Topic: How To Invest

A good source of clean, usable water is becoming of more interest to more people. Are there any companies that are developing systems to provide cheap clean water by desalination?

Article Excerpt

Desalination is the process of removing excess salt and other minerals from seawater. It’s also used where saltwater has entered underground fresh-water aquifers. Right now, there are more than 13,000 desalination plants operating in over 120 countries. About three-quarters of them are in the Middle East. That’s because it’s very expensive to build desalination plants, so they are only really cost-effective where there is no fresh water. When fresh water is available, it can be pumped up to 1,600 kilometres and still cost less per litre than water from a desalination plant. Desalination may become more cost competitive over the longer term, however. As the world’s population rises and becomes more prosperous, demand for water for drinking, irrigation and industrial uses will exceed the amount available from natural sources. The most common method of desalination (now used in around 85% of plants) is “flash distillation.” In this process, saltwater flows through a series of low-pressure chambers, where it is flash-boiled into steam…