22
Jul
16

“Future fresh water is in the sea and not in the clouds!!

Having went around scouting for green sustainable energy for several years, having conducted several international workshops and conferences, MASDAR now realized that geothermal is superior to SOLAR PV for power generation and to provide large volumes of fresh water. Top- brass executives sitting in glass houses and ivory towers forget the basics/fundamentals of energy economics and processes. The “mass”: having no knowledge about the potential of difference green energy sources follow the leader blindly only to hit a road block while arriving at the selling cost of unit of power. Any modals, mathematical computation, new formulae, people forget , can not, over night bring down the unit cost of solar pv based electricity. There is a science behind it. “Better late than never” proverb is very apt here. The UNFC, having realised the potential of geothermal, has come out with a document specification to geothermal that is being circulated to experts for comments. IGA actively participated in the preparation of the document. GeoSyndicate from India actively participated during the initial preparation of the draft document. The Dubai electricity and water supply is now keen in using geothermal energy sources for desalination. This concept and proposal has already been published in the following paper

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Desalination of Seawater using Geothermal Energy to Meet Future Fresh Water Demand of Saudi Arabia
D. Chandrasekharam, A. Lashin, N. Al Arifi, A. Al Bassam & C. Varun

Water Resour Manage
DOI 10.1007/s11269-016-1419-2

Abstract The future economy of the Middle East countries (GDP growth) depends on the availability of fresh water for domestic and agricultural sectors. Saudi Arabia, for example, consumes 275 L/day per capita of water that is generated from desalination process using 134 x 106 kWh of electricity. With 6 % population growth rate, demand for fresh water from fossil fuel based desalination plants will grow at an alarming rate. It has been reported that Saudi Arabia’s reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity and generate fresh water through desalination using the same energy source is economically and politically unsustainable. This may lead to destabilisation of the global economy. However, Saudi Arabia has large geothermal resources along the Red Sea coast that can be developed to generate power and support the generation of fresh water through desalination. The cost of fresh water can be further lowered from the current US$ 0.03/m3. Among the gulf countries, Saudi Arabia can become the leader in controlling CO2 emissions and mitigating the impact on climate change and agricultural production. This will enable the country to meet the growing demand of food and energy for the future population for several decades and to reduce food imports.

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Not only the gulf countries, but all other water stressed countries have no option but to look at geothermal to meet future energy and get safe drinking water. This will off set future “water world war”!! Countries have to be food and water secured if its population want to live decent life above the poverty line. Countries should wakeup and realize this truth before it is too late……that proverb may not work here…..perhaps!!!!