Why Not Build Desalination Plants EVERYWHERE? 

When my daughter was 10 years old, she asked me if they were able to make drinking water from seawater. I said yes, but it is more expensive than just starting with fresh water. So she replied, "Oh, so they are just going to use all the fresh water first and then be forced to desalination!" I think she was correct.

While in the US NAVY the ship that I served on was nuclear powered. We used the reactors heat to distill sea water for the ships reactor coolant and drinking water, plus equipment coolant as sell. We never went on water rations. The best way to get electricity and fresh water is to build small nuclear power plants and have desalination plants next to the electric generators. Win win. Nuclear reactor technology had come a very long way since the 60's. Safer, simpler and cheaper to operate and maintain.

Brine could easily be repurposed for regions that use salt on the roads. Brine is great. It actually sticks to the surface you apply it too and coats way more. Salt lands in random spots. Brine gives you a solid consistent coat.

I love this video! Thanks a million! I was in the military and when I went to the middle east, I observed how many desalinization plants they had. My question was...why does the rest of the world not fall in line with this idea and advance the technology to make it feasible? I would like to think there are many likeminded people such as yourself that can make this a larger scale reality. Great stuff! Thanks! I am a subscriber now!

As a chemical engineer working in a desalination station in Kuwait, my dream and goal in life is to bring the dome technology to Kuwait and all around the world. The neom project looks like heaven to me and id love nothing more than to be a part of it

Our company was one of the first thin film composite reverse osmosis design engineering, manufacturer, installation companies. We created the drinking water from the red sea and made the desert bloom. However the key was to remove all the microscopic life in sea water prior to separation the salty water. Many companies dropped the ball on pretreatment requirement and their plants failed long term. Fresh water and conservation reusability can solve humanities water needs.

For years I thought we should pump water from high rain and flooding areas to dry out areas. I knew it would be very expensive, but I thought it would be worth it. I’m very glad that you are pursuing this idea and thinking of imaginative ways of reducing the cost like using existing pipe lines. Thank you for your work.

Really appreciate the explanation which helped me better understand why there isn't more movement in that direction. I appreciate the downsides and perhaps more focus would lend to some better solutions. To me, the bottom line is what other solutions can take us into the future? There are other that options that currently contribute on a relatively small scale overall. IF the drought doesn't diminish, what else is there to accommodate for the demands for water in the next 30 years?

Desalination plants should have been built many years ago but sadly a majority of our society is reactive and not proactive. This video was very insightful, thank you for the excellent presentation.

Thank you for the video. In the submarine service we distilled seawater while underway. This water was used for consumption, the galley, showers, the laundry, and a variety of other purposes. Of course, it helped, having a nuclear power plant to produce the required energy. I remember only one time when water restrictions were called for and that was brief. A side note: being submerged for extended periods of time, we also produced Oxygen from seawater through a couple different methods.

I feel like desalination is important, and honestly, I don’t know fresh water was such a scarce resource. I also think in concert with water reclamation processes from rain and other natural cycles could help. An “all hands on deck” approach. Thanks for sharing this information!

I currently live in the Mojave Desert, and the very recent hydrological history of this area has made me often think that everyone is looking at desalination, energy generation, and energy storage incorrectly. We tend to look at all of these as separate issues, but in fact the combination of them would be an excellent way to reduce the costs of each individually. For instance, where I live there are many dry lakebeds scattered around the desert, some of which like Owens Lake were once large persistent inland bodies of water within the last century. Combining those dry/nearly dry lakes (many of which are salty already with the desalination process seems like an excellent way to solve virtually all the issues of desalination and the problem of solar energy storage via the following approach: 1. Massive solar farms with a large excess of day generating capacity power the Southwestern US grid. Some of this power is used to pump large volumes of raw sea water inland to currently dry or hypersaline lakebeds in the Mojave Desert, filling them and turning them into inland reservoirs of sea-water. 2. Large reverse osmosis desalination plants are constructed near these lakes, possibly underground to reduce the visual impact of the plants, taking advantage of the fact that these areas are not current wet-lands areas to speed up the process. Some of the solar power generated every day is used to produce an excess of desalinated water with these plants. Brine is returned to the salt lakes, or processed solar thermally to remove remaining water and recover raw materials (like your video talks about). 3. A portion of the desalinated water sufficient to meet the needs of regional water users is returned to the cities and towns of the Southwest via existing distribution systems, or additional infrastructure (for pumping toward the Colorado river and beyond). The rest of the desalinated water is pumped into massive inland pumped hydro systems constructed in the currently arid but topographically ideal areas of the Mojave Desert. There are areas out there where elevation differences of thousands of feet can be within a few miles of each-other, with more than enough area to accommodate lakes large enough to provide energy storage for the entire area over extended durations. 4. The combined costs of the entire system are then distributed across both water and power for regional consumers. Furthermore, mineral extraction may also help with the costs as suggested in your video. Furthermore, the renewal of large inland bodies of water will replenish the ground water supply, over time, possibly increase regional rainfall, and lead to further regional groundwater benefit if LADWP and other large Southwestern water users no longer take water from the Colorado River, Northern California, and the entire Owens River valley area. This isn't a global solution, but generally in areas where desalination is needed these other factors are present as well (deserts with dry lakes and large available solar capacity).

I think that you left out a major and minor advantages about solar evaporation: 1) use solar to boil, not just evaporate salt water. Use the steam to generate electricity. 2) let the leftover steam rise to a height to allow gravity to move it. 3) as mentioned, derivatives could pay for the desalination. Sites around the world evaporate sea water to get salt. Put these two together and sea salt out one side and water out the other.

In Australia most major cities have desalination plants as a back up for times of drought. Melbourne Australia has one of the largest desalination plants in the world.

It s the first video of the channel that i watch. Finally a good channel where i can dig in the old videos. New subscriber. Keep going bro

Here's a question I find interesting... What if we got extremely good as a planet at desalinating water? What if we then took all that technology, coupled it with reforesting practices, and began to slowly irrigate and change these huge desert areas where life really doesn't exist???? Can you imagine having a massive breakthrough in water desalination and using it to not just fulfill our needs as humans, but then pass that off to nature and give life to previously dead areas of the planet? We could bring down the temp of the planet, increase fresh oxygen, sequester more carbon, and beautify that desert area with green life.

I was surprised to learn of all the other elements besides salt in ocean water. It makes sense to harvest those elements, especially thorium.

Nice strategy I must say. I don't earn as much as this video claims but I earn about 3,250 USD from Hyperion Trust every week. However, I've read articles of investors that made as much as $350K profit within a few months I'd like to know what you think he invested in and how do i make such profit

Brine can be a minor issue, they just need to create a long tube with vortex pressure mixing of the surrounding water. I deal with it in my reef tank all the time when adding salt. You add to the sump, not the display. You also dissolve the salt first. If you don't it goes to the bottom and it kills stuff. The brine will dissolve easily but not instantly. It is dumping it all as a solid that is an issue.

This video feels more like a marketing campaign for the city rather than an analysis as to why there aren't more desalination plants. The actual answer to the question was said in 10 seconds with no real dive into it. The Neom project sounds like another one of those model city plans that will ultimately fail because it relies on other systems which offset everything good that is done by the project. How can we ensure that removing these elements from the ocean is fine to do? How can you ensure that you don't remove too much water from the sea? How will this affect its biochemistry? Very little science was presented in this video and I am even skeptical even on what was presented. Is the Neom project the future of desalination? Who knows, because this guy sure doesn't. No specifics about the technology is discussed, just empty words and marketing terms.

As I am taking a break from my LEED GA CE course, and worrying about water shortages, getting to net zero energy, and carbon emissions, I watched your video and could not believe the content. It could be the possible answer to these grave issues. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I always enjoy your videos.

I am surprised you didn't include electrodialysis, especially PV powered electrodialysis. Works amazingly well for ground water desalination.

I agree with "Admiral Preparedness Prepping". I was raised in San Diego CA. There was a huge desalinization plant - it worked great, but was only experimental.

Such ambitious large-scale projects makes me excited!

I remember hearing this when I was a kid in the 80s. People were saying we would run out of water and oil by the year 2000. I was also told that Florida would be under water by the late 90s lol

The biggest problem i have with their city concept so far is the cloud seeding. Iirc cloud seeding can really screw over large swaths of land downwind of you by interfering with the water cycle. The desalination plant concept itself is actually really cool, and would probably work very efficiently for the first phase of extracting fresh water. I'm not so sure about being able to extract useful minerals from the salt however, but i'm not a wiz-kid when it comes to minerals and extracting things from other things so for all i know it is easier than it sounds for them.

Excellent information gathering, analysis and presentation. Thank you.

Thank you for a most informative program…keep up the good work, stay healthy, forget the razor and continue to watch out for yourself and others…

Crazy timing on the YT algorithm. I was just discussing our drought issue here in California with someone recently, and he mentioned the desalination plants they had aboard the Navy vessels he had served on and pondered why they are not more widely used amongst the civilian sector. I never considered the brine waste the thermal plants outputted and how you could safely dispose the material. Fascinating and informative video, I'll be sure to share it.

I worked on the desalination plant for the Rabigh community. The desalination equipment were plants using in ocean going ships. Plus boiler for providing heat for boiling the sea water. The water droplets were scavengered by a impeller sent to a heatexchanger and then to storage tanks. If I remember right, the water didn't comply to WHO standards, so chemicals were added to bring it up to standards. I also worked on R.O. plants, treating water from Aquifer. The futher the pump when down in the aquifer, the more salty the water got. Really interesting subject 🤔

Let’s get this going! Brilliant video btw! New fan here! Greetings from Hollyweird,CA

Youre a really good presenter, very pleasant to listen and watch

When I was young, there were four large desalination plants at Freeport Texas. In the late fifties they were dismantled and shipped to Guantanama Cuba. Fidel Castro cut off the fresh water supply to the base. They were rebuilt there for the U. S. Marine Corps. The water was so pure that the Marines had to pour it from container to container through the air to give it taste.

In puru or chile, there is a RO plant being built with a pumped storage and a solar field. The 400 psi pressure diff. will operate the RO plant . The solar will provide the energy. the upper pool will provide the constant pressure for the RO.

This is the first time I've seen the mega city touted as a good idea, or at least highlights the necessity of the technology being used and looking at the positive highlights! I love it, good video.

Excellent Vid. Up here in the BC where I live, Our waste water is treated via "Activated-Sludge Treatment Plants" and the treated water is more along the lines of treated gray-water, wherein it is disinfected but not quite potable, ( BOD-5 is excellent and the pH is close to 8.3, etc)..... that water, the Effluent, isn't returned directly back to the " Receiving Waters" but rather it is pumped uphill and used for irrigation of huge tracts of land. That water in turn percolates back into the soil and then eventually ends up back in the lakes around the area which sustain fish and wildlife. Return of human usage I would guess at 90 %... the rest is going into septic fields and through natural filtration without disinfection back into the Receiving Waters.....Much of this water is currently from commercial businesses where the effluent may contain oils, chemicals, or heavy metals, etc.... And that's a Big issue.... We are also looking into "iMBR type treatment " too.... I digress. Getting back to Desalination,.... Reverse Osmosis, ( RO ), is costly for huge volumes of water processing. Such undertakings in an area where hydro-electric or wind-electric generation to power said plants might be scarce and leaves one with the option of nuclear or coal or diesel power.... None of which is Green....Tidal power, ( Adams turbines or Delta-T ammonia or Tidal wave - generators, per se....), may be a viable solution. That said ,.... With the new(ish) reinstatement of the study of Sodium Sulphate Battery technology, and the reclamation of other elements like Lithium and needed Transition metals, For many countries, Desalination may be worth doing financially, with clean water being the 'Gravy on the plate.' Stay Safe.

Saddest thing is that so many areas will pull up ancient ground water, replenished only over centuries, and then use it to irrigate grass with fresh potable water, while at the same time dumping the clean grey water from the sewage system into rivers, because it is "dirty", and then also mandating that people must have these lawns to "keep up the appearance of the neighborhood" as well.

Technically, you do not have to use pumps to pump water into solar water evaporizer. If you build it under the sea level, you can pump the water just by opening the valve. And, if you make that chamber airproof, using the fact, that gas have smaller density, you can "pump" fresh water out of it just by using higher pressure by the steam generating.

You do such great, high quality videos!!!

Excellent info and video. Your presentation style is amazing. And.. you have a very impressive 5:00 shadow - or even if it's a 2-3 day shadow. I'd stay with it if I were you.

Improving and lowering the cost of desalination would solve many problems. And removing and selling the minerals to help finance the process is a very clever idea.

The desal facility in the city where I live processes the brine by-product by mixing it with partially treated waste water, resulting in a solution that is slightly less salty than that of the ocean. It is then pumped offshore where it is assimilated back into the ocean without adversely affecting the environment.

This was really interesting, thanks for informing!

i worked for the USNavy. The cost to make fresh water from a ships stills. was quoted at $4.95 a gallon during the 70s

Very good informative show. I am impressed and grateful you produced this.

@9:10 Seawater contains 0.1 ppm of lithium. If you process 100 million cubic meters of seawater, you get 10 cubic meters of Lithium, or around 5.340 kg. Enough to build around 76 Tesla Model 3's.

I've been asking this for YEARS! The desalinization plant in Carlsbad, CA works well. Yes, it's expensive but worth it.

I just finished building and starting a desalination plant at a rare earth mineral mine in Mountain Pass, California. Very interesting process beginning to end. I've asked myself this question multiple times so I'm exagerado yo hear the answer as to why we don't have more.... but one day we will likely have no other choice but to build a bunch of them. At least that's always been my assumption lol. 👍👍

The incoming cold seawater could be used to accelerate condensation when the dome is cooled from the outside, just let it flow over the dome before it is heated inside from beneath. Smaller units could use parabolic channel reflectors to heat a pipe from below, while being cooled above with lateral exits for the condensate and be eventually more efficient.

Great video. I'd like to see an examination of other factors related to water usage (i.e. population density, population growth, population migration related to water usage, crop related water consumption including alternatives, etc.). Finally, what happens to my water bottle during recycling? Thanks again.

Great video! I’ve been wondering about this for a while since desalination seems such an obvious solution to a pressing problem.

Stumbled onto the channel. Love it. Sub’d.

It's funny, I had actually thought about this before by using the "Power tower" plants to desalinate. It just makes so much sense. Desalination, by either method is a highly energy intensive exercise. RO maybe less so unless you count the membrane materials and the equipment needed. Unless they could figure out a way to recycle the membranes, it will always have a high amount of consumables. Thermal is definitely a more efficient way if you can do it with sustainable energy. I am excited to see this facility progress.

On the mineral mining (from water) idea, I've heard that they do this sometimes from geothermal setups as well. As often the hot water returns with many more minerals than cold water does.

My grandfather was on a Naval mine-sweeping ship during the late 40's and they had on board a desalination unit. "Plenty of water for everything, at all times", he remarked.

even a small fresnel lens can distill water quickly. minerals (especially limestone), can make the taste better like regular fresh water (but distilled water can be used as is).

Just out of curiosity. Once you separate the non salt elements from the brine would it be feasible to then you use the salt elements for Sea Salt? If so then you're actually going more green because you could potentially replace salt mines by using every part of the brine.

The byproducts taken out with the water are part of what makes the waters ph livable for fish and plants but also contributes to the flavor and things we humans need aswell . I used to run a twps in my last years in the US Army and one of the coolest things i learned when i first changed MOS was how low of a total dissolved solids factor machines like whats discussed in this video produced, when compared to say a bottle of name brand water like dasani. 150-200 ppm lower. 🤯

I've been wondering about this... looking forward to video 👍👍👍

I feel like there's daily things that we use fresh water for that can be replaced by saltine water. Simple one is a toilet, you (usually) don't drink out of it, you send all the water away.

I once did a project in grad school involving desalination and argued that one of the best ways to use desalination plants economically should be with power plants since they take seawater and need the conversion to freshwater to preserve the plants. Currently, they thermally pollute by dumping the freshwater back into the oceans, which could be saved for water reserves. I'm assuming these systems have to be financially and energy profitable anyway.

I am a retired 3rd. Class Engineer, and when I was at sea, I was responsible for the Reverse Osmosis machines in order to convert sea water to drinking water and believe me it is very labour-intensive and consumes a lot of power. it would be very costly and require many skilled technicians to produce enough water to supply a city. The pump(s). use very high pressure to propel the sea water through the membranes and %95 percent of the feedwater is returned to source.

Awesome presentation. 👍

Nice job on the video I was actually wondering why there weren't more desalination plants. Also related question how cost prohibited would it be to move water from the parts of America that are flooding to the parts of the country in drought?

For the time being, I would prefer to see more support for water recycling. This will enable us to use less total water, but require much less energy than desalination. Furthermore, water recycling will continue to be important even after we go all in on desalination so it’s a great first step. My city recently laid new pipe and uses recycled water in order to water lawns in parks and other public places. Once we finish rolling out water recycling, I’ll be much more supportive of ramping up desalination. Great to see people already thinking about what the most responsible way to do desalination will be!

Great ideas are presented here, and this is the first time that I have heard about LARQ technology. Thank you.

Loved it!!! Thank you

Every river that flows into the sea is contributing to the water shortage problem, yet no one seems to be addressing that. In many countries, the water is available to be collected and used. All that’s needed is pumping stations above the tidal zone, reservoirs and filtration plants.

There are so many problems with the Neom concept: 1) As you pointed out earlier, thermal desalination is terribly inefficient. It would be way more efficient and cost effective to use that solar to generate electricity and run an RO system. 2) All desalination plants produce brine. There isn't any magic in Neom's brine that makes it more economical to process into valuable commodities. Anything you do to process that brine is liable to consume more water than was produced in the first place. Desalination is typically meant to produce enough water to sustain agriculture. There simply isn't a market for that much sodium, chloride, etc. to make any exotic means of processing brine without water economically feasible. 3) The dome design isn't even very conducive to solar concentrator heating. It makes so little sense!

Wow! I like how this video moves right along while delivering lots of interesting, current info. Well done!

Sounds like a lot of promise here! It's nice to see hopeful projects on the horizon.

there is acompany in California already producing fresh water with solar thermal collectors plus extracting minerals from that brine, like fertilzer Mg,K, Ph, K and more

I remember learning about desalination for survival purposes when I was very young. From that point on I’ve never understood why we’re not all pouring money into desalination.

I really liked the video (informative, interesting, educational) and your narration is excellent. Really well done!

Have you looked into the desalination plant that was in San Diego many years ago? Also the option was given by five hour energy owner to park a barge off the coast cities with many desal units; do you know anything about that?

Thank you for this. We need solutions to our problems, not just doom and gloom about it.

Or, you know, just build a solar thermal powerplant, if you already plan to use a concentrated solar array, and then desalinate via its waste heat. This way you can co-produce clean water with energy. And in contrast to PV you get your energy storage basically for free. Also dumping brine in the ocean only becomes a problem if you do it the stupid way. Instead you need to dilute it with more sea water and spread it properly.

Communities which have established purple pipe system for the use of reclaimed water have a tremendous advantage. Not only does purple pipe make it possible to have a very lush garden or farm, but with in-home RO and plenty of RE, unlimited potable water as well.

Neom looks like a great idea and I am excited to see it work out.

There is abundant pure water vapor over the ocean surface. This can be collected by condensation methods deployed on floats or rafts. Wind or waves can power pumps to bring Seawater through old refrigerator coils to cool collectors for a boost in efficiency. Thus no desalination is required to produce tons of pure fresh water.

I put a large bowl in my kitchen sink and collect any and all water used there. I then pour that water into a bucket and water outside plants. Also, when running pre water for the shower, to get hot. I capture that water into a large plastic mayonnaise jar and add that to the bucket too. I call the bowl in the kitchen my “cowboy bowl,” just like the old cowhands on the ranch, saving every drop of water.

Living on the south-west coast of Australia, de-sal plants are part of our life, we have two plants and a third is under construction, the two current plants have a capacity of 400 Megalitres/Day

I know that some of the rheostat solar plants ended up killing birds flying through the air that was super heated by the mirrors. I'm wondering if something similar could happen here.

you missed one problem which is that the water becomes distilled after desalination , which requires re-mineralization before it can be completely healthy to drink. Distilled water is alright to drink, but over time it has some bad health effects.

So glad you mentioned the brine issues! It really is affecting our oceans! Thanx!

They are building several around the city here. Which is great.

This video is awesome. It tells what desalination using reverse osmosis can do for the entire world. Let's get started.

It is strange that south park made me think about this because of their recent episode about water in the streaming wars. Of course their solution was crazy and ridiculous. Great video, I hope we start to see some of these projects expand in the western US to help support some of the fresh water issues starting to arise.

Here in Victoria (Australia) we built a reverse osmosis desalination plant that has a maximum capacity of 150 billion litres of water a year and it is powered entirely by renewable energy, mostly solar during the day. I think it is the first of three that were planned for the future. It has allowed us to stabilize our dam water levels, after a drought we hit about 16% at the worst point, now we are about 86% or so, leaving a bit of slack for winter/spring rain. I am not sure what they are doing with the waste. It is interesting we have way more solar power than we have consumption for, it would be a good use of the power if you could also extract some valuable minerals like lithium.

Actually there are Saline distillation planrts everywhere. BUT they are used to separate and sell salt from water rather than separate water to drin. the settling pools are located in bays next to the ocean and are flooded with sea water. the gates to teh sea are closed and water is allowed to evaporate and exposes the salt. the salt is then collected and processesed. the market for salt production is there, problems is capturing the water vapor. this CAN be done by providing domes or roofs ove the salt to allow the water to condense and be collected. FAR more efficient would be geothermal powered desalinization plants powered by geothermal energy to boil the sea water and condense it into potable water.

Great video!

Lithium! I like the way you think. We can definitely use it and the nice minerals. There isn't much Gold, for example, but it is worth its weight in itself. Also, in greater than 1ppm concentrations we have Fluorine, Aluminum, Strontium, Silicon, and Boron, all of which are useful, especially in the energy sector. Nice reporting.

You don't need a heat source to desalinate water. The ideal thing to do with unused desert land would be to dig long shallow trenches for miles and miles and then install a huge primary heat exchanger right at the main pump(s) interface of the inflowing and outflowing seawater (so the dump light brine water is relatively the same temperature as influent seawater). Then in the entire length of trenches, install a dark durable material which lines the bottom of the trench the entire distance. Over the trench install durable clear plastic drip covers sealed over the trench from the outside atmosphere. Along the bottom of the drip covers install catch troughs and intermittent catch tanks with a series of solar driven pumps which tie into a main water line to a central collection facility. Something such as this type of system could be setup in a relatively short period of time, for much less money than expensive technology and generate hundreds of thousand of gallons of fresh water during daylight hours. Since the trench would be a constant flow of seawater from beginning to end, the brine levels would be naturally lighter and less disruptive to the sea. The effluent could also be released much further out into the sea where the water is much deeper and is able to disburse more easily. Also, the main system seawater pumps could also be driven by solar/wind power to make the system self-contained throughout.

I live in Southern California. Most of our water travels for hundreds of miles thru canals, and pipelines. This involves pump stations and thousands of employees to maintain. Very expensive to operate.Seems stupid when the saltwater is next door. 😮😊

Very informative great video

A cheaper solution is to pump cold seawater and use it to condense fresh water from the air. Pumping is cheap, cold ocean water is abundant and there is no brine to deal with. Still, nice video.

Combining solar thermal with vacuum distillation to lower the boiling point is definitely the way to go in hot regions. Alternatively, molten salt nuclear for cold regions.

You don't need pumps if you build the dome below sea level and allow the water vapour to rise to sufficient height before allowing it to condense.

It works for Saudi Arabia - they have massive desalination plants near Jeddah to provide water for Mecca, and the port of Jeddah itself. But then again they have tons of oil and tons of tourists paying exorbitant amounts to go to Mecca (where the tourists still believe that the water comes out of a tiny camel herders' well).

I've wondered about this for many years. Living in California, I live in a city that's considered always in a drought. We have water restrictions. I have always wondered why one of the richest and most technical places ever allows themselves to be in a drought. I think it's because of rich people who are too scared of hurting their property along their precious beaches. Our lakes are very low and I always wondered why they allow this when we have the know how to have enough water. I really wish the government would incentivise someone to get this going in several areas.