Desalination Expands, but Energy Challenges Remain

Fearing widespread water scarcity, companies and governments around the world are scoping out desalination technologies to convert seawater to potable water. That’s a rocky path that involves lots of energy and high costs—and potentially high rewards.

At the ballyhooed Paris climate conference last December, a little-noticed event occurred that could lead to important developments for electric generators. At the Paris meeting, some 80 signatories—including national governments, energy and water industries, research groups, universities, and nongovernmental organizations—launched the Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance. The group’s focus, which it calls “H2O minus CO2,” is on how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the energy-intensive process of turning seawater into a potable product.

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