Permits for the Huntington Beach CA desalination plant have been tabled until Poseidon Water, the company seeking approval, does feasibility studies on subsurface intakes for the water.
A LA Times op-ed says desal is expensive and has serious environmental problems.
Ocean water desalination doesn’t pencil out. It’s far too expensive to produce potable water from seawater — about $2,000 an acre foot, compared to about $1,000 an acre foot for imported water. It requires a tremendous amount of energy to purify saltwater. And there are potentially serious environmental impacts from sucking in millions of gallons of ocean water and pumping the leftover brine back into the ocean.
That’s why Long Beach shelved plans for a desalination project with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. It’s a lot cheaper to conserve water or recycle it.