true of the massive Carlsbad
plant, said Bob Yamada, water resources manager with the San Diego County Water Authority. "The cost
for this water will be about double what it costs us to import water into San Diego," Yamada said.
"However, over time we expect that the cost of desalinated water will equal, and be less than, the cost
of imported water. That may take 15 or 20 years, but we expect that to occur." "When and if the
drought does come, and you don't have enough snowpack in the Sierras -- after 12 dry years the Rockies
are seeing the impact of that today -- you've got (water) sources here within the boundaries of San
Diego County," he said. "We have a $190 billion economy in this region. It's dependent on water to
sustain that economy. So the question you need to consider, is 'What's the cost of not having enough
water?'"
Longterm, Sustainable Solution with Desalination
Griggs 14’, Brandon7/16/14 (CNN Journalist/Tech Producer)
“How Oceans Can Solve Our Freshwater Crisis” CNN Tech
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/26/tech/city-tomorrow-desalination/index.html?iref=allsearch
It's been a cruel irony for ancient mariners and any thirsty person who has ever gazed upon a sparkling
blue ocean: Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. But imagine a coastal city of the future,
say in 2035. Along with basic infrastructure such as a port, roads, sewer lines and an electrical grid, it's increasingly likely this city by the
sea will contain a newer feature. A desalination plant. Thanks to improved technology, turning ocean
water into freshwater is becoming more economically feasible. And a looming global water crisis may
make it crucial to the planet's future. The United Nations predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the
world's population will suffer water shortages, especially in the developing world and the parched
Middle East. Scientists say climate change is making the problem worse. Even in the United States,
demand for water in drought-ravaged California and the desert Southwest is outpacing supply. This is why a huge desalination plant
is under construction in Carlsbad, California, some 30 miles north of San Diego. When completed in 2016, it will be the largest such facility in
the Western Hemisphere and create 50 million gallons of freshwater a day. "Whenever a drought exacerbates freshwater supplies in California,
people tend to look toward the ocean for an answer," said Jennifer Bowles, executive director of the California-based Water Education
Foundation. "It is, after all, a seemingly inexhaustible supply." A growing trend. Most desalination technology follows one of two methods:
distillation through thermal energy or the use of membranes to filter salt from water. In the distillation process, saltwater is heated to produce
water vapor, which is then condensed and collected as freshwater. The other method employs reverse osmosis to pump seawater through
semi-permeable membranes -- paper-like filters with microscopic holes -- that trap the salt while allowing freshwater molecules to pass
through. The remaining salty water is then pumped back into the ocean. Officials at the Carlsbad plant say they can covert two gallons of
seawater into one gallon of freshwater by filtering out 99.9% of the salt. There are some 16,000 desalination plants on the planet, and their
numbers are rising.
The amount of desalted water produced around the world has more than tripled since
2000, according to the Center for Inland Desalination Systems at the University of Texas at El Paso.
"Desalination is growing in arid regions," said Tom Davis, director of the center. "We are making progress in the USA, but the
countries around the Persian Gulf are way ahead in the use of desalination, primarily because they have no
alternative supplies of freshwater." Israel, in an arid region with a coastline on the Mediterranean, meets half its freshwater needs through
desalination. Australia, Algeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also rely heavily on the ocean for their municipal water. In
the United States, desalination projects are concentrated in coastal states such as California, Florida and Texas. Some environmentalists are
wary of desalination, which consumes large amounts of energy, produces greenhouse gases and kills vital marine organisms that are sucked into
proponents believe the technology offers a long-term, sustainable solution to the globe's
water shortages. One entrepreneur has even built an experimental solar desalination plant in California's San Joaquin Valley. "When
other freshwater sources are depleted, desalination will be our best choice," said Davis, a UTEP
professor of engineering. California dreaming. Within the United States, the water crisis is especially severe in California, which has
intake pipes. But
been stricken by drought over the last three years. California's biggest source of freshwater is the snow that falls in the Sierras and other
mountains, where it slowly melts into creeks and makes its way into aquifers and reservoirs. But if the planet continues to grow warmer, snow
will increasingly fall as rain and will be harder to collect because it will swell creeks faster and create more flooding, said Bowles of the Water
Education Foundation. Seventeen desalination plants are being built or planned along the state's 840-mile coastline. City officials in Santa
Barbara recently voted to reactivate their desalination plant, which was built in 1991 but shut after heavy rains filled nearby reservoirs in the
early 1990s. Another $200 million facility has been proposed for the Bay Area, although construction won't likely begin for several years.
Solar Desalination is more cost effective in the long term- half of current cost is from
fossil fuel use
Patell in 10 (Parachi, April 8, “Solar-Powered Desalination”,
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/418369/solar-powered-desalination/)
KACST’s main goal is to reduce the cost of desalinating water. Half of the operating cost of a desalination
plant currently comes from energy use, and most current plants run on fossil fuels. Depending on the
price of fuel, producing a cubic meter now takes between 40 and 90 cents. Reducing cost isn’t the only
reason that people have dreamed of coupling renewable energy with desalination for decades, says Lisa
Henthorne, a director at the International Desalination Association. “Anything we can do to lower this
cost over time or reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with that power is a good thing,”
Henthorne says. “This is truly a demonstration in order to work out the bugs, to see if the technologies
can work well together.” While the new concentrated PV technology might generate affordable
electricity, solar power still costs more than fossil fuels in many parts of the world. But even with those
high costs, using it to power desalination makes sense, Henthorne says. “You’re not doing it because it’s
the cheaper thing to do right now, but it would be the cheapest thing down the road.”
Desalination is key to solving drought.
Davis, ’05 James. "Rep. Davis and St. Pete Expert Testify on Davis' Desalination Bill." Rep. Davis and St.
Pete Expert Testify on Davis' Desalination Bill. Project Vote Smart, 25 May 2005. Web. 15 July 2014.
<http://votesmart.org/public-statement/100944/rep-davis-and-st-pete-expert-testify-on-davis-desalinationbill#.U8W5sI1dVs5>.
H.R. 1071 would lend a helping hand to communities that are working to address their water problems. Specifically,
the bill would establish a grant program to support state or publicly owned facilities that are actively desalinating sea
or brackish water for municipal or industrial use. In addition, the bill authorizes $10 million to support research and
development of novel technology for cost-effective desalination. 97.5 percent of the water on Earth is seawater. Desalination
taps into that vital resource to generate a reliable drought-proof water supply that can be produced in an
environmentally sound manner. With every scorching summer, America rapidly depletes our fresh water
supply," said Congressman Jim Davis. "This problem is particularly pressing in Florida, which gains 900 new residents a day. It is time
for Congress to take steps to help water parched communities take advantage of innovative technology to
address water shortages and plan for the future." H.R. 1071 would provide payments of 62 cents per thousand
gallons of water that are produced and sold from qualified desalination facilities that go into operation after the bill
is enacted. Advances in technology have dramatically reduced the costs associated with desalination. The
Desalination Drought Protection Act will help communities invest in this technology, making the infrastructure
even less expensive in the future.
Economy
Desal Solve ag problems
Severe drought in California causes major harm to agricultural industry, desalinization
is the answer to irrigation problems.
Walsh 14’, Bryan Walsh, February 2014, Times Reporter, “Californias Farmers need more water. Is
desalinization the answer?” Time Magazine, http://time.com/7357/california-drought-debate-overdesalination/
President Obama will get to see California’s disastrous drought first hand today on a visit to the farming city of Fresno. It won’t be a pretty
sight. While
the conditions are arid across the state, with 91.6% of California in severe to exceptional
drought, agricultural areas are suffering the worst. The state’s Central Valley has long been the fruit
and vegetable basket of the country, growing nearly half of U.S. produce. But farms in the valley exist only thanks
to irrigation—the Central Valley alone takes up one-sixth of the irrigated land in the nation. And
thanks to the drought, there’s been little rain, and irrigation has been virtually cut off. California
officials have already said that they won’t be able to offer any water to farmers through the state’s
canals, and the expectation is that federal reservoirs won’t be of any help either, leaving farmers to
their own dwindling supplies of groundwater. The California Farm Water Coalition estimates that the
drought could translate to a loss of $11 billion in annual state revenue from agriculture. Obama will try to
offer some help in his visit to Fresno, announcing that the federal government will make available up to $100 million in aid for California
farmers who’ve lost livestock to the drought, as well as $15 million in aid to help farmers and ranchers implement water conservation policies.
while efficiency and conservation can go a long way to stretching dwindling supplies of water, the
reality is that California is an arid state that consumes water—80% of which goes to agriculture—as if it
were a wetland. If it wants to continue as the nation’s number one farming state—producing a record
$44.7 billion in agriculture receipts last year—it’s going to need more water. And if scientists are right
that the current drought is the worst California has faced in 500 years, and that the state could be on the brink of a
prolonged dry period accentuated by climate change, that water is going to have to come from new sources. As it
happens, California sits next to the biggest source of water in the world: the Pacific Ocean. The problem,
of course, is that seawater is far too salty to drink or use for irrigation. Desalination plants can get
But
Desalination is good, it has many economic and humanitarian benefits
Hower 14’, Mike Hower, Staff Writer, Sustainable Brands, “Startup's Desalination Tech Could Supply
the World with 97% More Water”
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/startups/mike_hower/startup%E2%80%99s_disruptive_desalination_technology_taps_70_worl
In the weeks leading up to the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) finals on June 4th, where the
runner-up will be decided via live online public vote, we will get to know our 11 semi-finalists. Today,
meet Okeanos. Access to fresh water is something many in the developed world take for granted, but
recent droughts in places such as California serve to remind us just how precious the natural resource is.
In California, the drought has become so severe that Governor Jerry Brown recently issued his second
emergency drought proclamation in three months, calling for residents to avoid washing their cars,
watering their lawns and even accepting glasses of water in restaurants if they are not thirsty. It must be
incredibly frustrating to Governor Brown that his state rests next to the Pacific Ocean — the largest
body of water on Earth — when all of that water cannot help alleviate the crisis. It is a global conundrum
— though 70 percent of the planet’s surface is covered with water, less than 1 percent is fresh water we
can actually use; two percent is locked up in glacier ice at the North and South Poles; and roughly 97
percent is saltwater. With the planet’s relatively miniscule supply of fresh water dwindling, it seems
logical to explore how to make abundant saltwater drinkable. In fact, we already know how to do this
through a process called desalination, where salt and other minerals are removed from saline water to
produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. Desalination already is widely used
on many seagoing ships and submarines. However, desalination currently is too energy- and capitalintensive to be practical in the mainstream. As it stands, the total water costs of desalination are
significantly greater than those associated with harvesting surface or underground fresh water sources.
Most modern desalination technologies use a handful of energy-greedy processes that are ultimately
dependent on the combustion of fossil fuels. That is, until now. Kentucky-based startup Okeanos has
developed a next-generation, ultra-efficient desalination technology to address our planet’s chronic and
increasingly alarming fresh water shortages. The company’s WaterChipTM platform represents a “solidstate” alternative to present-day approaches for creating fresh water from seawater and brackish
aquifer sources. The technology is able to desalinate millionths of a liter at a time using tiny
microstructures, which are then massively paralleled to produce useful water flows. Desalination in tiny
volumes allows the company to exploit a form of energy that cannot be generated in “macroscale.”
According to Okeanos, this form of energy is called an “electrochemical field gradient” and using it to do
the “work” of desalination is advantageous because this work is limited by electron- rather than iontransfer kinetics, making it far more efficient than those processes that function in the dimensions of
space you are used to thinking about — such as reverse osmosis, electrodialysis or heat/evaporationbased methods. “Okeanos is a rare example of a transformative and disruptive technology that has the
power to touch so many lives in so short a time frame,” said Tony Frudakis, Ph.D., CEO and chairman of
Okeanos. “Millions of people are dying each year around the world due to lack of access to safe drinking
waters. Desalination solves their problem, but is currently grid-tethered due to high energy demands,
and extending grid infrastructures to the underserved in the developing world is not practical. Our
desalination technology is so energy-efficient, it will be operational on alternative energy sources and as
such, directly relevant to solving this problem.” Water is one of those things we literally can’t live
without, and a lack of access to fresh water results in many of the world’s problems — political,
economic, environmental, and humanitarian. Through technologies such as Okeanos’, we may be able to
ensure that no one goes thirsty ever again.
Drought increase food prices
California’s drought will cause food prices to increase
Koba, 4/19 Mark. "Inside the California drought's effect on food prices."CNBC.com. CNBC, 19 Apr. 2014.
Web. 17 July 2014. <http://www.cnbc.com/id/101589388#.>.
American consumers are already feeling the pinch of rising food prices, and they will likely
experience more—courtesy of California's devastating drought "I would expect a 28 percent
increase for avocados and 34 percent for lettuce," said Timothy Richards, a professor of agribusiness at Arizona
State University who conducted research released this week on probable crop price increases stemming from the ongoing
drought. In a phone call with CNBC.com, Richards
added that the price increases would also include foods
including berries, broccoli, grapes, melons, tomatoes, peppers and packaged salads. The higher
rises should be felt in the next two to three months, he said. To come up with his figures, Richards used retailsales data from theNielsen Perishables Group, an industry analytics and consulting firm, to estimate how much the prices might
vary for the fruit and vegetable crops most likely to be affected by the drought .
Those most vulnerable are crops that
use the most water or those sensitive to reductions in irrigation, according to Richards. Industry
estimates range from a half-million to 1 million acres of agricultural land in California likely to
be affected by the current drought, said Richards. The state's governor, Jerry Brown, declared a state of emergency in
January due to the lack of water. The Golden State grows more than 200 different crops, some grown
nowhere else in the U.S. California produces almost all of the country's almonds, apricots, dates,
figs, kiwi fruit, nectarines, olives, pistachios, prunes, and walnuts. It leads in the production of
avocados, grapes, lemons, melons, peaches, plums, and strawberries. Only Florida produces more oranges.
Richards said he believes between 10 and 20 percent of the supply of certain crops from the state could
be lost.
Drought harm ag
Californian farmers hurting from drought
Welsh, 7/15 Jennifer. "California's Drought Is 'The Greatest Water Loss Ever Seen,' And The Effects Will
Be Severe." Business Insider. Business Insider , 15 July 2014. Web. 17 July 2014.
<http://www.businessinsider.com/californias-drought-cost-state-22-billion-2014-7>
California's current drought will cost the state $2.2 billion and 17,000 jobs, researchers announced at a press
conference July 15 in Washington, D.C. The findings are from a new report from the UC Davis Center for Watershed Science. California is
one of the U.S.'s biggest food producers — responsible for almost half the country's produce and nuts
and 25% of our milk and cream. Eighty percent of the world's almonds come from the state, and they
take an extraordinary amount of water to produce — 1.1 gallons per almond. But this food-rich state
is in its third year of drought. In May, 100% of the state was in drought and the food-producing Central Valley was in an
"exceptional drought."Because of this drought, the farmers are getting only one-third of the usual amount of
surface water. To keep their crops alive, farmers are switching from using water from rivers and
reservoirs to using underground water sources. The problem? This groundwater won't last forever,
especially as these droughts continue.While the drought itself is the third-worst ever seen, it's
responsible for the greatest water loss ever seen in the area, likely because farmers are using more
water than ever before. The above-ground water available for farms decreased by one-third because of decreased rain, missing snow,
and snow caps melting in the mountains.In total, California will lose including about 3% of the total agriculture
value of the state. That includes 17,000 jobs from, according to Jay Lund of UC Davis, "the sector of the population with the least ability
to roll with the punches," he said. "You will get your fruits, nuts, vegetables, and wine, but there are pockets of deprivation in the Central Valley
who are out of water and out of jobs
Severe drought in California causes major harm to agricultural industry, desalinization
is the answer to irrigation problems.
Walsh 14’, Bryan Walsh, February 2014, Times Reporter, “Californias Farmers need more water. Is
desalinization the answer?” Time Magazine, http://time.com/7357/california-drought-debate-overdesalination/
President Obama will get to see California’s disastrous drought first hand today on a visit to the farming city of Fresno. It won’t be a pretty
sight. While
the conditions are arid across the state, with 91.6% of California in severe to exceptional
drought, agricultural areas are suffering the worst. The state’s Central Valley has long been the fruit
and vegetable basket of the country, growing nearly half of U.S. produce. But farms in the valley exist only thanks
to irrigation—the Central Valley alone takes up one-sixth of the irrigated land in the nation. And
thanks to the drought, there’s been little rain, and irrigation has been virtually cut off. California
officials have already said that they won’t be able to offer any water to farmers through the state’s
canals, and the expectation is that federal reservoirs won’t be of any help either, leaving farmers to
their own dwindling supplies of groundwater. The California Farm Water Coalition estimates that the
drought could translate to a loss of $11 billion in annual state revenue from agriculture. Obama will try to
offer some help in his visit to Fresno, announcing that the federal government will make available up to $100 million in aid for California
farmers who’ve lost livestock to the drought, as well as $15 million in aid to help farmers and ranchers implement water conservation policies.
while efficiency and conservation can go a long way to stretching dwindling supplies of water, the
reality is that California is an arid state that consumes water—80% of which goes to agriculture—as if it
But
If it wants to continue as the nation’s number one farming state—producing a record
$44.7 billion in agriculture receipts last year—it’s going to need more water. And if scientists are right
that the current drought is the worst California has faced in 500 years, and that the state could be on the brink of a
prolonged dry period accentuated by climate change, that water is going to have to come from new sources. As it
happens, California sits next to the biggest source of water in the world: the Pacific Ocean. The problem,
of course, is that seawater is far too salty to drink or use for irrigation. Desalination plants can get
around that, using large amounts of electricity to force seawater through a membrane filter, which
removes the salt and other impurities, producing fresh water. There are already half a dozen
desalination plants in California, and around 300 in the U.S., but the technology has been held back by
cost and by environmental concerns. A $1 billion desalination plant capable of producing 50 million gallons of water a day is
were a wetland.
being built in the California town of Carlsbad, but San Diego will be buying water from the facility for about $2,000 per acre-foot, twice as much
as the city generally pays for imported water, while producing enough water for 112,000 households. Desalination can have a major carbon
footprint—the Carlsbad plant will use about 5,000 kilowatt hours of electricity to produce an acre-foot of water. And because desalination
plants in general needs about 2 gallons of seawater to produce a gallon of fresh water, there’s a lot of highly salty brine left over, which has to
be disposed of in the ocean, where it can pose a threat to marine life. Still,
while efficiency and conservation will always
be lower cost and lower impacts solutions to any water crisis, it’s hard not to see desalination playing
a bigger and bigger role in California’s efforts to deal with lingering drought. The process of
desalination is improving—the Carlsbad plant uses reverse osmosis technology, which is more energy
efficient and environmentally friendly than older methods —and it has the advantage of being
completely drought-proof. In a world where water is more valuable and more valued, desalination
can begin to make more sense. “Desalination needs to be judged fairly against the other alternatives,” says Avshalom Felber, the
CEO of IDE Technologies, an Israeli company that is helping to construct the Carlsbad plant. If desalination could be powered by
renewable energy, some of those environmental concerns would melt away. And that’s what a
startup called WaterFX is trying to do in the parched Central Valley. While farmers in the valley generally depend on irrigated
water brought in from hundreds of miles away, the land itself isn’t short of groundwater. But most of that water is far too salty for use in
farming.
WaterFX’s technology uses a solar thermal trough—curved mirrors that concentrate the power
of the sun—to evaporate salty water. The condensate that’s later collected and cooled becomes
freshwater, leaving salt and other impurities behind. “Solar stills are an old technology, but this has a new twist that
makes it very efficient and very cost effective,” says Aaron Mandell, the CEO of WaterFX. Because it uses solar power,
WaterFX’s desalination has virtually no carbon footprint, and the company says that it has a 93%
recovery rate, much higher than conventional desalination. But its biggest advantage might be its
modularity—Water FX’s solar stills can be set up locally, allowing farms to recycle their own runoff,
rather than having freshwater pumped in from afar. That saves energy and money. “You can create a closed
loop where the water is reused over and over again,” says Mandell. Right now the company is working on a pilot with the
Panoche Water District in the Central Valley, producing almost 500 gallons of clean water a day.
WaterFX has plans to expand to a commercial plant with a 2 million gallon capacity. Of course, the technology would have to
be scaled up massively to even make a dent in California’s irrigation needs, given that the state sends
billions and billions of gallons of water to farms each year. But if California really is on the edge of a
great dry, every drop will help.
Water is increasingly becoming a more rare resource; could potentially lead to
wars and conflits within nations.
Chellany in October 2013, Brahma, Geostrategist and author, “The coming water wars”, The Fresno
Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/04/18/3884370/californias-water-wars-reach-new.html
As competition for the precious resource grows, water will be a key to war and peace.In an
increasingly water-stressed world, shared water resources are becoming an instrument of power,
fostering competition within and between nations. The struggle for water is escalating political tensions
and exacerbating impacts on ecosystems. The Budapest World Water Summit, which opens Tuesday, is the latest initiative to
search for ways to mitigate the pressing challenges. Consider some sobering facts: Bottled water at the grocery store is already more expensive
than crude oil on the spot market. More people today own or use a mobile phone than have access to water-sanitation services. Unclean water
is the greatest killer on the globe, yet one-fifth of humankind still lacks easy access to potable water. More than half of the global population
Adequate access to natural
resources, historically, has been a key factor in peace and war. Water, however, is very different from
other natural resources. A person can live without love, but not without water. There are substitutes
for a number of resources, including oil, but none for water. Countries can import, even from distant lands, fossil
fuels, mineral ores and resources originating in the biosphere, such as fish and timber. However, they cannot import the
most vital of all resources, water — certainly not in a major or sustainable manner. Water is essentially local
and very expensive to ship across seas. Scarce water resources generate conflict. After all, the origin of the word
“rival” is tied to water competition. It comes from the Latin word, “rivalis,” or one who uses the same stream. The paradox
of water is that it is a life preserver, but it can also be a life destroyer when it becomes a carrier of deadly bacteria or takes the
currently lives under water stress — a figure projected to increase to two-thirds during the next decade.
form of tsunamis, flash floods, storms and hurricanes. Many of the greatest natural disasters of our time have been water-related. One recent
example is the Fukushima disaster in Japan, which triggered a triple nuclear meltdown. If climate change causes oceans to rise and the intensity
and frequency of storms and other extreme weather events to increase, potable water would come under increasing strain. Rapid economic
and demographic expansion has already turned potable water into a major issue across large parts of the world.
It is against this
background that water wars in a political and economic sense are already being waged between
competing states in several regions, including by building dams on international rivers or, if the country is located downstream, by
resorting to coercive diplomacy to prevent such construction. U.S. intelligence has warned that such water conflicts
could turn into real wars. According to a report reflecting the joint judgment of U.S. intelligence agencies, the use of water as a
weapon of war or a tool of terrorism could become more likely in the next decade in some regions. The InterAction Council, comprising more
than 30 former heads of state or government, meanwhile, has called for urgent action, saying some countries battling severe water shortages
risk failure. The State Department, for its part, has upgraded water to “a central U.S. foreign-policy concern.” Water stress is imposing
mounting socioeconomic costs. For example, commercial or state decisions in many countries on where to set up new manufacturing or energy
plants are increasingly being constrained by inadequate local water availability. The World Bank has estimated the economic cost of China’s
water problems at 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product. China, however, is not as yet under water stress — a term internationally defined
as the availability of less than 1,700 cubic meters of water per person per year. The already water-stressed economies, stretching from South
Korea and India to Egypt and Morocco, are paying a higher price for their water problems. Water is a renewable but finite resource. Nature’s
fixed water-replenishment capacity limits the world’s renewable freshwater resources to nearly 43,000 billion cubic meters per year. But the
human population has almost doubled since 1970 alone, while the global economy has grown even faster. Consumption growth has become
the single biggest driver of water stress. Rising incomes, for example, have promoted changing diets, especially a greater intake of meat, whose
production is notoriously water-intensive. For example, it’s about 10 times more water-intensive to produce beef than cereals.In this light,
Although no modern war has been fought
simply over water, this resource has been an underlying factor in several armed conflicts. With the era
of cheap, bountiful water having been replaced by increasing supply and quality constraints, the risks
of overt water wars are now increasing. Averting water wars demands rules-based cooperation, water
sharing and dispute-settlement mechanisms. However, there is still no international water law in
force, and most of the regional water agreements are toothless, lacking monitoring and enforcement
rules and provisions formally dividing water among users. Worse still, unilateralist appropriation of shared resources is
water is becoming the world’s next major security and economic challenge.
endemic in the parched world, especially where despots rule. The international community thus confronts a problem more pressing than peak
oil, economic slowdown and other oft-cited challenges. Addressing this core problem indeed holds the key to dealing with other challenges
because of water’s nexuses with energy shortages, stresses on food supply, population pressures, pollution, environmental degradation, global
epidemics, climate change and natural disasters.
Lack of water negatively impacting communities, agriculture, and endangered species
Levy, 13 Pema. "Water Wars In The U.S. South: Fighting To Keep The Flint River From Going Dry In
Georgia And To Save Apalachicola Bay."International Business Times. International Business Times, 9 Aug.
2013. Web. 17 July 2014. <http://www.ibtimes.com/water-wars-us-south-fighting-keep-flint-river-going-drygeorgia-save-apalachicola-bay-1374433>.
Increasingly, the city’s withdrawals
from the rivers and reservoirs of northern Georgia are depriving
downstream residents of their share of water for drinking, development and environmental health.
As an advocate for the Flint River, Atlanta’s neighbor, Rogers is working to restore the picturesque river’s flow before low water levels cause
irreversible economic and ecological damage throughout the state. The fight to save the Flint is a less-heralded part of a much larger, decadeslong tristate water war that pits Atlanta -- and its massive population growth -- against much of the rest of Georgia as well as sections of Alabama
and Florida. Atlanta’s metropolitan area encompasses more than 5 million people and 8,000 square miles, and, crucially, it lies near the
headwaters of several rivers and major streams. It also uses water from two federal reservoirs just north of the city that are intended to control
water flow all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. Critics
contend that Atlanta is increasingly monopolizing water
supplies that should be going to communities south and west of the city and that certain critical
ecosystems, like the Apalachicola region in the Florida Panhandle, are collapsing from a lack of
fresh water. One of several rivers that have lost a substantial amount of water in recent years, the
Flint -- No. 2 among “America’s Most Endangered Rivers 2013,” according to the conservation-minded American Rivers -- runs nearly 350
miles from just south of Atlanta to Lake Seminole on the border with Florida. As it wends its way south , the Flint is an economic boon
to the communities along its banks, wherefishing and paddle sports draw tourists who buoy local businesses and property values.
Downstream, the river is integral to industry and energy. And in southern Georgia, the Flint is the lifeblood of a
multibillion-dollar agriculture business with some 10,000 farms. All this activity means that by the
time the Flint reaches its mouth in the Lake Seminole reservoir, a lot of water has been swallowed
up by Georgian communities. This is a particular problem for Florida’s Apalachicola River, which
runs from Lake Seminole to the Gulf Coast and empties into Apalachicola Bay, where depleted water flows are threatening
one of the world’s most diverse estuaries and a community that has built a way of life around
oysters and vacationhomes. Indeed, much of the noise surrounding the tristate water war has been about the peril to Apalachicola.
Rogers said that although the “Atlanta lobby” -- as he calls business and government interests that support Atlanta’s water-consumption rights in
this debate -- “has successfully cast the argument as looking at it through a Florida-line lens,” that view is myopic. “I dispute that Atlanta’s
interest is necessarily Georgia’s interest,” he said. With drought threatening Atlanta’s water supply in 2008, two members of Georgia’s
congressional delegation revived a decades-old proposal to build reservoirs on the upper Flint, which would limit flows to communities
downstream. The threat to the river spurred the creation of the Flint Riverkeeper group that year, which brought together stakeholders from up
and down the Flint dedicated to protecting the river. Rogers serves as the group’s executive director and in the post of riverkeeper. The group is
lobbying the state’s Legislature and regulatory agencies to try and preserve the health of the river. If those efforts fail, it has a legal strategy
prepared to defend the river in court. “There
are some areas that are immediately downstream of Atlanta that
are really suffering,” Rogers said. “The ability to use the river by property owners downstream from Atlanta, I’m not exaggerating, it’s
just evaporated.” This year, Georgia has seen heavy rainfall after years of drought, but the river is still not
flowing strong. Drought years, increasingly frequent, sometimes reduce portions of the river to dry
dirt. Businesses and property values, as well as the ability to generate energy, have taken a hit in
upstream communities. “I have landowners -- people on my board, people in our general membership -- that have been fishing and
paddling in front of their family property, some of these guys are 80 years old, 82, 83 years old, literally all their life. And that’s been taken away
from them. That’s the effect. Where there once was a river even during droughts, there is now not a river,” Rogers said. Farther south, rainwater
and more tributaries help offset some of the effects of Atlanta’s water consumption. But,
in southwestern Georgia, industrial
agriculture draws heavily from the river to irrigate corn, cotton and peanut crops, depleting the
river again downstream. To protect the river, the group is urging the state Legislature to revise the Flint River Drought Protection
Act, which allows the state to pay farmers in southern Georgia not to irrigate their land during drought years, so that the act protects the whole
river. The group hopes that the state Environmental Protection Division, run by Director Judson H. Turner, will be an ally in pushing for at least
incremental protections for the entire river. In a set of written responses to questions, EDP’s communications office said it “does not make sense”
to expand the act to include the whole river, but that studies commissioned by a revised version of the law, if it passes, “will point us toward and
support some set of whole basin approaches in the next 3-5 years.” If the Flint Riverkeeper’s legislative and regulatory efforts to save the river
fall apart, the group is prepared to go to court. In a letter to EPD’s Turner in February, the group laid out two legal cases it will use as a
last resort. The first case would challenge the state’s allotment of the Flint’s water under state law, charging that the large withdrawals for Atlanta
and big agriculture violate the right of all Georgians along the river to make use of the water. Current
water allocation has
“created winners and losers in the regulatory system: It’s disadvantaged some while it’s
advantaged others,” Rogers said. “It’s a pretty straightforward legal argument.” Rogers also discussed the issue in terms of the
property rights of the landowners along the river. “It’s taken their property rights away,” he said. “Of course, in a red state, that’s a red flag, you
know. People get really ticked off when somebody takes their property rights away.” The second case prepared by the group would be pursued
by allowing overuse of the river to the
point that it is killing the endangered species that live in the Flint. Rogers conceded that this second case,
in federal court: It would charge the state with violating the Endangered Species Act
if brought to court, would turn public sentiment against the group because it puts “man against critter.” But the board of Flint Riverkeeper isn’t
afraid of being called “liberals,” he said, characterizing the board members politically as akin to Rush Limbaugh in their conservative
views “They’re about getting water back in the river and using whatever tool it takes.”
Water conflict impacting ranches
NPR. 13 "Water Wars: Who Controls The Flow?." NPR. NPR, 15 June 2013. Web. 17 July 2014.
<http://www.npr.org/2013/06/15/192034094/rivers-run-through-controversies-over-who-owns-thewater>.
Prior appropriation has sparked controversy in Oregon. This week ,
water regulators ordered ranchers near the
headwaters of the Klamath River in southern Oregon to shut down their irrigation pumps. The
state says it was necessary to protect treaty rights of Indian tribes who live downstream. But the
water shut-off jeopardizes a multimillion-dollar cattle ranching industry, reports Amelia Templeton from
Oregon Public Broadcasting. The Sycan River is one of dozens of tributaries that join to form a massive lake
in Southern Oregon's Klamath Basin, which in turn feeds the Klamath River. Tributaries like the Sycan
provide water for salmon and suckerfish all along this river system. The Sycan is also where rancher Becky Hyde gets
her water. "We irrigate out of the Sycan River, and water makes things magical wherever you end up putting it," she says.
Hyde's ranch is a square of bright green that stands out in the dry juniper and sagebrush. She has a water right — a
permit from the state to take water from the river every summer for her 500-acre ranch. Hyde uses
the water to grow grass to feed beef cattle. Until last week, a giant pivoting sprinkler was irrigating a pasture
where she's raising about 80 young cows. Now, Hyde is trying to figure out somewhere else to move the
cattle. She's one of many ranchers along the upper tributaries of the Klamath River whom the state
ordered to stop irrigating. The move came after the Klamath Indian Tribes, just downstream, said
they needed more water left in tributaries to protect their fishery. Hyde is upset, but she also respects the
tribes' right to the water. "This is a tragedy for this community and for our family personally," she says. "But it is also a wake-up
call to say people besides agriculture have a water right."
Californian drought impacting water usage, food prices, economic costs, and jobs
Firozi, 7/16 Paulina. "How the worst drought in decades impacts Californians." USA Today. USA Today,
16 July 2014. Web. 17 July 2014. <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/07/16/californiadrought-extreme-effects/12727163/>.
As California grapples with its worst drought level in decades, residents feel its impact in areas ranging from
the economy to daily water usage. The California State Water Resources Control Board approved a $500-a-day fine for watering down
hard surfaces outdoors after a recent report that shows state water usage increased in the past year. The regulations will go into affect Aug. 1.
Another report, by the University of California-Davis, suggests the drought will continue into 2015, even if an El Niño should come through.
People in the Golden State have been asked to stop using water to wash down their driveways, sidewalks and landscapes. Using a hose to wash
cars has also been prohibited. Companies such as Nestle continue to draw water from California springs despite the drought. An ongoing L.A.
program is giving people $3 a square foot to replace their green lawns with drought-resistant turf. When it started in 2009, the program originally
gave only $1, but the city increased the price two months ago. Martin Adams, deputy senior assistant general manager of water system at the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power, said he's seen increased participation, and nearly 9 million square feet of lawn has been turned in. He
said Los Angeles has had strict regulations on water conservation for five years, including restricting water
lawns to three times a week for 8 minutes and limiting the water served in restaurants. In the last six months, Adams
said the department has tried to reinforce that messaging to address excess water use outdoors. The LADWP also has a unit that
patrols neighborhoods for excess water use, such as sprinklers left on at certain times. The unit gives out a couple warnings before
fines. UC-Davis' report suggests consumer prices will stay unaffected by the drought. If prices increase, the report stipulates, the culprit will be
market demand. Paul Wegner, president of the California Farmers Bureau Federation, said he doesn't quite buy that theory.
Come fall, he says,
when California is one of the only states producing seasonal crops such as melons, corn and peppers, prices
should increase and affect what kinds of produce people buy at grocery stores. "If they go into the store and
see the prices have risen, they're going to choose not to buy it," Wegner added. Chris Christopher, director of consumer
economics at IHS, said there has been an increase in consumer food prices in February and that the drought in California is just one part of that
equation. Nationally, Christopher says that lower income households have seen the largest impact on their wallets generally speaking when it
comes to food buying."The higher income households don't spend as much on food at home," he said. The
statewide economic cost of
the 2014 drought is expected to total around $2.2 billion, the UC-Davis report showed. The report finds direct costs of
$810 million from crop revenue loss, $203 million from the loss of livestock and dairy revenue and $454
million from the additional costs to pump groundwater to keep production going. 428,000 acres of irrigated
cropland has gone out of production, the report finds, mostly in California's Central Valley, Central Coast and in Southern California.
And with that, 17,100 part-time jobs have been lost, which is nearly 4% of farm unemployment.
Solar is Cheaper Than Regular Desal
Solar is More Cost Effective Alternative
Kevin Fagan 3/18/14 (Reporter for San Francisco Chronicle)
“Calfirnoia Drought: Soalr Desalination Plant Shows Promise” SF Gate – San Francisco Chronicle
Quietly whirring away in a dusty field in the Central Valley is a shiny solar energy machine that may someday solve many of California's
water problems. It's called
the WaterFX solar thermal desalination plant, and it has been turning salty,
contaminated irrigation runoff into ultra-pure liquid for nearly a year for the Panoche Water and Drainage District.
It's the only solar-driven desalination plant of its kind in the country. Right now its efforts produce just 14,000 gallons
a day. But
within a year, WaterFX intends to begin expanding that one small startup plant into a sprawling
collection of 36 machines that together can pump out 2 million gallons of purified water daily. Within about
five years, WaterFX company co-founder Aaron Mandell hopes to be processing 10 times that amount throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
And
here's the part that gets the farmers who buy (t)his water most excited: (T)his solar desalination plant
produces water that costs about a quarter of what more conventionally desalinated water costs: $450
an acre-foot versus $2,000 an acre-foot. An acre-foot is equivalent to an acre covered by water 1 foot
deep, enough to supply two families of four for a year. That brings Mandell's water cost close to what farmers are paying,
in wet years, for water from the Panoche and other valley districts - about $300 an acre-foot.
And that makes it a more
economically attractive option than any of the 17 conventional desalination plants planned
throughout California. If Mandell can pull it off, the tiny farming town where he is starting his enterprise could be known as ground zero
for one of the most revolutionary water innovations in the state's history. "Eventually, if this all goes where I think it can, California could wind
up with so much water it's able to export it instead of having to deal with shortages," Mandell said, standing alongside the 525-foot-long solar
reflector that is the heart of his machine.
"What we are doing here is sustainable, scalable and affordable."
manager of the Panoche district, and many of the 60 farmers that constitute his customer base say the
sooner WaterFX expands, the better. Panoche expects to deliver about 45,000 acre-feet of water this year to its growers. That
total is half of what the growers get in wetter years - but
because drought and environmentally driven water mandates
are not unique to 2014, the district's farmers are already ahead of the curve on water preservation techniques. Most use drip irrigation
instead of water-intensive sprinklers and are hooked up to an unusual drainage system that captures used irrigation water and directs it into
fields of wheatgrass, a salt-tolerant crop sold for cattle feed. But that drainage system is little more than a creative way to get rid of irrigation
water that's too salty for most uses once it leaches through farm soil. Finding a way to make it suitable for people to drink and use on the crops
they eat would be a breakthrough, Falaschi said.
as we think he can,
"It appears this solar system will be cost-effective, and if Aaron can perform
it can make a huge difference - be a great supplement at the very least," he said. "We're talking
about basically unusable drainage water that is in everybody's interest to mine. "This solar plant could be a very important part of where we
want to be in terms of being self-sufficient in the valley."
Solar Desalination is useful for farmers, and cheaper than normal desalination
Daniel, Alice, 2014, Staff Writer for KQED Science, “Drought Tech: How Solar Desalination Could Help
Parched Farms,” http://blogs.kqed.org/science/2014/05/09/drought-tech-how-solar-desalination-couldhelp-parched-farms/
“Over the course of the last 15 years, we must have tried out 20-to-25 different treatment processes
and you know, you end up spending a lot of time and a lot of hours on something that just doesn’t
work,” he says. But now there’s one idea that’s starting to look a little brighter. Falaschi points to a row
of curved mirrors that stretch out near a field of wheatgrass. “The equipment that we’re looking at here
— with the exception of the solar panels — is pretty much shelf-item stuff,” he says. “I mean, you know,
you’re looking at a boiler, and then you have a plumbing system that actually runs through.” It’s an
experimental solar desalination plant, funded by the district with a million-dollar state grant. The project
looks a bit like a spaceship on this vast expanse of land. “If we can treat this water, we’ve managed our
drainage problem, but we’ve also created supplemental water,” says Falaschi. “That’s why we’re
excited.” “It’s actually a lot like back when you were a kid and you would play with a magnifying glass on
the sidewalk to burn things,” explains Aaron Mandell, the founder of WaterFX, which designed the solar
plant. “We don’t actually burn things but it’s the same concept; you concentrate solar energy and you
can generate very high temperatures.” An absorption pump that Mandell and his team designed
reduces by half the energy it takes to evaporate water. The project also uses a reflective mirror-like film
to focus the sun on long tubes containing mineral oil. The heat from the oil is piped into evaporators to
generate steam. “So the heat that we generate from the sun basically separates water and salt,” he
says. The process produces potable water which the company can then sell, along with some of the
minerals distilled out, like selenium and even boron. The project is timely with California three years into
a drought, but Mandell says, that wasn’t his motivation. “Even if the drought were to end right now, we
would still need desalination as a more reliable source of water going forward,” he says. “Because the
real problem is that the water supply in California and many of the Western states is actually no longer
reliable.” WaterFX will soon build a much larger plant, this one funded by investors. It’s slated to treat
about 2 million gallons a day. Mandell says it will cost about $450 to produce an acre-foot of water.
That’s more than farmers here pay for surface water but about half the total operating costs of a
conventional desalination plant that uses reverse osmosis. Dennis Falaschi says his water district will
provide the 75-acre site and probably be the main customer. Farmers this year received no water from
the federal Central Valley Project, so the onus, he says, is on Water FX. “You showed us the baby steps
you can perform. Now go out and do the big steps,” says Falaschi. “And if you perform? That’s why the
world goes around. I get water, you get money.”
States Fight
Water War beings to repeat itself in California and Arizona. Water is in an extreme
shortage and is nowhere near to being solved, if this continues Arizona will be
overcome by California and lose a major water source.
Hiltzik 14’,Michael Hiltzik , June 2014 , Reporter at the LA Times, “Water war bubbling up between California
and Arizona”, The Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20140620column.html#page=1
Once upon a time, California and Arizona went to war over water. The year was 1934, and Arizona was
convinced that the construction of Parker Dam on the lower Colorado River was merely a plot to
enable California to steal its water rights. Its governor, Benjamin Moeur, dispatched a squad of
National Guardsmen up the river to secure the eastern bank from the decks of the ferryboat Julia B. — derisively
dubbed "Arizona's navy" by a Times war correspondent assigned to cover the skirmish. After the federal
government imposed a truce, the guardsmen returned home as "conquering heroes." The next water
war between California and Arizona won't be such an amusing little affair. And it's coming soon. The
issue still is the Colorado River. Overconsumption and climate change have placed the river in longterm decline. It's never provided the bounty that was expected in 1922, when the initial allocations among the seven states of the
Colorado River basin were penciled out as part of the landmark Colorado River Compact, which enabled Hoover Dam to be built, and the
shortfall is growing. The signs of decline are impossible to miss. One is the wide white bathtub ring around Lake Mead, the
reservoir behind Hoover Dam, showing the difference between its maximum level and today's. Lake Mead is currently at 40% of capacity,
according to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam. At 1084.63 feet on Wednesday, it's a couple of
feet above its lowest water level since it began filling in 1935. But the rules governing appropriations from the river are unforgiving and don't
provide for much shared sacrifice among the states, or among farmers and city dwellers. The developing crisis can't be caricatured as farmers
versus fish, as it is by Central Valley growers irked at environmental diversions of water into the region's streams. It can't be addressed by
building more dams, because reservoirs can't be filled with water that doesn't come. And it can't be addressed by technological solutions such
as desalination, which can provide only marginal supplies of fresh water, and then only at enormous expense.
Nor can a few wet
years alleviate the need for long-term solutions. "We had a solid year this year, which takes a bit of the panic out," says
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million residents and gets about
half of its water supply from the Colorado. But because "demand
outstrips supply, we expect a long-term decline. And
possibly because the crisis has been developing slowly, we're nowhere near a solution." What will be
necessary is a fundamental reconsideration of 100 years of water-appropriation practices and patterns. Farmers, whose claims on Colorado
river water are senior to all others, may have to give up, or sell off, some of their rights. Strict legal provisions that would turn whole swaths of
the inhabited Southwest back into desert to slake the thirst of California cities will have to be reconsidered. "Nineteenth century water law is
meeting 20th century infrastructure and 21st century climate change," says Bradley Udall, a senior fellow at the University of Colorado Law
If the Western drought continues, Arizona would have to bear
almost the entire brunt of water shortages before California gives up a drop of its appropriation from
the river. Few observers of Western water affairs believe that's politically practical, but few have offered practical alternatives. A quick
School, "and it leads to a nonsensical outcome."
history lesson: The Colorado Compact, reached by six of the seven basin states in 1922 under then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, aimed
to replace the tangle of state water allocation laws with a single legal regime in order to get the dam built. (Arizona finally signed the deal in
1944.) But the compact was based on a fraud — an estimate of river flows that Hoover and the states' negotiators almost certainly knew was
wildly optimistic. Many times, the compact has been revised and supplemented to meet changing conditions. In 1968, Congress authorized
construction of the Central Arizona Project, a massive aqueduct serving Phoenix and Tucson, by passing the Colorado River Basin Project Act.
Tensions grow between states for access to water sources during times of drought.
Gleick 13’, Peter H. Gleick, March 2013,President of Pacific Institute, “Water Wars? Here in the US”,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/water-wars-here-in-the-us_b_2789784.html
OK, put away your guns. We're not talking shooting wars, at least not yet, at least not in the U.S. We're talking politicians shooting off their
mouths, political wars, and court battles. But water is serious business. But it is a different story around the world, where there is a
long and sad history of violent conflict over water. At the Pacific Institute we maintain the Water Conflict Chronology, documenting examples
As others have pointed out, water can be -- and often is -- a source of cooperation rather than
conflict. But conflicts over water are real. And as populations and economies grow, and as we
increasingly reach "peak water" limits to local water resources, I believe that the risks of conflicts will
increase, even here in the United States, and not just in the water-scarce arid west. Recently, tensions
over water bubbled up in an unlikely spot: the Georgia-Tennessee border. There has been a bit of a border
dispute in this region for a long time. Nearly two hundred years actually. Until recently, no one paid much attention to it, and it
going back literally 5,000 years.
hasn't been an issue with any particular salience or urgency. There was a flurry of attention around the issue during a severe drought in 2008,
and then it died down again. Until now. What is the issue? If
the border can be redrawn (or "corrected" as Georgia puts it),
it would give them access to the northernmost bank of the Tennessee River, and a new right to water
resources that Georgia would now, desperately, like to tap to satisfy growing demands in the Atlanta
region. In mid-February, the Georgia House of Representatives voted 171-2 to adopt a resolution seeking to
reopen the controversy and regain access to the Tennessee River. At the moment, Tennessee
lawmakers are more amused than alarmed, but they also say they will act to protect their water from "Peach
State poachers." An editorial in the Chattanooga Times Free-Press said, "We hope Atlanta can find an appropriate solution. But the river in our backyard is
not it." And recently elected Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam pledged in his campaign that he would "protect our
precious resources and will fight any attempt to ... siphon off our water." This isn't the only water
dispute involving Georgia. For decades, the state has been in a legal battle with Alabama and Florida
over the shared Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system (I can say that fast, out loud, but it took practice).
That dispute has been before the U.S. Supreme Court for years. And this isn't the only state-to-state
water dispute in the U.S. to flare up in recent months. [For a hint of where to look for water tensions, take a look at Figure
1: the U.S. Drought Monitor.] The Republican River flows through the states of Colorado, Nebraska, and
Kansas, but sharing the river has been a recurring political dispute for decades. In the latest chapter, the Special
Master overseeing an agreement forged in 1943 recently rejected a request by Kansas to punish Nebraska for using too much water. Kansas
asked for $80 million from Nebraska for violations of the Republican River Compact of 1943. The Special Master agreed that Nebraska farmers
violated the compact in 2005 and 2006 and took 71,000 acre-feet of water too much, but only proposed awarding a payment of only $5 million.
He also denied a Kansas request to shut off water for some Nebraska farmers along the river. And don't get me started on the Colorado River,
shared by seven U.S. states and Mexico, or the Great Lakes, shared by eight states and Canada. The fact that these disputes in the U.S. head to
court rather than the gun rack is good news. Similar disputes in India, China, and parts of Africa over access and allocation of water too often
Water wars don't have to be inevitable, but we're going to have to work
harder at defusing tensions around the fair and equitable allocation of our limited water.
end in violence, injuries, and deaths.
Western states go to war over limited water sources, due to major drought in the
Western Region.
B. Pierson 13’, August 2013, Natural News Reporter, “Devistating long-term drought haunts US
Southwest: Water wars underway between Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming”, Natural News,
http://www.naturalnews.com/041618_drought_water_wars_texas.html#
Climate change is taking a toll on grasslands across the West. Almost 87% of the region is in a drought.
Nevada is removing wild horses and stocks of cattle from federal rangelands, Wyoming is seeding clouds as part of a long-term "weather modification program,"
Dust Bowl conditions have been reported in Colorado's southeastern plains, and the entire western U.S. has been beset more frequently by devastating wildfires
across an increasingly flammable landscape. New Mexico is experiencing the worst of the dry conditions though. The entirety of New Mexico is
officially in a drought, nearly 75 percent of which is categorized as extreme or exceptional. Statewide, reservoirs are 83% lower than normal,
the lowest figures in the West. In some towns, residents subsist on water brought in on vehicles, while others are drilling deep wells with costs
upwards of $100,000. Wildlife managers desperately carry water to elk herds in the mountains and blame the drought for the unusually high
number of deer and antelope killed on New Mexico's highways, postulating that the animals are taking greater risks to find water. Countless
trees in Albuquerque have died from lack of watering under city water restrictions. In New Mexico's agricultural belt, low yields and crop
failures have become a regular occurrence. Populations of livestock in many areas are 80% less than they used to be and now ranchers losing
their livelihood face having to buy hay at inflated prices, moving away or selling their herds. The last three years have gone on record as the
driest and warmest since at least 1895, when records were first kept in New Mexico. Chuck Jones, a senior meteorologist with the National
Weather Service in Albuquerque, said even the state's recent above-average monsoon rains "won't make a dent" in the drought; deficits will
require several years of normal rainfall to erase, should normal rain ever arrive.
With the supply of water in the West
dropping, states are getting ready to fight over who the limited resources should go to. The state of
Texas filed a lawsuit against New Mexico, arguing that their groundwater pumping has reduced Texas'
share of the Rio Grande. The Supreme Court has already rejected a case that Texas brought up against
Oklahoma regarding the water supply from the Red River basin. The Rio Grande has gotten so low that in New Mexico
it is often referred to as the "Rio Sand." Experts are unsure whether the persistent drought conditions are part of a natural weather cycle or is
caused by climate change. Jones, who is also a member of the governor's drought task force, is cautious about identifying the three years of
extreme drought as representative of an emerging climate pattern in New Mexico. Many farmers, ranchers and land managers have developed
long-term plans that deal with the drought conditions as a permanent obstacle. John Clayshulte, a third generation rancher and farmer near Las
Cruces, removed all his cattle from his federal grazing allotment. "There's just not any sense putting cows on there. There's not enough for
them to eat," he said. "It's all changed. This used to be shortgrass prairies. We've ruined it and it's never going to come back." The 140,000
square mile Chihuahuan Desert was once covered with Black Grama grass. Overgrazing and persistent drought have reduced the grass to small,
sparsely place, stiff tufts that offer little forage for wildlife or livestock. In the absence of grazing grass, hungry livestock have taken to
consuming seed pods of hardy mesquite plants. "They are not terribly nutritious," said Kris Havstad, a range expert with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. "It's like being the last one at the buffet and the only thing left is snow peas." With only unwholesome shrubs available, the land is
losing its ability to feed cattle. There is so little grass remaining that a square mile can only feed three to five cows in current conditions. The
Bureau of Land Management oversees much of the region which includes one of the largest public grazing areas in the country. The agency has
asked ranchers to remove their cattle from a number of pastures for a year or two to allow the land to rest. Many ranchers have taken the
initiative to remove their livestock voluntarily. Not all the damage is attributable to grazing cattle and it will take more than just their simple
removal to heal the environment. "In the old days, we used to think if we built a fence around it, it will be OK," said Brandon Bestelmeyer, who
conducts research on the Jornada for the Department of Agriculture. "That thinking didn't take into account climate change. These
kind of
state changes are catastrophic changes. They can be irreversible." The Chihuahuan Desert is set to expand as more
vegetation dies, accelerating the rate of desertification. Bestelmeyer, a landscape ecologist, describes what's at stake: "If we lose the
grasslands, grazing is over, and the generations of people who depend on grazing will lose their livelihoods." Wildlife species will either migrate
or die off, leading to a decline in biodiversity. The empty landscape will further lose its ability to transport water to recharge aquifers, making
conditions even more arid. Finally, Bestelmeyer said that without vegetation to hold soils in place, dust and sand will be on the move and
encroach onto roads, crops, homes and businesses. "You don't want a Sahara here," Bestelmeyer said.
Climate Change
No impact from desal on enviroment
Solar Desalination is zero-emmision
Walker 13’, How Solar Desalination Can Help the Environment, Kris Walker in 2013,
http://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=344
Solar desalination is primarily a zero-carbon emission process and the advancements in solar technology enables
overcoming previously existing problems like dust and high temperatures, which affected the efficiency of
previously used solar panels. In 2011, the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) tested cutting-edge solar
technologies for desalinating water in the desert. The trial conducted at 30 sites in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi was
said to be the largest across the globe. Each unit set at the solar desalination facilities in Sweihan and Hameem
could generate 35 kW/h of energy on average and thus produce 1050 kW/h of energy on the whole. This shows
that the negative impact of desalination process on the environment as well as the cost of producing water can
be reduced using the solar desalination technology. In another research carried out by Jijakli et al from the
Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in 2011, three desalination based alternatives such as a solar still, a
photo-voltaic (PV) powered reverse osmosis (RO) unit and water delivered from a central RO plant using truck
were compared and assesed for their environmental footprint. It was found that the PV-RO unit had the lowest
impact on environment. This study helps in promoting the low-carbon desalination technologies.
Desalination plants that use Solar Radiation uses half the energy and costs half as
much as fossil fueled plants.
Madeline Clark, May 2014, Mastery of Global Policy student at UT Austin, “Shifting the cost of dealination to
renewables: how the private sector is getting involved in US and India”,Major Eonomies and Climate change
research group, http://blogs.utexas.edu/mecc/2014/05/10/shifting-the-cost-of-desalination-to-renewables-howthe-private-sector-is-getting-involved-in-the-us-and-india/
The world’s largest concentrated solar plant (CSP) opened earlier this year in California, and the United
States is not alone in its
quest to become a major supplier of solar power, and to shift the demand for power necessary to
desalinate onto renewables.In California, where drought has reached an all-time record, companies are currently
investing in using renewables to treat brackish wastewater and groundwater. In the San Joaquin Valley, for
instance, entrepreneurs at WaterFX have constructed an experimental solar-powered desalination plant
that uses the power of solar radiation to generate high enough temperatures to separate salt from
water recycled from irrigation runoff. This plant, which uses about half the energy necessary to
desalinate water via reverse osmosis at half the cost, could inspire a revolution in a water hungry
state. Reduction in energy use, particularly from thermally-generated electricity, could also do a lot to abate GHG emission production Other
regions stand to benefit from using renewables like solar power in water production. In the water-scarce MENA, there are already investments
in solar powered desalination plants scheduled to come online. Solar-powered groundwater pumps and irrigation systems are also being
evaluated as a long-term option to sustainably manage growing energy demands from agriculture in India. Early this year, there were talks in
India to
replace 26 million diesel-powered groundwater pumps with solar powered ones, resulting in a
projected $6 billion USD a year savings in power and diesel subsidies. Redirected electricity production from solar
power will also take pressure off of India’s fragile and unpredictable energy grid. Solar powered pumps will also result in a lot of co-benefits for
local stakeholders and small scale farmers. To prevent excessive water use, solar powered pumps are often subsidized in an agreement to use
drip rather than flood irrigation. Anything that can lead emerging economies like India to move toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies is a step
in the right direction. India expended more than 40 billion dollars in oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity subsidies and with the elections this
year, a reversal through political channels is not likely. This is why the private sector is stepping in- with India listed as one of the top ten most
attractive places for investment in solar power, international and Indian firms BlackRock Inc (BLK), SunEdison Inc. (SUNE), Jain Irrigation
Systems Ltd. (JI), Claro Energy Pvt., and Tata Group’s solar unit are looking to start building. These changes are slated to occur in the next five
years with 100 billion rupees of investment from players like those listed above according to government estimates, and so it will be crucial to
keep momentum going.
Solar Desalination Will Save the Day
Kevin Fagan 3/18/14 (Reporter for San Francisco Chronicle)
“Calfirnoia Drought: Soalr Desalination Plant Shows Promise” SF Gate – San Francisco Chronicle
Panoche, like many districts in the Central Valley - the nation's most productive agricultural zone - has traditionally bought most
of its water from the federally run Central Valley Project. But in this drought year, farmers are likely to get
zero allocation from the project. If that happens, Panoche will have to draw from leftover supply, the
expensive spot water market and wells. All of that is pricier than usual, with the spot market alone charging as much as $3,500
an acre-foot.
Studies on plants in Cyprus show the environmental impact of desalination to be
minimal
Tsiourtis 01’,
Nicos, 2001, Director of NT Water Pros, “Desalination and the environment”
http://ac.els-cdn.com.proxy.library.umkc.edu/S0011916401850013/1-s2.0-S0011916401850013main.pdf?_tid=b784d194-0d2e-11e4-a59800000aacb35e&acdnat=1405545683_06a7911d49e1596cd32a7cd39c5b0365
The findings of the mathematical model and the impact of the brine on the marine environment could
be checked with the execution of a monitoring program during the operation of the plant. For the
Dhekelia plant in Cyprus, the monitoring results carried out every 6 months for 4 years have shown that
the situation around the outfall point is steady and that the effect on benthos life has been minimal and
confined to an area within a radius of 200 m.
Improving Energy Efficiency
WEF (Water Education Foundation) 6/10/14
“Desalination” Water Education Foundation http://www.watereducation.org/doc.asp?id=388
The process of removing dissolved minerals, such as salt, from sea water and brackish groundwater is gaining favor as a method of augmenting
urban water supplies. Estimates are
that seawater and brackish water desalination will increase by 10 to 20
percent in the next decade, with existing and envisioned operations eventually generating an estimated
700 million gallons per day. About two dozen seawater desalination plants are proposed along the
California coast. Desalination has been a cost-prohibitive exercise due to the high amount of energy
needed to push water through dense, compact micro filters that remove salt molecules from the water.
Improvements in membrane technology have produced filters that last longer and are more energy
efficient than previous models. Desalting brackish underground water, which is considerably less costly
than seawater desalination, has been used for decades to increase fresh water supplies.
Concentrated brine from desalination plants helps restore wetlands
Water Resources Research Center, 2011, “Environmental Concerns Temper Enthusiasm for
Desalination,” https://wrrc.arizona.edu/awr/s11/concerns
On the other hand, desalination can also have environmental benefits. Desalination plants can provide a
secure source of water, albeit salty water, for environmental purposes. Salt tolerant wetlands plants can
thrive on concentrate from inland desalination and provide an ecosystem supporting marsh birds and
other wildlife. James Lozier, of CH2MHill, reported that the Oxnard, California Concentrate Treatment
Wetlands demonstrates the ability of an engineered natural treatment system to utilize concentrate for
environmental benefit. This is accomplished by employing salt-tolerant, brackish marsh species to
remove nutrients and heavy metals and to provide volume reduction. With appropriate methods, it may
be possible to restore or create new wetlands habitat using concentrate as a sustainable water source.