Right now, over a billion people around the world are struggling with fresh water scarcity. Most of these folks live in dry, developing countries. The World Health Organization says 750 million people don’t have access to safe, pure drinking water. That’s about one in nine people. More than twice the population of the United States lives without safe water. This makes the current water crisis the number one global risk for societal impact, and the eighth global risk for likelihood of happening within the next 10 years, according to the World Economic Forum in January 2015.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization predicts that by mid-century, four billion people \u2013 almost two-thirds of the world\u2019s current population \u2013 will face severe fresh water shortages.<\/p>\n
With the human population expected to grow by another 50 percent by 2050, resource managers are increasingly looking for other ways to quench the world\u2019s growing thirst. Desalination, a process where highly pressurized ocean or seawater is pushed through tiny membrane filters and distilled into drinking water, is looking like one of the most promising solutions.<\/p>\n
Think about it<\/em> – 71% of the earth is covered by oceans, so why aren\u2019t we using ocean water to solve these water problems we keep talking about? Taking salt out of water, especially seawater in coastal communities, is a real option for fixing water issues.<\/p>\n Desalination<\/a> is how we remove salt and minerals from seawater or brackish water. Right now, we use two main technologies for this.<\/p>\n The first, and more popular, is membrane technology, also called reverse osmosis. It uses pressure to push water through a membrane that won’t let salt particles pass. Sometimes, instead of pressure, electricity drives the water through the membrane.<\/p>\n The second technology uses a thermal process. Salt water gets heated, creating vapor. This vapor is then condensed and collected as fresh water. It’s a lot like how ocean water evaporates, which explains why rainwater isn’t salty.<\/p>\n This brings us to a big point: desalinating salt water could give the entire world an unlimited water supply. As water demand and population grow, seawater desalination could consistently meet those new demands.<\/p>\n Many people think desalination is super expensive, but that’s not true anymore. The costs are getting more affordable, and the quality of the treated water has gotten much better. For example, a desalination plant in Singapore, in its first year of operation in 2013, desalinating water cost as low as USD 0.45 per cubic meter. Combine this with how much water is available, and desalination becomes a really attractive option for many of us worldwide.<\/p>\n Today, seawater-desalination.seawater desalination plants<\/a> convert seawater to drinking water on ships and in many dry parts of the world. They also treat water in other areas contaminated by natural and unnatural pollutants.<\/p>\n Distillation is probably the water treatment technology that reduces the widest range of drinking water contaminants. And the impact of desalination is huge. In 2012, the world\u2019s installed desalination capacity generated 27.3 cubic kilometers of fresh water annually. About 60% of this capacity treats seawater, and the rest handles other, less salty sources.<\/p>\n By 2014, this capacity had grown to 17.4 cubic kilometers compared to five years earlier. That means it’s been growing at an average annual rate of 9.5%.<\/p>\n When it comes to desalination equipment, companies like Ampac USA design and build advanced seawater desalination fresh watermakers for both onshore and offshore uses. Onshore watermakers are for land-based applications. These seawater desalination watermakers can get water directly from the sea or from a beach well, turning seawater into pure fresh drinking water. This makes them perfect for places with no fresh or municipal water supplies, like remote areas or smaller atolls and islands that don’t have potable water sources. On the other hand, marine offshore watermakers fit most types of boats, yachts, and military ships.<\/p>\n They also design and build offshore Class1-Div1 and Class1-Div2 Explosion Proof Seawater Desalination Watermakers for the oil and gas industry. Plus, they make Emergency Portable Fresh Watermakers and Solar Powered Brackish Water and Seawater Desalination Watermakers.<\/p>\n Currently, some big desalination plants are under construction in the US. When the Carlsbad Desalination Project finishes this fall, it will be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. This huge seawater desalination plant, a $1 billion reverse osmosis system, will start producing 54 million gallons a day, supplying water to 300,000 residents, in early 2016.<\/p>\n Over 17,000 desalination plants are now running in 150 countries worldwide. This capacity could nearly double by 2020, according to the United Nations World Water Development Report 2014. Desalination produces 21 billion gallons of water a day, says the International Desalination Association, offering a vital water source in dry places like the Middle East and Australia.<\/p>\n Related reading: Seawater desalination-the most viable solution to drought!<\/a>, Is desalination sustainable solution?<\/a>, Desalination is the process used to remove salt and minerals from seawater or brackish water. At the moment, there are two popular technologies used for desalination process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seawater-desalination","category-water-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89710,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/89710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}