Hydro Wind Energy Promises Clean Water and Energy

A Salty Problem

I drove from San Francisco to Sequoia Park for the first time recently, and I was shocked by what I saw. All along the way the plants were dry — California looked like a desert. It was sobering evidence of the historical drought California is experiencing. While droughts are a natural phenomenon, global climate change is making them more severe and more frequent. But people still need water to survive. Because more than 97% of the water on earth is salt water, desalination has become a common method for producing potable water.

Desalination is a process of water purification that removes salt and other minerals from sea water. The Golden State has to rely on 12 water desalination facilities to help produce fresh water for its population. The largest of these facilities is near San Diego. It produces an average daily flow of 50 million gallons, enough to fulfill around10% of the total drinking water needed by San Diego county.

But California’s largest desalination plant can’t compare to the largest plant in the world. Located in Saudi Arabia, it can produce more than 273 million gallons a day. About 60% of the country’s water comes from desalination.

Unfortunately desalination is an extremely energy intensive process. Saudi Arabia burns 1.5 million barrels of oil every day to generate the 6,935 gigawatt hours needed every year to desalinate water. That emits more than 200 million tons of CO2 per year. In total, the energy Saudi Arabia uses just to desalinate water is nearly equivalent to the total energy consumption of Mongolia, and it releases as much carbon as all of Argentina in the process.

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