TIANJIN, China — Towering over the Bohai Sea shoreline on this city’s outskirts, the Beijiang Power and Desalination Plant is a 26-billion-renminbi technical marvel: an ultrahigh-temperature, coal-fired generator with state-of-the-art pollution controls, mated to advanced Israeli equipment that uses its leftover heat to distill seawater into fresh water.
There is but one wrinkle in the $4 billion plant: The desalted water costs twice as much to produce as it sells for. Nevertheless, the owner of the complex, a government-run conglomerate called S.D.I.C., is moving to quadruple the plant’s desalinating capacity, making it China’s largest.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45042111/
There is but one wrinkle in the $4 billion plant: The desalted water costs twice as much to produce as it sells for. Nevertheless, the owner of the complex, a government-run conglomerate called S.D.I.C., is moving to quadruple the plant’s desalinating capacity, making it China’s largest.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45042111/
Only governments with a long time horizon will invest this way. Twenty years down the road the price of that water could be ten times what it costs to produce.
ReplyDeleteSingapore has no choice but to build more desalination plants to supply the man made increase in population growth. Have sea water to tap is better than other countries right in the middle of desert Timbaktu.
ReplyDeleteGovt has it all planned, build nuclear power stations in the near future to supply electricity to run these desalination plants.
Meanwhile, let's offer thanks to Malaysia and Indonesia for having the forest lungs to attract rain to fall into our reservoirs here.