Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/724419
clients, all of which are large consumers of water in their processes. "With stricter government regulations and the need to supply water to the population, governments are pushing those industries — oil and gas, and mining — to be more self-sufficient, meaning that they produce their own water and reuse that water to the best level possible, in order to free fresh water for the population. You see this in Peru, Chile, China, and definitely in Australia, where no-one would give a mine free river water," says Felber. While it is keenly eyeing opportunities in industrial markets, IDE remains convinced that the single biggest driver of the global water industry in the coming years will continue to be supplying drinking water to populations that are threatened by water scarcity. "Municipal is obviously the biggest long-term market potential because the fundamental underlying problem of water scarcity is first and foremost to supply water to the population," says Felber. The example he gives is his home turf, Israel, which he says "crossed the line and moved from 3 per cent of municipal use out of desalination in the 2000s, to 70 per cent today, which is a pretty dramatic move." Local conditions are likely to result in varying solutions and sizes of plant, however, and Felber acknowledges that Israel's small size means that transportation of water from a few large plants is relatively unproblematic. "The specific size and type of the plants that will be needed is a very local matter. There are very many elements that feed into the equations of whether to build a very large plant or a few small ones. In some places, it wouldn't make sense to build such big plants because then you have to deliver the water for long distances and this is costly." IDE considers that there is still potential for large municipal plants, particularly in places like Beijing, where demand is high and there are lots of people living in a concentrated area. Even a municipal plant of 40,000 to 80,000 m3/d requires a provider large enough to deliver it effectively, says Felber. Potable reuse for municipal clients is a "complementary market" to desalination, Felber says, and IDE has delivered one direct potable reuse project and an indirect potable reuse project to municipal clients over the past four years. "I believe that the reuse market is going to be a very large one. There is, unquestionably, a future demand for desalinated and reuse water, the two main future sources for water. In the short and long term there will be a need for more fresh water than is available on this planet without those processes. It's obvious that the industry will grow at a pretty fast rate, because in most of those places that currently have water scarcity, the natural source is over." Sorek desalination plant has a vertical arrangement of 16 inch membranes, reducing footprint. Commissioned in 2013 and with capacity of 624,000 m3/d, it supplies potable water to more than 1.5 million people, fulfilling 20 per cent of Israel's municipal water demand. Water. desalination + reuse September 2016