Reverse Osmosis Desalination: A Feasible Alternative For Potable Water Supply

By James Smith, project manager, Constantine Engineering

Recent technology advances are making desalination less energy-intensive and less costly, bringing us closer to a long-sought solution to water scarcity.

Freshwater is the liquid of life. Without it the planet would be a barren wasteland. The supply of freshwater is finite, but the demand is rising rapidly as world population grows and as global water use per capita increases. Freshwater supplies are not distributed evenly around the globe, throughout the seasons, or from year to year.

Fully two-thirds of the world population — 4 billion people — lives within 250 miles of a seacoast; just over half of the world population occupies a coastal strip 120 miles wide, representing only 10% of the earth’s land surface. A solution to the burgeoning use of freshwater would be to tap the almost limitless volume of ocean water and inland brackish water using desalination processes.