Desalination Boondoggles

(via DW) This column from The Oil Drum is pretty critical:

The next worst idea to turning tar sands into synthetic crude is turning ocean water into municipal drinking water. Sounds great until you zoom in on the environmental costs and energetic consequences. It may be technically feasible, but in the end it is unsustainable and will be just one more stranded asset.

Here's the moneyshot:

The writer goes on to criticize Poseidon Resources (the company trying to build a desal plant in Carlsbad, CA) and adds some color on the price of desal:

California’s checkered history with ocean desalination is equally unhelpful. Of those projects that have operated, the following costs have been reported:

• Gaviota Oil and Gas Processing Plant: $4000/AF
• Santa Catalina Island (built and operated by Southern California Edison): $2000/AF
• U.S. Navy, San Nicolas Island: $6000/AF
• PG&E Diablo Canyon Power Plant: $2000
• City of Moro Bay: $1,750/AF

The City of Santa Barbara built a plant in the 1990s but never operated it. The Yuma Desalting Plant may be the biggest white elephant in the world. At the time it was built in the late 1980’s, it was the world’s largest reverse osmosis plant capable of desalting 72 million gallons per day. The $245 million project was constructed to comply with the 1944 treaty with Mexico to reduce salinity of Colorado River water from 2900 ppm to 115 ppm. The estimated cost of operations and management was $24 - $29 million per year. I’m told it has never operated except for tests.

(Note how PG&E beat the pants off the Navy -- classic! :)

Bottom Line: Be careful of government projects: Politicians may approve them, but you pay for them!