This piece from Reuters on a breakthrough in desalination technology is good news on its own, but it’s GREAT news for Orange County — because it shows us, just in the nick of time, why investing massive amounts of money in the obsolete technology of Poseidon’s desalination scam in Huntington Beach would be a sucker’s bet (along the lines of accepting their bid to provide us with all of the 8-track tapes and Betamax and 5-1/4″ floppy disks and 700 kilobyte hard drives that we need.)
Poseidon is not actually in the desalination business, it’s in the “getting governments to buy unnecessary and obsolete technology and unreasonable prices so that their investors have a guaranteed income stream for decades” business. Why buy that sort of thing?
Pentagon weapons-maker finds method for cheap, clean water
A defense contractor better known for building jet fighters and lethal missiles says it has found a way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater, potentially making it vastly cheaper to produce clean water at a time when scarcity has become a global security issue.The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin – just one atom in thickness – it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.
The development could spare underdeveloped countries from having to build exotic, expensive pumping stations needed in plants that use a desalination process called reverse osmosis.
“It’s 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger,” said John Stetson, the engineer who has been working on the idea. “The energy that’s required and the pressure that’s required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less.”
Go read the whole thing. I’m not usually a big fan of Lockheed, but when they come through like this, I happily stand and applaud them.
Wonder why Poseidon is in a hurry to get OC to approve their boondoggle? Maybe it’s because they were afraid that voters — and city council members — would read something like this before the deed was done. Yes, as they note, this is great for underdeveloped countries — but also for Orange County, given that Poseidon seems to be intent on treating us like one!
A 3-D depiction of a one-molecule thick graphene sheet. (Not actual size.) Readers who have been ingesting hallucinogenic substances may not want to stare at this one too long. And, for God’s sake, don’t scroll it rapidly up and down!
Should government control the supply of water?
Or should taxpaying private enterprise have a hand in the water biz?
I’m interested in your answer to that question, cook. Other things being equal, should we create an additional cut for private profit in an enterprise just because we can?
In this case, of course, other things are not equal. This would be stupid and demanding that consumers cover the cost whether or not they use it would be offensive no matter who was doing it.
Ask Golden State Water customers what they think.
Yeah, Golden State wanted a rate increase because their customers were conserving!
Not using enough water. Outrageous.
If you already have, pass that info along. If you haven’t, do it yourself. I’ll share my OJB salary with you.
I wasn’t talking to you, dimebag.
Thanks for the clarification, Joe.
Hey you, stop being gratuitously rude.
It’s OK — if nipsey just naturally associates people with heroin-related terms, I don’t want to add to his troubles.
(If you were addressing it to me, I’m sometimes rude, but generally not gratuitously so.)
Perforene sounds like a major breakthrough in membrane technology and in supplying more water for our needs through desal. Hopefully the challenges they face producing this will be overcome and help produce pure, plentiful, and affordable water for all. No mention of the cost or how long the membranes will last but with the energy saved it hopefully will pencil out. Cold fusion sounded great too but we are still waiting. Here’s to perforene’s success!
Anahiem owns it’s own utility. Why can’t OC own it’s own water desal plant?
Right, keep these thieves away from any critical infrastructure.
During the electricity crisis days with skyrocketing prices and constant threat of rolling blackouts, residents of places like LA, Anaheim and Glendale which have their own power utilities were almost completely insulated from it. LADWP even sold surplus output back to the state at below market rates to try and stabilize things.
Why wouldn’t Poseidon use this technology if it works? It would bring the cost down and save everyone money. Seems like that would be a win/win for everyone.
Why should they? Are they required to do so? Is it in the contract? Would we be overpaying for the obsolete technology?
I expect that they might be willing to revise what in retrospect would be seen as a stupid and short-sighted contract — for a price.
Or — they might not. Contracts are that way.
Sure they would, after they’ve charged the ratepayer an exorbitant amount of money to re-engineer the facility to accommodate the changes in technology!
*American technology…..accountability…….affordable water…..what could go wrong?
Maybe using less energy could stop the “tripling” of our water rates as the drippy ad in top right corner keeps saying. That would be great. Maybe our rates would fall by a third?
The claim that Poseidon’s water will triple our rates should be proven with some math. Here are the basics: Poseidon will supply 10 % of the water mix. The other 90% costs the same.
Poseidons water will cost twice as much as the other water. Thus, 10% of the water added to the mix at double the cost of the other 90 % will triple the cost of the whole mix. Someone please show the equation that proves this.
Reminds me of a flyer I received that showed Poseidon will cost residents 5 billion dollars over 30 years while pegging the Poseidon water at around 1700 dollars an acre foot. The math followed. I noticed that they “forgot” to subract out the 900 dollars an acre foot we are paying now! oops. that would have cut their estimate by more than half. This couldn’t be on purpose could it?
You know what?
You’re right, that was me, I added “tripling” to that ad. I was thinking of how Poseidon’s water will be three times more expensive, and if they have their way we’ll be forced to buy THEIR water before any of our own less expensive water, but I think you’re right, that doesn’t translate ALL THE WAY to tripled rates. Maybe doubled? I’ll look into how I can make that ad more accurate today or tomorrow. The website it links to is spot on though.
If there’s no cap on how much the public can be soaked, we don’t actually know how much the final increase could be.
Vern, I still don’t the math that if we buy Poseidon water for twice what the imported water cost is and it becomes a 10 per cent replacement for the total mix how that could double the price. It only has a 10 per cent of the whole mix impact. 90 per cent stays the same price. Seems like around a 10 per cent impact on the price of the whole mix of water. Definitely not a tripling or even a doubling.
I know you spend your time studying water so I’m trying to be careful, but are you taking into account:
Our water usage is going down thanks to conservation;
If Poseidon gets the “take or pay” contracts they are lobbying so hard for, we’ll be taking ThEIR more expensive water FIRST, no matter how much or little water we later get from other sources. Seems like that magnifies the waste mathematically. I hope you are against these “take or pay” contracts which are really just their insurance against their own lousy business model. At our expense.
I clicked to the website and yes, buried deep in the articles is an admission they could be off by 50 per cent on the cost to residents over thirty years. I agree with that math, much fairer picture of costs of Poseidon water replacing imported water. The flyer I received forgot to factor in the cost of the water Poseidon was replacing. Also, getting the Kern river water here will cost around 1300 dollars an acre foot. The article just mentions storing it. I believe they said around 40 dollars and acre foot. We really should consider the cost of the water when it gets here. This is an extremely important subject and just throwing numbers around haphazardly will cause division among those who know the true numbers and those who buy into the inaccurate ones.