Desalination has been around along time. It’s estimated there are 15,000 desalination plants operating around the world. Nevertheless, the desalination industry has never been as mainstream, as say wind farms or even solar power plants. But water shortages are globally occurring with an unprecedented regularity, and with new technologies and rising demand, the construction of desalination plants is ready to skyrocket. There are two common means of desalination; distillation and RO (Reverse Osmosis). In distillation, salt water or other undrinkable water is brought to the boiling point. As steam is created, the water vapor separates from the salt, which is left behind in a tank or vat. The steam vapor is collected and cooled in another tank, as drinkable water. In RO desalination plants, the contaminated water is forced through a very fine membrane and like a strainer the impurities are blocked and potable water comes out the other side. Riding the RO Wave Christopher Gasson, publisher of UK-based Global Water Intelligence (GWI ) told AJOT that  desalination solutions are being developed for a variety of global end users ranging from rising populations in China and India to drought-stricken U.S. states such as California.  Due to the shift from older thermal technology condensing salt water to newer filtration membranes using the reverse osmosis (RO) method, energy costs have dropped by 50% over the last decade, he says. RO is considered more Eco-friendly than thermal distillation. Improved filtration technology reduces the impact on marine life with the water intake through pipes. Also, new technology better disperses the brine solution generated by the filtration process back onto the seabed. The filtration membrane market is still small- about $928-million in sales per year but expected to rise. Globally the four major producers, Dow Chemical-USA, Toray-Japan, Nitto Denko- Japan, NanoH2O-USA have a dominate position in the marketplace, but that might be changing. Gasson expects that China will become a desalination plant and component producer as it faces serious water shortages for both its people and industry. However, the market is in a slump now. Gasson says sales have declined since 2008 due to cutbacks in government spending that have adversely impacted big infrastructure projects including desalination. New desalination capacity was expected to increase during 2013 by 50% over 2012, according to the International Desalination Association (IDA) and GWI DesalData. Desalination plants with a total capacity of 6-million cubic meters per day (m3/d) are expected to come online during 2013, compared with 4-million m3/d in 2012.  The IDA/GWI noted: “Seawater desalination continues to represent the largest percentage of online global capacity at 59%, followed by brackish water at 22%, river water at 9%, and wastewater and pure water at 5%.” The report said, “Markets which are expected to see the fastest growth in desalination over the next five years are: South Africa, Jordan, Mexico, Libya, Chile, India and China, all of which are expected to more than double their desalination capacity.”  When it Rains? Floating Desalination Plants Gasson says new ships and barges might address variability in demand and location as they are not in fixed locations with heavy capital investments and can be moved based on climate changes and droughts. He notes that changes in weather patterns could impact the investment in large-scale desalination plants. For example, he further notes, the new Carlsbad desalination plant near San Diego, California took ten-years to begin construction because of regulatory and permit issues. The project now seems timely because of the drought in California and is estimated to cost $1billion. A desalination consultant told AJOT the plant will generate 50-million gallons per day and is expandable to 100-millions gallons of desalinated water per day. “But if the rains return next year, will it be seen as such a good investment?” Gasson says a floating desalination plant can be moored alongside a pier for long periods of time to separate seawater into fresh water and distribute it into shore side tanks or a pipeline.  He cited a floating desalination plant located on a barge that could generate 5.5 million gallons of fresh water per day or 20,000 cubic meters. A company called Subsea Infrastructure is selling its plant on the island of Cyprus.  Gasson notes that another option is for new water carriers, such as single hull tankers or bladders, to fill up with water from Northern locations near ice packs and mountains and transport the water to locations with water shortages. A number of promoters have advanced such plans but not much has happened. Whether deploying ships/barges or building new desalination plants ashore, Gasson says new port facilities will need to be built to handle the huge filtration and/or transportation of water. Port facilities would require: • Water treatment facilities to meet sanitary standards • Pumping facilities to transfer water to shore side • Storage facilities such as tanks • Pipeline or truck connections to deliver water to end users • Permitting State of Industry Lisa Henthorne, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Water Standard based in Tampa, Florida said of the state of the industry,  “There was a tremendous growth of the desalination industry from about 1998 to 2008 but after the economic downturn the spending on infrastructure and water treatment lost steam. Our company began looking at desalination solutions on a barge for municipal users but the business model struggled to take off…We have evolved the company in favor of providing desalinated water to the oil and gas industry in which we provided water that is used for enhanced oil recovery, and the barge.. we provide is also used for chemical storage.” Henthorne says “You need a steady source of demand and we have not been able to find that amongst municipalities. There is also disaster relief but this is a temporary function so you do not have the steady demand that could pay for the investment of a barge system.” Cyprus’ Subsea system (cited by Gasson) “ was developed while they were building a desalination plant there, but after the plant was finished there was no need for the floating system and they have been trying to sell it for years without a buyer. “ Henthorne believes that conservation and water treatment of municipal wastewater and irrigation water can create significant new water supplies using the same membrane system used for seawater desalination, but at a lower cost: “Conservation and water treatment are both ways that you can increase your water supply more cheaply than through seawater desalination.” Randy Truby, desalination consultant and comptroller for IDA says: ”Mobile units such as the Water Standard barge are hard to amortize as a business for the reasons that Lisa gave you. But there is a need for mobile and sea-going units for disasters such as Katrina and Haiti or temporary drought situations such as we have this year in California. We need to have some federal role available, so that if you need 5-10 million gallons of water per day coming into a community for a temporary period that capability is available. Otherwise, you face water rationing, economic slow downs and billions in losses to agricultural producers which is what we have seen in California, Texas and Florida.” Devesh Sharma, managing director of Aquatech and an IDA director, says that business is “solid” but admits things have slowed down since 2008. His company serves customers in the power, oil and gas, and chemical processing industries. Aquatech is building a large desalination plant in India where the company will sell water. In addition to strides in popular technologies such as reverse osmosis, Sharma is hopeful that a cadre of emerging technologies has the potential to provide a step change to the economics of desalination. For example, a new technology called ‘membrane distillation’ can reduce costs by using solar/photovoltaic cells to heat salt water. A Singapore research paper describes the process: “Membrane distillation (MD) combines both membrane technology and evaporation processing in one unit… The Singapore government recently showed its commitment to solar energy technology by allocating S$170-million towards its research and development.” Sharma says, “History has taught us that innovation is a constant process and that we have the potential to bring costs down through effort and innovation.” California: Watershed for desalination in US? Gasson says the drought in California has very serious implications to the state’s agricultural growers and for consumers in big cities such as Los Angeles. He notes there is competition between agricultural growers and city consumers: “The carrot growing industry in California’s Central Valley consumes as much water as the City of Los Angeles, so there the answer might be for Los Angeles to buy water from the growers and stop growing carrots.” Randy Truby, the Southern California-based consultant, believes that communities such as Carlsbad California are doing the right thing in securing a sufficient water supply: “The significance of the Carlsbad plant is that it represents an investment by a Southern California community in establishing its own independent water resource … as water supply from the Colorado River and Northern California decline. Southern California needs its own independent source of water because population is rising and there are periodic droughts, and it doesn’t rain much here.”