Full Description

Water desalination using membranes is an increasingly attractive option toproduce potable water for the growing Texas population. Technological advances indesalination, shifting market conditions, and increasingly stringent drinkingwater treatment regulations are making membrane desalination more attractiverelative to conventional drinking water treatment. Rapid expansion in populationhas benefited the Texas economy but it is also straining the water resources ofthe state. Recognizing this condition, the Texas Legislature enacted Senate Bill1 to support water supply and drought contingency planning within the state. Aspart of the SB1 planning process several Texas regions are evaluating options forreverse osmosis membrane desalination of seawater for potable water supply. Thispresentation will highlight the development process and status of thesedesalination water supply options showing the factors that are shaping thedesalination water supply landscape of the future. The Tampa Regional WaterSupply project in Florida recently received proposals to build a large capacity(approximately 25 million gallons per day (MGD)) seawater reverse osmosis (RO)system where the product water costs were lower by a factor of 2 to 3 times thanthose previously observed for other large-scale seawater desalination facilities.Results will be presented that capture the factors leading to this major advancein seawater desalination and their potential application along the Texas Coast.These factors were incorporated into a membrane plant cost-estimating model and ageneral framework was developed for making siting decisions for seawaterdesalination on the Texas Coast. Results indicate that many of the low costfactors for the Tampa Bay seawater desalination facility, with the possibleexception of inexpensive concentrate disposal, may be applicable to the Texascoast thereby opening the door for large-scale seawater desalination to play avital role in the future water supply of Texas. Includes 9 references, tables, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 05/01/2001 Number of Pages: 20 File Size: 1 file , 480 KB