Dying croplands and dehydrated people are expensive too. We can somehow afford to build crude oil pipelines from Canada to Houston Texas, but desalination is always “too expensive”.
It’s just a matter of priorities. California built a desalination plant in the 90s but then mothballed it. Thankfully they’ve come to their senses, refurbished it, and opened a number of additional plants since then.
Israel gets 55% of its water through desalination and the UAE over 40%. It’s all over the US too, El Paso, TX, for example gets 25% of its water through the desalination of brackish groundwater
I was under the impression large scale desalinization is prohibitively expensive, is that not the case?
Dying croplands and dehydrated people are expensive too. We can somehow afford to build crude oil pipelines from Canada to Houston Texas, but desalination is always “too expensive”.
It’s just a matter of priorities. California built a desalination plant in the 90s but then mothballed it. Thankfully they’ve come to their senses, refurbished it, and opened a number of additional plants since then.
https://californiacurated.com/2025/03/13/salt-to-salvation-the-desalination-revolution-in-californias-drought-battle/
Thanks, point noted. I’ll give this a read later
Israel gets 55% of its water through desalination and the UAE over 40%. It’s all over the US too, El Paso, TX, for example gets 25% of its water through the desalination of brackish groundwater
My understanding is that its very energy intensive and thats where the economic pressure happens. Cheap (and clean) power makes it viable.