Largest desalination plant in Western world gets go-ahead

Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources is now lining up financing for a $300 million water desalination plant in Carlsbad, Calif., after finally securing the necessary approval from California State Lands Commission.

Poseidon Vice President Scott Maloni told the Cleantech Group that construction is planned to start in the first half of 2009, with the first water to be sold to local agencies in 2011.

The facility expects to produce 50 million gallons of drinkable water a day, making it double the capacity of the current largest U.S. plant and larger than any seawater desalination plant outside the Middle East, according to the International Desalination Association. Poseidon expects the plant to supply 10 percent of the county's water needs.

"This will change the way California views the Pacific Ocean," Maloni said. "The Pacific is now becoming a meaningful part of California's water portfolio."

As well as changing the way Americans think about their drinking water, Maloni said he thinks the project's approval could smooth the path for other water desalination plants that are still in the application or permitting process. Estimates are that 12 to 20 projects are being proposed along California's 1,100-mile coast, according to the state's Office of Water Use Efficiency and Transfers.

"This project took 10 years from concept to approval," Maloni said. "Hopefully other projects won't take as long because we’re the first ones through, so we’ve been exposed, rightly, to more scrutiny."

Dean Reynolds, chief of water recycling and desalination section of the Office of Water Use Efficiency and Transfers, said the precedent can help but doesn't ensure more projects will be approved, as they are considered on a case-by-case basis.

The Carslbad plant is to sit on about four acres and use reverse osmosis to pump seawater through membranes. Maloni said the company is still choosing suppliers of the technology. Spain's Acciona Agua and Voorhees, N.J.-based American Water are helping develop the facility, which is to share a water-intake system with the nearby Encina power station.

Although the U.S. is the source of much of today's membrane technology, the country has lagged in the number of facilities actually converting saltwater into drinking water. At the end of 2007, there were more than 13,080 desalination plants worldwide, but just 119 in the U.S., according to the International Desalination Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes the technology.

Randy Truby, who serves on the IDA's board of directors, said the high energy and infrastructure cost of reverse osmosis inhibited adoption of desalination in the U.S. until about 2000 because municipalities were able to easily pump water in from surrounding rivers and regions.

But technological advancements, such as energy reclamation in the desalination process, have slashed the cost, and droughts have repeatedly hit populated areas in recent years, pressuring governments to find other sources of drinking water, he said.

"Seawater desalting is finally coming into play. It’s the most expensive way to produce water for drinking purposes, so people have waited until the economics of seawater desalting became feasible for places like southern California and Arizona," said Truby, CEO of Poway, Calif-based Toray Membrane, which hopes to be a supplier of the Carlsbad plant.

Maloni said that the desalination process takes 25 percent more energy than importing water to San Diego, which gets 85 percent of its water from the Colorado River or Northern California.

The facility will likely produce 700 to 800 megawatt hours of electricity, less than 5 percent of its requirements, from solar panels on its roof, Maloni said. As part of its negotiations with state agencies, the company plans to spend more than $1 million on reforestation and purchase 15,000 tons of carbon offsets to make up for some of the emissions resulting from its energy use. Poseidon also plans to spend $2.8 million to restore or create 37 acres of wetlands to mitigate damage to marine life.

Despite these additional costs, Poseidon is undergoing the permitting process to build a second desalination plant capable of producing 50 million gallons of drinking water daily in Huntington Beach, Calif. Poseidon was also involved in the desalination plant in Tampa, Fla., which produces 25 million gallons of drinkable water a day, making it the largest plant in the country (see Tampa Bay desalination plant rises again).

During the next six months, Poseidon plans to seek $300 million in equity financing and debt financing. The company has already signed contracts to sell all of the facility's production for 30 years to 9 water agencies in San Diego County, Maloni said.

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