How expensive is desalination per gallon?

How expensive is desalination per gallon?

And California currently has about 16 desalination plant proposals in the works. But desalination is expensive. A thousand gallons of freshwater from a desalination plant costs the average US consumer $2.50 to $5, Pankratz says, compared to $2 for conventional freshwater.

What is the cost of desalinated water?

Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot — roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study from the state Department of Water Resources.

How much more expensive is desalinated water?

But desalination is expensive. A thousand gallons of freshwater from a desalination plant costs the average US consumer $2.50 to $5, Pankratz says, compared to $2 for conventional freshwater.

What is the average unit cost of desalinated seawater?

The unit cost of desalting seawater has been reduced to about $1.0/m3 or less. RO and ED processes are most often used to treat brackish, waste, and river water. The unit cost of desalting brackish water has fallen to about $0.6/m3.

Is thermal desalination expensive?

We found that the LCOW for solar-driven thermal desalination ranges from $0.94–4.31 per m3 of freshwater, where the cost is affected mainly by the capital expenditure on the solar field and the operating expenditure of the desalination plant.

How much do desalination plants cost to run?

Sydney Desalination Plant chief executive Keith Davies said maintenance of the plant in 2012/13 cost $194.9 million, in 2013/14 it cost $192.7 million and to March this year it cost a further $147.1 million. He also said that if it was required to put the plant into full operation now, it would cost $5.9 million.

How much does desalination cost per acre foot?

West Basin Municipal District in California estimates desalination costs of $1273 per acre-foot for brackish water and $1700 per acre-foot for seawater.

How much does it cost to set up a desalination plant?

According to one media report, each 10 MLD desalination plant in “would cost around Rs 140 crore. The three plants will cost over Rs 420 crore.”

What is the average cost to build a desalination plant?

The nonpartisan research group recently issued a lengthy report on the state of desalination in California. Beyond the environmental cost is the actual price tag: the plant in Carlsbad cost $1 billion to build, with a rough estimate of $50 million a year for the power to run it.

What is the cheapest method of desalination?

Steam/condensation is quite inexpensive to create from whatever materials may be on hand. If there is access to animal dung and biomass, it is also quite straight forward to make a bio-digester that will supply the fuel/heat input that drives that process. You disqualified solar desalination.

What can make desalination expensive?

One common desalination method, reverse osmosis, is expensive because it requires a great deal of electricity to push water through a filter. It’s also costly to treat the water to kill microbes and to replace the filters. Researchers are hoping that improved membrane materials could make this process cheaper.

How much electricity does it take to desalinate water?

The theoretical absolute minimum amount of energy required by natural osmosis to desalinate average seawater is approximately 1 kilowatt-hour per cubic meter (kwh/m3) of water produced, or 3.8 kilowatt-hours per thousand gallons (kwh/kgal).

Why is desalination so expensive?

Why is Desalination So Expensive? The high-pressure system used to desalinate saltwater requires a high amount of energy to do. Billions of gallons of water are forced through the pressure treatments, consuming an average of 10-13 kilowatt-hours (kwh) per every thousand gallons.

How much does it cost to build a desalination plant?

The installed cost of desalination plants is approximately $1m for every 1,000 cubic meters per day of installed capacity. Therefore, a large scale desalination plant serving 300,000 people typically costs in the region of $100 million. The costs of infrastructure to distribute water must be added to this.

Why desalination is bad?

Desalination is bad for the environment and human health. The by-products of desalination include coagulalants, bisulfates, and chlorines. When concentrated waste is dumped into the ocean as it is with desalination, it is harmful to marine life and environments.

How much energy does a desalination plant use?

Desalination is an energy-hungry process. According to a 2008 article in the Ecologist, modern desalination plants typically use around 2 kilowatt hours of electricity to produce a cubic meter of drinking water, and this electricity is often generated using fossil fuels.