water desalination
salt water to fresh water
what is desalination?
The purpose of this is to create the water suitable for drinking water and other human uses. This can also be used to make the water suitable for industrial uses. The most common technology for desalination is called Reverse Osmosis. Desalination uses the principle of osmosis to remove salt and other impurities by transferring water through a series of semi permeable membranes.
cost
Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot, witch is about the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. Although the Pacific Institute find that the cost to produce water from a desalination plant is high, with recent estimates for plants proposed in the state from $1,900 to more than $3,000 per acre-foot.
Impact on the environment
positive impacts
negative impacts
Water desalination has a huge impact on the marine life. When the water is filtered he highly concentrated brine is put back into the ocean.
Fish and other marine organisms are killed on the intake screens. Organisms’ small enough to pass through, such as plankton, fish eggs, and larvae, are killed during processing of the salt water. This is obviously a negative impact on the environment and marine life.
over time this could be very concerning. The long term effects on this could be very negative. if this continues some marine life could be in danger, due to the great amount of small organisms being killed.
Impact for humans
positive impacts
its so important to filter salt water because too much salt can be fatal, ingesting salt signals your cells to flush water molecules to dilute the mineral, this process causes a chain reaction. your cells would be depleted of moisture, your kidneys would shut down and you brain would become damages
negative impacts
impact on the water
intresting facts
2)Reverse-osmosis desalination was invented in California in the 1950s.
3)“Energy is the largest single expense for desalination plants, accounting for as much as half of the costs to make drinking water from the sea.”
4)Desalination plants around the world consume more than 200 million kilowatt-hours each day
key sources
athirstyplanet.com
pacinst.org