Water. desalination + reuse

IDA WORLD CONGRESS REVIEW TianJin l china l OcTOBeR 2013 Biggest ever congress overcomes local difficulties _________ Robin Wiseman, editor, D&WR ___ THERE HAS never been an International Desalination Association (IDA) World Congress like the one in Tianjin, China, in October 2013. Not only did it have the most papers and the largest exhibition, but it also generated more complaints than D&WR has ever heard at an IDA event. Staging a 2,000-delegate event in a city where very few people speak any English (the go-to language for all Europeans and a lot of other countries), even if it is the desalination capital of China, was in hindsight probably a step too far. Attendees seemed to believe that everything would have been much easier and more pleasant in Beijing or Shanghai. As it was, the food, restroom supplies and transportation provided endless conversation starters, though each improved as the week progressed, due to unceasing hard shifts put in by the IDA administration staff and their local counterparts. Not having access to a cafe or even drinks dispensers in the convention centre made the exhibitors with coffee machines, like IDE Technologies and Pentair X-Flow, especially popular. In a break from tradition, IDA decided to choose its new president at two board meetings prior to the congress opening rather than after. The much-predicted winner was Dr Abdullah Al-Alshaikh, deputy governor for planning and development of Saudi Arabia's Saline Water Conversion Corporation (see pg 45). Opening ceRemOny The opening ceremony, if unspectacular (remembering Perth's aboriginal dancers), was up to the usual IDA standard, however. After an introductory movie about the city of Tianjin, the delegates were greeted by the guests of honor. These included Cui Tian Du and He Shu Shan, vice mayors of the Tianjin Municipal People's Government; Abdullah A Al Hussayen, minister for water and electricity, Saudi Arabia; Dr Vivian Balakrishnan minister for the environment Singapore's Dr Vivian Balakrishnan makes his address at the congress opening. and water resources, Singapore; and Dr Corrado Sommariva, president of IDA. The looming crisis in world water resources was tackled by Mohammed A Abunayyan, chairman, ACWA Power International, Saudi Arabia, in one of three plenary addresses, who drew comparisons between Saudi Arabia and China. Commenting on the bountiful economic expansion and population growth in both Riyadh and Tianjin, he noted that, "Everything we have achieved in Riyadh and in Tianjin is dependent on our ability to continually use water more efficiently, that is increase GDP per m3 of water plus creating new freshwater resources beyond our natural endowment. Sustainable water management for the two cities is hence built on the foundations of maximising water reuse and the production of fresh water, which both necessitate desalination expertise." Abunayyan stressed the importance of both energy and the environment to desalination. He drew attention to the importance of renewable energy, a favourite current topic in Saudi. "We must reduce our energy intensity and our carbon footprint, and also develop desalination processes using more and more renewable energy," he told the conference. "Renewable energy is of particular relevance to desalination because, as the technology becomes progressively more cost competitive, it will deliver truly sustainable solutions to regions with ample sunlight and | 44 | Desalination & Water Reuse | November-December 2013 desalinatable water." Speaking about the environment, he noted that, "If desalination is to become a mainstream source of water, then we need to transform our environmental performance. Renewable water needs to be seen as an asset and pillar in the green economy just like renewable energy." Technical pROgRam About the technical program, some old congress hands opined that, while there where some very good papers, the general quality was lower than usual, though others seemed quite content. There was also a feeling that many people were trying to reinvent the wheel, coming up with concepts that had already been worked through and discarded. Among the most interesting papers was John McHarg's advocacy for groups of modular positive-displacement axial-flow pumps to replace high-pressure centrifugal pumps (see page 28). McHarg, who used to run the Affordable Desalination Consortium project, believes that, in the same way that Energy Recovery Inc's (ERI) pressure-exchangers revolutionized reverse osmosis (RO) at the turn of the century, so today's larger, more reliable, axial-flow pumps could bring significant energy savings to RO in this decade. UK membrane chemicals specialist Genesys International also launched its GenAirclean system with a paper presented

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