Abstract
In June 2006, the Pacific Institute released Desalination, with a Grain of Salt, an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of seawater desalination for California (Cooley et al. 2006). At that time, there were twenty-one active seawater desalination proposals along the California coast. Since then, only one project, a small plant in Sand City, has been permitted and built. A second project, in Carlsbad, has all of the necessary permits, finally secured financing in December 2012, and is now under construction. Interest in seawater desalination, however, remains high in California, and many agencies are conducting technical and environmental studies and pilot projects to determine whether to develop full-scale facilities.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that these estimates do not include financing costs, which substantially increase the lifetime cost of the project.
- 2.
This was the price in 2012 for industrial customers.
- 3.
For example, in November 2012, Santa Cruz residents passed Measure P, which guarantees residents the right to vote on whether to pursue a seawater desalination project in the future.
- 4.
If reservoir levels fall below 80 percent capacity, the desalination plant will be restarted.
- 5.
A summary of problematic energy take-or-pay contracts can be found here: http://www.jbsenergy.com/energy/papers/blueprint/blueprint.html#_Toc2576605. Similarly, take-or-pay contracts for natural gas caused serious problems for both suppliers and consumers and required federal intervention in the 1980s and 1990s (http://www.naturalgas.org/regulation/history.asp). See also the Carlsbad case study in this chapter for some issues that can arise with a take-or-pay contract.
- 6.
The O&M contract was worth $300-$360 million and was Covanta Tampa Bay’s only asset (Wright 2003).
- 7.
This estimate includes O&M plus the annual debt service cost, assuming that the full capital cost of the project was financed at Tampa Bay Water’s average bond rate over thirty years.
- 8.
This includes O&M costs for the entire project, that is, the desalination plant, the conveyance pipeline, and the efficiency losses at the Twin Oaks Valley Water Treatment Plant.
- 9.
The range in the unit price reflects a purchase of 48,000 to 54,000 acre-feet per year.
- 10.
The contractor for the project would be a joint venture of Kiewit Infrastructure West and J.F. Shea Construction. IDE Technologies would provide the process technology (e.g., the pumps and membranes) and would also operate and maintain the desalination plant.
- 11.
Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, formerly the infrastructure investment division of Blackstone, is an equity investment firm that focuses on traditional infrastructure assets, especially in North America.
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Cooley, H., Ajami, N. (2014). Key Issues for Seawater Desalination in California. In: Gleick, P.H. (eds) The World’s Water. The World’s Water. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-483-3_6
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