US bill seeks major desalination research expansion
Before I get started let me show you some serious eye candy I found this past month. The noise to signal ratio for the last couple of years on global warming is running about 100/1. Here’s a very good explanation of why. Take a look at this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) graphic of mean temperatures in the USA. Notice the sudden drop off at the end?
Here’s also a NASA graph of the sunspot cycle along with NASA’s prediction for when the sunspot cycle will turn up again.. It shows we’re at a solar minimum. Here’s something more interesting. Here’s a graphic that shows how NASA’s prediction of the next upturn in the solar cycle has changed since 2004. It keeps being pushed further out into the future. That might help to explain the increasing cacophony in the global warming debate.
It may well turn out to be that carbon dioxide will turn out to be a case of correlation without causation in the global warming debate. Here is the Best Discussion of Global Warming that I’ve ever seen.
I heard that some folks were pretty discouraged after MSSC conference in January. For that reason its kind of encouraging to see a bill introduced to congress that would accelerate the pace of desalination research along the terms discussed by the water energy conference in Janaury.
US bill seeks major desalination research expansion
US Senate hearings began on 10 March 2009 into a bill on the relationship between energy and water which could have wide implications for desalination research, both in the US and internationally.
I like the US part. I’m not sure what to make of the international part.¬† Right now major US desalination players like GE and IBM have already teamed up with overseas players. IBM has teamed up with Saudi Arabia and a Japanese company called Central Glassto do research. GE has teamed up with Singapore to set up a research facility there. I don’t think that GE or IBM could long play the international game as they have done — without maintaining some control over their IP. But I could be wrong. Right or wong the US is going to need to hold onto IP in order to get competitive advantage to change capital flows so we can pay our bills. The proper question framed appropriately for federal state & local officials up and down the chain of command is this: How do we grow our tax base. This is the way smart state governors think.
The hearings relate to a new bill introduced by the leaders of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Jeff Bingaman and Lisa Murkowski, titled Energy & Water Integration 2009. This seeks to order the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, to arrange with the National Academy of Sciences for an in-depth analysis of the impact of energy development and production on the water resources of the United States.
Sounds good. No? The National Committee of Sciences will have a chance to make up for the disinterested report they put out last year.
However, more importantly for desalination, the bill seeks to authorize funds to enable the Secretary of the Interior to operate and manage the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Otero County, New Mexico, as a state-of-the-art desalination research center. The center would develop new water and energy technologies with widespread applicability; and create new supplies of usable water for municipal, agricultural, industrial or environmental purposes.
Somebody got it right. Thank You. Now maybe in two years the US will have a dedicated desal and reuse laboratory on par with Saudi Arabia and Singapore. What’s most amazing about the bill is that the report they want produced is susposed to come out in 90 days:
If the bill is passed the Secretary of Energy would have 90 days to develop an ”Energy-Water Research and Development Roadmap to define the future research, development, demonstration and commercialization efforts that are required to address emerging water-related challenges to future, cost-effective, reliable and sustainable energy generation and production”.
I think this would be a good way to get all interested parties (including but not limited to the GOA, DOI, DOE, EPA)to release funds for various desalination and water reuse projects. The article continues:
As a priority, says the bill, renewable energy technologies should be developed for integration with desalination technologies:
# to reduce the capital and operational costs of desalination;
# to minimize the environmental impacts of desalination; and
# to increase public acceptance of desalination as a viable water supply process.In addition, the bill wants:
# research regarding various desalination processes, including improvements in reverse and forward osmosis technologies;
# development of innovative methods and technologies to reduce the volume and cost of desalination concentrated wastes in an environmentally sound manner;
# an outreach program to create partnerships with US states, academic institutions, private entities and other appropriate organizations to conduct research, development and demonstration activities;
# an outreach program to educate the public on desalination and renewable energy technologies and the benefits of using water in an efficient manner.
I would add to this list that research be done on energy efficient cheaper to produce and maintain pipelines. The tool set for 3d prototyping is evolving faster than the materials & designs that can be used with it. As well, I would mention the OSTP report entitled “A Strategy for Federal Science and Technology to Support Water Availability and Quality in the United States September, 2007.” on the national challenges to ensure adequate fresh water supplies. The study then outlines a federal strategic plan for addressing these challenges and provides a guide for how federal agencies will be a part of this plan. I give more detail on that from a Jan 2008 MSSC blog.
I think that as part of that a helpful thing to do would be to include efficient reverse and forward osmosis membranes onto the list of strategic material research goals in the already architected NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. Heck I’d throw in easy to build and maintain energy efficient pipelines too. And don’t forget line item funding so these projects land inbox.
Anyhow, everyone would do well to do their part make this study go through.
I mentioned in a previous desalination post a bunch of ways that renewable energy projects could be integrated with desalination projects. As well, the Oasys forward osmosis project –that I mentioned in the last post — gives a body pause:
Oasys estimates that engineered osmosis will cost US$ 0.37-0.44/m¬? once fully scaled up. The startup has so far established a pilot-scale plant to test the technology by producing 1 m¬?/d.
That’s $431@acre foot to $542.8@acre foot. When you consider that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is charging $800@acre ft… Oasys numbers take on a whole new meaning. In fact, those meanings cut six ways to Sunday. Oasys mentions California in their press release
The company’s patented EOTM process can produce drinking water at less than half the cost of current desalination methods. This is accomplished by eliminating the need for high-pressures used in modern Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems, thereby reducing the electricity and fuel demands by more than 90%. The result is a reduction in the economics of seawater desalination that will ultimately bring the cost of producing water from our vast oceans below the cost of conventional surface water, such as the aqueduct system used in the California State Water Project
To get those low numbers Oasys forward osmosis system has to use waste heat from sources like coal plants plants near the coast.
Now combine Oasys work with this: (Click) Here’s break through in production costs for algae oil.
A coal plant — that can also produce fresh water and carbon neutral oil…– is golden.
There will be a congressional hearing on algae oil soon — that, I think, will result in algae supplanting sequestration as the carbon capture method of choice.
But Oasys could also work well with a thermal solar power plant like the one in Nevada. So where ever you had plenty of sun above a brackish aquifer — and say –400 acres of relatively cheap land–as is available in New Mexico or West Texas — you could put up a solar thermal plant with a Oasys forward osmosis desalination plant because the internal processes are nearly identical–in fact the flash vaporization used by the thermal solar power plant to drive its electrical generators might also take the salt out of solution in the Oasys forward osmosis solution. Actually, Oasys has already talked about something just like this idea.
Here’s a couple more ideas. It may well be that some of the concentrated salts left over from desalination can be used in this hot salt battery or peak production of solar power/wind/coal could be stored as methane with a bacteria that produces it directly from water and carbon dioxide. Here’s the first paper I’ve seen which discusses how the properties of Na+ and Cl- ion in saltwater could be used to create hydrogen.
There are some cost savings there that might justify the costs of tapping deep brackish aquifers in New Mexico that are currently experiencing a big gold rush.
Finally before I take the long view, I believe that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite energy and desalting ideas. My favorite energy idea: Its my favorite because I thought of it myself. Ha! Here goes. Here is a high school teacher dropping a lump of pure sodium into a bucket of water. Notice the nice big bang? Here’s a bit calmer explanation. How much energy would it take to convert sodium in solution Na+ to pure sodium Na. Then could you harness profitably the exothermic reaction that results from adding pure sodium to water? Beats me. But sheesh it would be way cool to convert salt water economically into power as well as energy. I mention a wild strategy for converting Na+ to Na here. I’m sure there are many more.
Ok now for my favorite desalting research idea. I first mentioned it here. As I’ve said many times, the chief end of seawater desalination R&D should be a a pipe with a semipermiable membrane on the end. The membrane should be so efficient that the water pressure at 100-300 feet of ocean water is sufficient to drive fresh water through the membrane–while the coastal current carries off the concentrate. Ideally you would have slant drilled from the coast. “Slant well” — means you drill down 200-400 feet or so and then drill sidways and up out into the ocean- +-1000 feet–depending on how steep the drop off –so the up sloping drill hole meets the down sloping ocean bed — at the point where the drill emerges from the ocean bed at 100-300 feet of water. A ship floats over the drill and drops in a passive desalter that looks like an underwater mushroom. The mushroom desalter synches with the drill head just like it would if it were an oil well. Fresh water flows through the membraned mushroom downhill to shore. The oil drilling industry already has the ships, the underwater installation and drilling technology. City of Carpinteria near Santa Barbara in California is negotiating with Venoco over their proposed Paredon Project. Venoco wants to drill down a mile or so and then drill sideways a couple more miles out into the Santa Barbara Channel for oil. A helpful provision for their contract would be a slant well for water purposes. The membranes and mushroom to make this work are not available now. But they will be in two or three years. The job for now would be to drill the well and cap it, spend two years designing the mushroom and the membranes for installation in 2011-12. Funding for the experiment could come from several different players including Venoco, the DOI, EPA & DOE. The design for the underwater mushroom would go the the firms that supply underwater oil equipment for Venoco working in conjunction with some American membrane plant designer.
Ok now for the view from eight miles high.
As I mentioned at the MSSC conference in January — everyone knows about great works of the water guys in the early 20th century. Everyone has seen the discovery channel pictures of salt water on Mars–so its not too tough to figure what will be the work of water men in the 22nd century–(or earlier if the rate of change keeps accelerating.) What’s hard to figure is the big plan for the 21st century–on the scale that dam building was for the 20th century–or desalination on Mars. The reason for this is that on the one hand we have legacy ideology from the 1960′s that holds that there are too many people, growth is bad, but it won’t matter anyway because the oceans are rising and they will drown the coastal cities. On the other hand, because of fast tracking technolgical change–perhaps more powerful than that in the early 20th century –there is a rebirth of early 20th century thinking that holds there is plenty of room for more people, growth is good and the way you enable more room for more people is to bring water and power to waterless and powerless places. Take southern california. Whether you believe rising sea levels will drown the coastal cities or whether you believe that future growth is inland over the coastal mountains to the deserts–the answer to providing water and power for the future is the same–because people will either be pushed inland by rising sea levels or pulled inland by new water and power resources. That is, prudent water managers have to either plan for disaster by providing water and energy for the day the population has to move inland to escape rising sea levels OR prudent managers will have to believe there is a better brighter future ahead and plan for it as Hoover did. Actually Herbert Hoover’s thinking involved both propositions above. He wanted to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. The genesis for the colorado river project and the hoover dam was the terrible flooding of the Colorado that just wiped whole communities in the early 20th century. When Hoover wrote the initial enabling legislation in 1922 for the Hoover dam, a lot of the technology to build the dam and create the hydropower had not been invented. We are in the midst of just such a period of extraordinary scientific and technological development. A good thing too though the problem this time is not floods but drought.
Regular readers of this blog know that while I advocate all kinds of desalination techniques–I believe the big water solution for the 21 century comes from the ocean. Therefor the goal of water desalination R&D should be to collapse the cost of desalination and transport so that water delivered from the gulf of Mexico to New Mexico or water delivered from the pacific to arizona or utah –even desalted water delivered over the cascades to eastern Oregon and Washington–is cheap enough for agricultural uses that is < than 100@acre foot. Instead of 100 million dollar desalination plants there should be just a 4 million dollar pipe you stick in the ocean. Water flows downhill to shore by way of slant well drilling. Cheap to manufacture and maintain pipelines with minimum energy pipe the water inland. What energy is needed is drawn from the sun/wind/heat or the water itself. The goal is to turn the deserts green, and increase the potential habitable size of the USA by 1/3. The USA having then created the technology could export it to the rest of the world profitably and double the size of habitable planet. Anyone who follows — not just the research–but the development of new research tools — knows that this is what’s implied by the work in the labs.
In January, 2008 I mentioned that all the candidates both Republican and Democratic mentioned the need for energy independence. The republicans, especially, made the comparison between the the call for energy independence today and the race to moon in the 1960′s and the Manhattan project in the 1940′s.
According to this article dated 3/8/09 the Obama administration takes a similiar tack.
Now energy experts and officials in the Obama administration see a similar “Sputnik moment,” urgent and global in scope, over energy use and climate change. And they want to try some new ventures, similar to efforts in the Cold War, to stimulate technological advances in energy and shift the economy away from oil and coal.
Deep in the $787 billion stimulus bill that became law two weeks ago is $400 million to launch ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Authority for Energy. It’s modeled after the Pentagon’s DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which took on Soviet technology and gave us online shopping in the process.
Needless to say, typically, it takes water to make energy and you need energy to make clean water.