Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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The Feb. 18 letter “Desalination can change the world” suggests that the installation of dozens of desalination plants along the California coast could help to solve the problems of world sea level rise and drought caused by climate change.
The total volume of water in the interconnected world oceans is around 346 quintillion gallons (346 followed by 18 zeros). The volume of freshwater produced by the largest desalination plant in North America, the Poseidon plant near San Diego, produces 50 million gallons of freshwater by reverse osmosis daily when operated at full capacity. This is less than 10% of the needs of San Diego alone.
If it were possible to build say, 50 of these Poseidon-sized plants in California (and it is not possible, for all sorts of technical, siting, cost and energy reasons), that would theoretically allow 2.5 billion gallons a day (0.0000000007%) of the total volume of ocean water to be removed every day — not nearly equal to the daily inflow from the world’s rivers and land-based ice melt. This would be roughly equivalent to attempting to lower the level of Lake Mead with a few five-gallon buckets while the Colorado River is flowing in.
As for solving the West’s drought problems, it would take at least 10 desalination plants just to supply an amount equal to the current water use of Las Vegas.
