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Amid Water Shortage, Australia Looks to the Sea
Source: Copyright 2008, Wall Street Journal
Date: March 11, 2008
Byline: Patrick Barta
Original URL: Status ONLINE
As global water shortages loom, this remote city on Australia's parched
western coast is giving desalination -- the arduous process of removing salt
from sea water -- new clout.
Opened in late 2006, Perth's $360 million desalination plant sucks in roughly
50,000 gallons of the Indian Ocean every minute. It then runs that water through
special filters that separate out the salt, yielding some 25,000 gallons of
drinkable water -- enough to meet nearly a fifth of Perth's current demand.
Perth is pushing desalination as a way to feed the city's water needs and keep
parks -- including Kings Park, above -- green.
For decades, critics dismissed desalination as a costly boondoggle that burns
colossal amounts of energy, including dirty fuels like coal. Technologically
complex, it's also far more expensive than tapping other water sources. The few
major desalination plants that did make it to fruition went up mainly in the ...
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