DESALINATION: Balancing the Socioeconomic Benefits and Environmental Costs
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DESALINATION: Balancing the Socioeconomic Benefits and Environmental Costs www.research.natixis.com https://gsh.cib.natixis.com executive summary Chapter 1 Making sense of desalination: technological, financial and economic aspects of desalination assets Chapter 2 Sustainability assessment of desalination assets: recognizing the socioeconomic benefits and mitigating environmental costs of desalination Chapter 3 Desalination sustainability performance scorecard acknowledgements appendix biblioghraphy TABLE OF CONTENTS OF TABLE 1. Making sense of desalination: technological, financial and economic aspects of desalination assets 1. DESALINATION TECHNOLOGIES 2. FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF DESALINATION ASSETS 1.1. AN OVERVIEW OF DESALINATION TECHNOLOGIES 2.1.THE DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCING OF DESALINATION ASSETS Thermal desalination: Multistage Flash Distillation and Multieffect Distillation Building and operating desalination assets: complex and evolving value chain Membrane desalination: Reverse Osmosis Project development models: fine-tuning Hybridization of thermal and the appropriate risk-sharing model membrane desalination Bringing capital to desalination assets: A set of parameters to assess the performance an increasingly strategic issue and efficiency of desalination assets Case study of desalination in Israel: innovative 1.2. A BRIEF HISTORY AND financing schemes achieving some of the GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF lowest desalinated water costs worldwide DESALINATION TECHNOLOGIES Case study of desalination in Singapore: The market share of desalination technologies: an indispensable part of an integrated from the preeminence of thermal desalination water management policy to the current leadership of reverse osmosis 2.2. THE COST STRUCTURE OF DESALINATION Global distribution of desalination assets and common characteristics The evolution of desalination costs of countries using desalination and future projections The costs of production of drinkable water during operational lifetime of desalination assets Possible areas for future cost improvements of desalination technologies 2. Sustainability assessment of desalination assets: recognizing the socioeconomic benefits and mitigating environmental costs of desalination 1. IDENTIFYING AND CONTEXTUALIZING 2. UNDERSTANDING AND MITIGATING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF DESALINATION DESALINATION 1.1.THE CONTRIBUTION OF DESALINATION 2.1. DIRECT ENVIRONMENTAL TOWARDS THE ACHIEVEMENT OF SEVERAL IMPACTS OF DESALINATION SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS) Water intake into desalination facilities The essential importance of reliable water What is brine and why is it potentially dangerous? supply for socioeconomic development Geographical distribution of brine discharge Desalination as a source of climate change resilience The damage caused by discharge of brine into water Desalination as a source of political stability and protection from exogenous risks 2.2. THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF DESALINATION Contextualization of the direct and indirect benefits of desalination within the framework 2.3. AIR POLLUTION of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2.4. POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS MITIGATING Potential tradeoffs between desalination and THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF BRINE several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Monitoring of water quality 1.2. CASE STUDY OF THE FIRST around discharge point(s) SUSTAINABLE LOAN QUALIFICATION FOR A WATER DESALINATION PROJECT Mixing of brine with cooling water before discharge Taweelah IWP Optimal brine discharge infrastructure Neutralization of chemicals used during desalination before they are mixed with brine Brine minimization technologies Recovery of metals and salt from brine Use of brine for aquaculture 3. Desalination sustainability performance scorecard Key elements to consider when evaluating the sustainability profile of desalination What are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how to use them? Carbon footprint of desalinated water Energy intensity of desalinated water Recovery rate: a measure of operational performance Membrane productivity (applicable only for membrane-based desalination) DESALINATION BALANCING THE SOCIOECONOMIC BENEFITS AND ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS % OF WATER Desalination is the process of removing available on earth is salty 97 SALTS AND OTHER IMPURITIES from water to produce % OF WORLD’S DRINKING WATER DRINKING WATER 1 comes from desalination TWO MAIN TECHNOLOGIES THERMAL DESALINATION REVERSE OSMOSIS (RO) Multiple Stage Flash (MSF) and Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Forces salty water through semi-permeable membranes Boils and evaporates salty water and condensates PERFORMS BETTER IN CLEANER, COOLER AND LESS SALINE WATERS the resulting vapor into purified drinking water ENJOYS DOMINANT POSITION IN THE MARKET WHILE STILL OFFERING POTENTIAL HAS THE EDGE IN HOT SALINE WATER FOR FUTURE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENT AND FALLING COSTS IN MANY WATER SCARCE COUNTRIES, DESALINATION IS OFTEN THE ONLY VIABLE SOLUTION Desalinationfor securing refers a safe to water the processsupply. But phase. the process Brine isis: a very different story, membranes. The two most widely of removing salts and other impu- an unwelcome byproduct. It refers to used thermal-based technologies rities from water to produce water a concentrated stream of hot, salty are Multiple Stage Flash (MSF) COSTLY ENERGYINTENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL that meets the quality and sali- water containing numerous che- and Multi-effect Distillation (MED). IMPACTS nity requirements for different mical products used during desa- The leading membrane separation types of human use. The procedure lination. The common practice is desalination process is Reverse consists of taking water out of seas, to simply discharge brine back into Osmosis (RO). The performance of oceans, rivers or underground aqui- water, which increases the tempera- desalination technologies is highly between 3 and 7 kWh per cubic meter FOR RO, WATER PRODUCTION COSTS ture, salinity and chemical pollution dependent upon local features such fers andbetween running $0.50 it throughto $3 a desabetween- 6.5 and 12.5 kWh FOR MSF AND MED lination facility.per cubic Oncemeter there, intake of (totalreceiving equivalent water. electrical energy) asBUT water THEY temperature CAN BE MITIGATED and salinity, with desalination powered waterBUT is COSTSeither ARE filtered FALLING through a BUT ENERGY INTENSITY DECREASES by RENEWABLESwhich means and with that BRINE comparison MITIGATION of series of membranes or evapo- Commercially available desalina- desalination assets and the eva- rates and condensates while pas- tion methods fall within two main luation of their sustainability profile singSUSTAINABLE through a series of DEVELOPMENTheating and categories: GOALS thermal SDGS and membrane has to take into consideration local cooling chambers. In both cases, the desalination, which can be com- context. While already advanced desalination procedure separates bined into hybrid with the aim of and scalable, desalination techno- saltySustainable intake water development into two goalsdistinct (SDGs) increasing framework operational can be used flexibility and logies still have potential for fur- to assess socioeconomic benefits and environmental cost of desalination assets streams with very diverging charac- exploiting strengths of both techno- ther improvement. Further gains teristics:SOCIOECONOMIC freshwater andBENEFITS brine. The logies. Thermal desalination boils in operational efficiency are expec- freshwaterDIRECT is the very reason why andINDIRECT evaporates salty water and ted thanks to improving technolo- SDG2 - Agricultural production: produced SDG8 - Economic growth peopleSDG put 6 -effort Reliable sourceand ofconsiderable drinking water condensates the resulting vapor into gies. Such improvements will also water can be used for agricultural production amount of money into desalination purifiedin water-scarce drinkable countries water. Membrane bringSDG9 down - Industry, the innovation production & infrastructure costs of SDG 13 - Climate change adaptation: desalination assets.processes The desalinated are much less vulnerable freshwater to impacts of desalinationSDG7 - Clean methods energy: desalination separate plants desalinatedSDG11 - Sustainable water, cities hereby and communities, increasing climate change than conventional water sources can contain adjacent clean power plants especially in coastal areas in water-scarce countries is actually too pure to be drinkable salt and other impurities from its affordability and competitive- ness relative to conventional water straightENVIRONMENTAL away, it has toCOSTS be remine- drinkable water by forcing water ralized first during a post treatment passage through semi-permeable sources.SDG14 - Environmental damage: discharged SDG3 - Air pollution related to combustion of SDG13 - Carbon intensity of fossil fuel- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EXECUTIVE brine increases the temperature, salinity and fossil fuel, since numerous countries using powered desalination chemical pollution of receiving water desalination still rely heavily upon fossil fuels 6 | DESALINATION IT OPENS WAYS FOR FINANCING DESALINATION ASSETS WITH EITHER “SOCIAL” OR “SUSTAINABLE” FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS. While thermal desalination technolo- projects, not every country in dire need of From the perspective of sustainable gies used to lead the market in the past, drinkable water can afford desalination. As finance, further development of desalina- they have lost their dominant position