Australia's First Large-Scale Desalination Plant Now Online Near Perth

[hatrack]

Perth residents are now drinking water sourced from the Indian Ocean, Premier Alan Carpenter said this morning. Mr Carpenter said that Australia’s first, large-scale seawater desalination plant was now operating at Kwinana and delivering drinking water into Perth’s public supply system.

“I am delighted that desalinated water is now circulating within Perth’s supply system and that we have a major new source of fresh drinking water direct from the Indian Ocean,” Mr Carpenter said. “Western Australia has become the first State in Australia to use desalination as a major public water source. “By harnessing water from the ocean, we have acquired an abundant source that is not dependent on rainfall. Our State is developing at an unprecedented rate and it is essential that we have access to substantial amounts of water to meet the huge demands being placed on our supply system.”

The Kwinana desalination plant is an integral part of the State Government’s security through diversity approach to water management. Other initiatives include accessing new surface and groundwater sources, water recycling programs, water trading with irrigators, the Waterwise rebate programs and catchment management.

The Kwinana plant will reach its maximum output in two months’ time, and commissioning will be completed in April 2007. When fully operational it will produce on average 130 million litres per day and supply 17 per cent of Perth’s needs.

EDIT

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=13614

Note/Question - the article claims later that the plant is powered by a nearby wind farm. As I understood it, desalination is an extremely energy-intensive process - is that possible? If so, cool!

[kestrel91316]

1. Wind-powered desalination. I could REALLY get behind that!

[Bobbieo]

2. There is one in Yuma.. AZ that has been shut down

operated by the Bureau of Reclamation. Time to revive it as we have had only ONE decent rainfall since March

[Cobalt-60]

3. It depends on how you do it

The simplest way to desalinate water is boil it (and condense the steam to fresh water).
35 grams of icky salt are left in the boiler for every kilogram of sea water processed.
This takes a fair amount of energy, though it can usually be accomplished in the areas that need it most with solar power.
There are other chemical processes like reverse osmosis that will do the job too.

[hunter]

6. Reverse Osmosis has recently become the preferred process.

RO plants are now "the simplest way to desalinate water." In comparison, the commonly used multi-stage flash desalination (an evaporation/condensation system) is much more difficult to install and maintain.

Ocean water is very hard on materials. Corrosion and scaling are not so much of a problem in RO systems. Furthermore, RO units are highly modular and operate at safe temperatures. (Hot water is VERY dangerous stuff!)



http://www.water-technology.net/projects/perth/perth1.html

[Cobalt-60]

7. It's some beautiful technology

But I prefer the simplicity of a stainless steel boiler at the focus of polished stainless mirrors.
I will grant that the focused light and steam are more hazardous than the RO array.
But boiling water and buffing steel plates are within the technical reach of the poorest nations.

[Dead_Parrot]

4. It would seem...

..after a 5 minute google-fest, the plant is run off the grid, but "WA Premier Alan Carpenter deflected that by opening a wind farm to offset the energy used" link

[NNadir]

5. In theory, this is an ideal application for power from wind.

The plant could run off excess capacity available in the middle of the night for instance, when other demand is lower, but the wind is blowing anyway.

As a practical matter though, I'll bet that operations at the plant will be in no way connected to the availability of the wind. It will run continuously I bet, and when the wind isn't blowing, run on coal. The plant probably will not shut down on still days.