Environmental Impacts of Seawater Desalination

Desalination is a process that removes salt and minerals from seawater and turns it into a potable resource. It is extremely helpful in areas experiencing rising water demands due to water scarcity, droughts, growing populations and increased water consumption. With the ocean covering most of the Earth’s surface, seawater provides a sustainable, long-term solution to a problem that won’t soon dissipate. By 2015, 18,000 desalination plants had cropped up worldwide, producing 22,870 million gallons of fresh water per day. Experts believe desalination, coupled with future advancements in technology, could be the key to establishing drought-proof communities worldwide. A clean source … Continue reading

CSP-Powered Desalination: Prospects in MENA

Conventional large-scale desalination is cost-prohibitive and energy-intensive, and not viable for poor countries in the MENA region due to increasing costs of fossil fuels. In addition, the environmental impacts of desalination are considered critical on account of GHG emissions from energy consumption and discharge of brine into the sea. The negative effects of desalination can be minimized, to some extent, by using renewable energy to power the plants. What is Concentrated Solar Power The core element of Concentrated Solar Power Plant is a field of large mirrors reflecting captured rays of sun to a small receiver element, thus concentrating the … Continue reading

Seawater Desalination – A Better Choice for MENA

Water scarcity is a major problem in many parts of the world affecting quality of life, the environment, industry, and the economies of developing nations. The MENA region is considered as one of the most water-scarce regions of the world. Large scale water management problems are already apparent in the region. While the MENA region’s population is growing steadily, per capita water availability is expected to fall by more than 40-50% by the year 2050. Also, climate change is likely to affect weather and precipitation patterns, and the consequences of which may force the MENA region to more frequent and … Continue reading