California wades into desalination business

The first of 17 desalination plants proposed for California sailed through what most thought would be the most difficult part of the permitting process today, winning approval from the California Coastal Commission with a 9-3 majority vote.

The plant, slated for Carlsbad, is being designed, built, and operated by Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources Inc., a company that specializes in desalination plants and was involved in the early stages of the first large-scale American plant in Tampa. The company's plans must be officially certified by the State Lands Commission, but it's highly unlikely the commission won't approve the plans, according to industry analysts.

The plant, which underwent the state's permitting process in May 2006, has been met with much opposition from environmental groups, particularly the Surfrider Organization, for its potential effect on the coastal environment. Desalination plants release a saline effluent back into the ocean, which has been deemed by scientists as harmless to the marine environment, but which some still believe could have a detrimental effect [see "Water World," Sustainable Industries, July 2007].

As impending water shortages in some parts of the world have become more realistic in recent years, investment dollars are flooding to water-related technologies, including desalination. Hoping to get a piece of the pie, corporations such as Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) and GE (NYSE: GE) have spent millions to license emerging technologies related to desalination. GE invested an undisclosed amount in the Carlsbad plant earlier this year, where its “ecomagination-certified” ZeeWeed ultrafiltration (UF) technology is expected to be deployed.  When the plant becomes operational, it will be the largest seawater desalination plant in the world to use UF membranes for pretreatment.

Meanwhile, Dow’s FilmTec membranes are currently being employed in the world’s largest desalination plant in Israel, the birthplace of desalination, and the company recently licensed technology for a process that claims to remove the effluent problem from the desalination process by turning the saline solution into gypsum that can be sold to the building industry.

With the California Coastal Commission's approval, the $270 million Carlsbad plant is on track to begin construction in 2008 and to be fully functional by 2010, according to Poseidon Resources. Currently, Poseidon is also moving plans for a Long Beach, Calif., desalination plant through the permitting process.