Question: Can you find a way to de-salinate cheaply?

Mark Greaves answered on 23 Jun 2014:

Hi Alex,

The biggest cost for desalination plants is the electricity because of the reverse osmosis process.
There are two ways to tackle this:
1. develop new technology – this will probably take a lot of research and development before it is commercially available
2. use free energy, like that generating by digesting sewage sludge

Also desalination plants need to be near a salt water source, these are usually at low ground level so all the drinking water produced would need to be pumped, this is a very expensive thing to do. In the Nort West we use reservoirs in hills to allow us to use gravity to distribute water cheaply.

Mark