CAPE TOWN – As drought in the water-scarce region deepens, the city’s nuclear power plant, Koeberg, is looking to desalination.^[1]  Koeberg is dependent on Cape Town’s water supply and uses roughly 1,300 cubic metres of freshwater per day in order to function. The facility’s station manager, Velaphi Ntuli, has said that the safeguarding of Cape Town’s power supply necessitates an alternative water source.  This water, Ntuli has said, would come from the groundwater located near the power station.  Ntuli is hopeful that,...

CAPE TOWN – In the midst of South Africa’s years-long drought, the Richard’s Bay desalination wastewater plant opened last week.^[1]  The $23.19 million-dollar hybrid facility (R300 million) significantly reduces water costs, by producing 50 percent of its water from the ocean, and the other 50 percent from waste water.^[2]  The facility will help 150,000 households in the area and improve water security within the King Cetshwayo District Municipality.  The plant’s initial operations have already improved water levels in the...

CALFORNIA’S Coastal Commission faces steep budget cuts under the Trump administration.  As reported in the Chicago Tribune, the “regulation-averse” government may cut $2 million in federal assistance to the agency—slashing 9 percent of its $22.4 million annual budget.^[1]  Established by the California Legislature in the 1970s, the land use agency has the mandate to regulate development, increase public access to the shoreline, and protect delicate coastal ecosystems—from the Redwoods in the north to Los Angeles in the south. ...

MEKOROT, the state-owned Israeli water company, has retreated from its ambition to enter the desalination business.^[1]  Last week, an expose on the company’s finances revealed its $330 million debt accrued over the course of the past decade.  Delays with the company’s construction and reports of poor operation of a desalination plant in Ashdod form a significant part of its financial burden. The facility, worth roughly $444,800,000, went into operation last year—four years behind schedule—and has yet to work at full capacity due to...

In MOMBASA COUNTY, KENYA, the World Bank is supporting the development of three desalination facilities.[1] County officials are currently tendering two of the desalination plants on a build, operate, transfer basis.  They will soon request proposals from five shortlisted companies for the third facility.  It is expected that the plants will be located in the West Mainland, the North Mainland, and Likoni, where the World Bank is financing the construction of a new water network. The projects will be financed through public-private...

IN SOUTH AFRICA, a new public-private initiative may yield a large-scale desalination plant for Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape Province.^[1]  The initiative involves officials from the beer maker SABMiller, the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, and the salt producer Marina Sea Salt. The impetus for the project is the national government’s Business-Adopt-a-Municipality scheme—which seeks to strengthen municipal infrastructure by fostering closer ties between government, business, and state-owned entities.^[2]

POSEIDON...

DUTCH company Hatenboer-Water has supplied three reverse osmosis units for an oil ship.^[1]  The vessel, Pioneiro de Libra, is a Floating Production Storage and Offloading unit, which produces, processes, and stores oil.^[2]  Two of the reverse osmosis units each produce 480 cubic metres of water for the oil separation process.  The third unit provides potable water.

SUEZ has taken the next step in refinancing its acquisition of GE Water, offering 600 million worth of undated, deeply subordinated hybrid bonds.^[3]  In...

RESEARCHERS in England have created a graphene-based sieve for desalination, which may eventually be manufactured on an industrial scale.^[1]    In 2004, scientists isolated graphene as a material with tremendous tensile strength and electrical conductivity—capable of filtering salts.  It is both two-hundred times stronger than steel and the thinnest material on earth: one million times thinner than a human hair.^[2]

Until now, it has been difficult to produce large quantities of single-layer graphene membranes.  But...

THE SOUTH KOREAN company, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, has acquired a (USD) $421 million contract to build a seawater reverse osmosis desalination facility in Saudi Arabia.^[1]  The facility will provide water for 130,000 people in the vicinity of Shuaibah, approximately 110 kilometres south of Jeddah. 

LAST WEEK, Saudi Arabia and Jordan signed a memorandum of understanding to conduct a feasibility study for two nuclear reactors that will power seawater desalination in Jordan. Officials from the two countries...

AFTER THE UNITED STATES’ presidential election, Consolidated Water’s proposed mega-project in Baja California faces an uncertain future.^[1]  Last week, the company issued its annual performance report, which cited the decline of the exchange rate for the Mexican peso relative to the dollar, and the deterioration of “general macroeconomic conditions in Mexico.”^[2]  Aguas de Rosarito, the company which was set up to deliver this project, has proposed to the Baja California State Water Commission (CEA) to increase the water tariff...

SEVERAL JAPANESE COMPANIES will provide Saudi Arabia to develop the country’s desalination market.  Earlier this month, when King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud visited the East Asian island-nation, twenty companies signed 20 memorandums of understanding. The JFE Engineering Corporation will provide the desalination systems, while the materials manufacturer, Toyobo, will develop water treatment membranes.^[1]  Sasakura Engineering as well as several other companies will commercialize the facilities.^[2]

SAUDI ARABIA has pledged to...

SUEZ AND CANADA’S CDPQ will buy GE Water & Process Technologies for $3.37 billion (USD) in cash.^[1]  Suez will purchase 70 percent of the business, and the Canadian company, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, will purchase the remaining 30 percent. Suez chief executive, Jean-Louis Chaussade, has stated that the acquisition of GE Water abides by the company’s strategy to strengthen its position in the industrial water market.^[2]

^{The recently collapsed Azure Window of Gozo, Malta  Credit: Darrin Zammit Lupi via...}

INDIA’S SUPREME COURT has issued a landmark ruling to stop industrial operators from polluting the nation’s waterways.  The ruling requires operators to install primary effluent treatment plants (PETPs).^[1] Chief Justice J.S. Khehar directed all state pollution control boards to officially inform all operators producing wastewater that they must install PETPs within three months. If they do not comply to these requirements, the government will disconnect their power supplies.

MEANWHILE, IN CHENNAI, the Expert Appraisal Committee of...

AFTER 100 DAYS of combat, the water and sewage system in an eastern Mosul neighborhood collapsed.^[1]  Last week, two men decided to fix the despairing situation. Haitham Younis Wahab and his neighbor, Shamsuldeen Ahmed Saed, pulled out the sledgehammers, steel pipes, and shovels and started digging. Several days and 26 feet later, the men hit water.

All across the Rashidiya neighborhood, other residents have also dug fresh wells to retrieve water. But most have only been able to use this water for washing and cleaning.  For potable...

AS PART of a $183 million-dollar deal, Hyflux will deliver three seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants to Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC).^[1]  The company’s Saudi subsidiary has signed a memorandum of understanding with SWCC “to design, build, supply, test, and commission” three plants along the shores of the Red Sea.^[2] Each plant will have a capacity of 16,000 cubic metres of water per day.

Singapore’s Public Utilities Board has shortlisted four companies to develop the nation’s fifth desalination...

LAST WEEK, the Trump administration purportedly leaked a document that identified a list of 50 “Emergency & National Security Projects.”^[1]  The document identified projects worth a total of $137.5 billion, with 50 percent of this capital deriving from private investment. Poseidon Water’s Huntington Beach facility features as one of the nation’s key infrastructure projects.^[2]  

The document promotes the desalination project as “a cost-effective, environmentally sensitive solution” for providing “a safe and reliable...

The Gachsaran Oil and Gas Production Company in Iran is set to build two new desalination plants.  These plants will increase the production of crude oil by 15,000 barrels per day.^[1]  They will also improve the production quality of oil and prevent the decline of refinery feedstock.^[2]   Gachsaran has crude oil extraction sites in three provinces of southern Iran (Khuzestan, Bushehr, and Fars). However, it is not yet clear which of these facilities will undergo the planned works.^[3]

In the Gaza Strip, a new EU and...

In the ancient city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, millions of people have been suffering from an acute water crisis.  As reported in The New York Times, drinking water is the latest casualty of conflict.^[1]   The violence of war has brought with it the despair of dry taps.  

The creative adaptations and resilience of Damascus residents is in full swing. In one woman’s words: “‘When you cut off the water, we dig for water. When you cut off the tap, we make a tap.’”

The Barada Valley, north of Damascus, provides...

In November 2016, India and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on water management and development. The countries identified desalination as a key point of focus for their collaboration.  India’s Minister of State for Water Resources, Sanjeev Balyan, pointed to the country’s interest in developing desalination technology via the Department of Science & Technology.  The department has supported reverse osmosis technology for brackish- and seawater-desalination plants, as well as hybrid solar technologies...

In western Australia, the Government of Premier Colin Barnett has committed $37 million to the $380 million project for works on the Wellington Dam. This money would be allocated towards diverting water from the Collie River away from the Dam—in order to desalinate it for farmers.  Premier Barnett indicated that this plan would help drop salinity levels in the dam by over 50 percent, over the next few years.^[1] Even though the dam is western Australia’s second largest surface water reservoir—drought has rendered the water highly saline,...

In Abu Dhabi, Masdar will present the technical results of a pilot program that may seeks to advance environmentally-friendly desalination in the commercial sector.^[1]  The program began last year with four small-scale plants that tested renewable energies; and concluded with five plants. French engineering company Mascara added the final plant to the program this past October.^[2]

Last month, Prince Charles visited Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute of Science and Technology during his state visit.^[3]  Ms. Al Mazrui, the Minister of...

Poseidon is currently awaiting the outcome of its planned desalination facility in Huntington Beach, California.  The company has attempted to employ an exemption in new legislation, which requires desalination facilities to use subsurface intakes to collect seawater—unless these intakes prove economically or technically infeasible.^[1]

Over the years, the company has vigorously lobbied California state regulators.  The Los Angeles Times reports that Poseidon has spent more than $1.6 million on lobbying as well as campaign...

The fate of Poseidon’s desalination plant in Huntington Beach, California has yet to be determined.^[1]  New legislation ratified by the Environmental Protection Agency in April 2016 requires desalination plants in California to use subsurface intake pipes to collect seawater from coastal aquifers and/or off-shore aquifers beneath the ocean floor.^[2]  However, if economic or technical issues make the use of subsurface intakes unfeasible, desalination plants may use open intakes instead.  These structures collect water directly...

A civil war in Yemen has devastated the nation and its water infrastructure. The government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi is engaged in an ongoing conflict over the fate of the nation with Houthi rebel forces.  Since March 2015, more than 6,800 people have been killed, and 35,000 people who have been injured.^[1]  Amid this devastation, the nation’s water infrastructure has also been under attack.^[2]

A list of alleged attacks on Yemeni water infrastructure includes a January 2016 attack on a seawater desalination plant located...

In Bushehr, Iran, along the Persian Gulf, officials are building nuclear power plants that will be paired with two desalination facilities.^[1]  Each facility will have the capacity to produce 200,000 cubic metres of water per day. 

In early December, the country’s central bank will release the first payment for the two plants, which cost a combined total of USD $9.4 million.^[2]

The city council of San Diego will soon introduce a water reuse scheme known as Pure Water.^[3]  By 2021, the $3 billion (USD) scheme will recycle...

In Chennai, India, the municipal water agency Metrowater has issued tenders for a new reverse osmosis plant near the Bay of Bengal.  Metrowater is now pursuing bids for a 20-year design and build contract; consultancy services for supervised construction; and monitoring services for environmental and social impact._[1]

The new facility will become Chennai’s third desalination plant.  It is expected to produce 150,000 cubic metres of water per day, which will be carried 40 kilometres within Chennai, from a location next to...

Last week, Chinese officials commissioned a desalination plant in the contested territory of the South China Sea.  As reported in the Times of India, China is looking to strengthen its presence in the maritime region, having hitherto invested in island-building and naval patrols.^[1] The neighbouring countries of Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei also claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea (SCS), and its island chains, the Paracels and the Spratlys. The sea is an important base for maritime fishing operations,...

Persistent drought in Iran is changing the landscape, and the lives of those who tend to it. Across a parched farm belt, 60 miles southeast of Tehran, “Watermelons once sprung from th[e] soil, the giant striped fruit dotting the arid landscape like mushrooms after a rain.”^[1]  Now, “the dusty earth crunches underfoot like biscuits.” As reported in The Los Angeles Times, farmers in Iran, like those in California’s Central Valley, have suffered deeply from the damaging effects of persistent drought. Problems with “environmental...