Floating desalination plants are relatively new technologies and are not as common as traditional land-based desalination plants. Almost none of the designers of the proposed or installed projects indicate that the environment drives the design, and only a few methods are evaluated environmentally. This document highlights the significant role of environmental practices in achieving sustainable design, where most environmental impact assessment procedures are performed before the design phase. Throughout the investigation, the comparison of alternatives and the baseline analysis provided reliable technical assistance in the selection tasks of the proposed project location, desalination technology, energy source and configuration of the platform. Therefore, detailed technical descriptions of different systems are presented. Finally, the environmental impacts associated with the operation of the proposed floating desalination plant in the selected location are evaluated to guide the monitoring and mitigation processes necessary to improve the performance of the process, minimize adverse environmental impacts, and ensure the sustainability of the project.
Only 3% of the water on
the planet is fresh, leaving us with 97 per cent saltwater and less than that!
Two-thirds of the Earth's freshwater freezes as snow and ice on glaciers and
polar ice caps.
Only 1% of all water on
Earth is liquid and not salty, making it a very precious and scarce resource.
Taking advantage of the
large reserve of saltwater by 97% makes sense in regions where the availability
of fresh water is limited, but there is an abundance of saltwater. These
regions, the main parts of the Middle East and Africa, often have many
renewable energy sources, such as sunlight. And why not use sunlight, one of
the most abundant renewable energy resources, to counteract freshwater
scarcity?
Floating Water Desalination Plant is a costly
process that can only provide highly stressed regions with domestic and
municipal use. The large land area required for renewable energy devices to
meet the demand for desalination energy made the process sometimes more
expensive. Floating Desalination rags (FDP) are relatively new technologies and
are not as common as traditional onshore desalination plants.
Seawater desalination
processes can be divided into two leading technologies: thermal distillation
that uses heat to evaporate seawater. A membrane technique that uses membranes
as barriers to pass water and retain salts selectively. Membrane technologies
are more common, having absorbed more than 73% of the global installed capacity
of desalination plants.
Around the world,
desalination is considered a possible answer to avoid the water crisis.
What are desalination
plants?
A desalination plant
converts salty water into drinking water. The most commonly used technology for
the process is reverse osmosis. External pressure is applied to push solvents
from an area of high solute concentration to a place of low solute
concentration through a membrane. The microscopic pores in the membranes allow
the water molecules to pass through but leave the salt and most other
impurities behind, releasing clean water on the other side. These plants are
mainly installed in areas that have access to seawater.
1) Progressive
improvements in the performance of reverse osmosis membranes have greatly
improved the use of seawater desalination as an alternative for the production
of fresh and potable water.
2) Seawater
desalination systems have been used for decades, and their method has proven
effective in creating new sources of high-quality drinking water that is
considered safe and reliable. The process has been established in many
industries and applications over the years.
3) As the freshwater
supply in our plant is limited, we must preserve its resources using the
desalination method to eliminate the water scarcity crisis that the world could
face.
4) Seawater is an
almost inexhaustible source for producing fresh water through desalination, so
there will be sufficient access to freshwater supply even in times of drought.
5) Unlike other
solutions that rely heavily on uncontrollable factors such as rain or snow,
seawater desalination systems do not rely on anything other than the ocean or
seawater.
6) Desalination plants
are generally located far from residential areas, and some of them are located
in industrial areas, so they do not put residential regions at risk.
7) Desalination plants can
reduce pressure on freshwater sources. Viewing the ocean as a water supply
could help raise awareness about protecting our oceans.
The increasing cost of
establishing and operating a desalination plant is one reason you should select
the best Marine Equipment Suppliers in UAE.
Desalination is an expensive way to generate drinking water as it requires a
large amount of energy. The other problem is the removal of the by-product -
highly concentrated brine - from the desalination process. While in most places,
the brine is pumped back into the sea, there have been growing complaints that
it ends up seriously damaging the local ecology around the plant.
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