World Wide Assets LLC
Geothermal Desalination, Zero Emission Technology
SDSU Professor Ronald A. Newcomb, College of Sciences Adjunct Faculty, Director of Operations, CITI, International Consortium of Advanced Technology and Security (ICATS)
First, let me apologize for the long page. Be sure you have time to complete this before attempting to read it. I cover a lot of subjects and didn't want to take up multiple pages on the site. The two primary subjects are the benefits of geothermal desalination (I significantly reduced the size of the document) and the irrationality surrounding "Global Warming."
Delta T Desalination Classification
The geothermal desalination device designed by me and owned by World Wide Assets via an exclusive right to use agreement. The device was based on previous experiments with steam powered desalination at San Diego State University College of Sciences CITI and ICATS over the past 4 years with two companies and several engineers.
It is classed as a thermo based, atmospheric pressure, closed air loop, gas-vapor heating and cooling cycle desalination device in which the change in temperature transfers water from the saline chamber to the potable water chamber of the unit and each operate below the boiling point of water.
It is thermo based, that is, it uses evaporation to desalinate, as opposed to a membrane which requires high pressure, typically 800psi. To raise an acre foot of water to 800psi costs about $900 in electricity and the cost is rising as electric costs rise. Of course, you need to raise 2 acre feet of water up to that pressure to produce one acre foot using RO technologies. This design requires a pump to move the hot water into the unit, 20 feet in the air which needs no further pressure, other than gravity to down flow, so, it is an atmospheric pressure device.
It is a closed air loop, so surrounding air from the environment doesn't enter the unit, we don’t need to warm or cool outside air, nor do we loose heat by venting large volumes of air to the outside.
Because the devices use fully reversible thermodynamic processes, it is extremely efficient at producing water using hot water, not steam, and, because it is not a membrane based system, water can be produced in large quantities to offset, and eventually reverse, the effects of current and past water management practices.
All scientific laws are based on the laws of thermodynamics. A reversible thermodynamic process is the most efficient process that can be described by science. Yanniotis and Xerodemas, described a similar process, but a completely different device in Desalination in 2003. However, this device was designed to take advantage of medium and low enthalpy geothermal heat, which is currenlty the largest store of untapped energy on earth. Perhaps I should say, in earth.
Much testing has been completed at the International Consortium of Advanced Technologies and Security on these types of devices, however, for the Laguna Salada plans we are concurrently working on another more well known method of making water and melding it with geothermal energy, however, this is easily done. So these two designs will, again, be the Intellectual Property of the company.
The company is currently working with San Diego State University College of Sciences where we have been working for a year on a contract with CalEnergy to test such a device using their geothermal energy. The contract with WWA is being finalized now.
The design tested at CalEnergy will be a 1/2 size unit as they do not have the energy to give to us for a full size unit. Also, this will allow the company to complete the project for under $1,000,000, and important milestone. A full size unit will stand 20 feet tall, and be 12 feet wide and 8 feet long, again, projected to produce 1/2 acre foot per day of pure water.
Energy Preservation
Geothermal energy is the normal source of energy for the unit and the entire plant. That is to say, the plant will also generate its own electricity for plant operations.
Brine Disposal
Of major concern with R.O. desalination is that, in a single pass 50% or more of the water is removed leaving a brine of 7% salt, twice that of sea water (3.5% salt), to be disposed of in the ocean stressing the taxa with a high osmotic concentration. Of concern is the effect on Sea Urchin embryos and other taxa with limited mobility.
The E/C devices take only about 12% of the water leaving a concentration of about 3.90% that is within the normal concentration in the ocean, and eliminating the concerns about brine. This is significantly reduced in locations where warm water is mixed with cooling water and this concentration can be reduced to approximately 3.65%, within the normal gradient variations in individual “finger” layers of the sea caused by diffusive convection, wind and water currents, and other factors.
However, at Laguna Salada we are discussing the creation of salt flats for consumable salt and there we would concentrate the salts into a heavy brine to be pumped to a solar dehydration pond.
Brine damage results when significant concentrations for RO plants and other brine discharges go through diffusive stratification into layers and last for the duration of their Reynolds decomposition as flow induced advective dispersion (horizontal flows) continue to support the stratification creating a turbulent salt flux convection (vertical) with eddy diffusion as an osmotic gradient and/or with mixing forces of normal currents, or, lastly, salinity gradient force in the waters surrounding the stratified flow pulls the salt away and induces mixing. This continues as long as the flow and osmotic gradient exists, so, in an RO brine outfall, as long as the plant runs.
Since many such salt concentration outflows are at the benthic layer (i.e. on the bottom) simply because this is the easiest to accomplish, the animals on the bottom are subjected to this saline inflow for as long as it takes them to pass through, osmoregulate to accommodate the increase in saline, or die trying. Slow moving animals such as abalone, bryozoans, and urchins often do not escape, especially during larval stages when they are most populous and more vulnerable. They are simply destroyed by the brine concentration.
The concentration gradients from the outflows of these devices are significantly below the levels that would cause injury to the oceans.
Renewable Potable Water Supplies
California is expected to be on severe water rationing by the year 2030, Florida is experiencing severe groundwater shortages right now, the entire southern belt is experiencing water shortages in one form or another as population growth continues to stress natural resources.
The production of millions of acre feet of pure potable water from the oceans would help reduce the stress on the natural systems and on the population by allowing increased surface watering which increased the total fresh water assets.
Renewable resources are desperately needed for fresh water. There are existing technologies that can provide renewable water by desalination; there are simply none that can provide it as inexpensively as the Delta T apparatus.
Construction of utilities at Laguna Salada which use geothermal energy only creates the world's largest green resort location.
Environmentally Benign Process
Unlike Reverse Osmosis which uses thousands of miles of plastics for membranes, the only material to use for such devices is 316L stainless steel, and nothing else.
Filtering is simply done with a bubbling system inside a settling tank which separates particulate matter suspended in the water with a fully natural separation technique that happens in nature wherever fast moving water drops through the air.
This is done, again, without chemicals, and without plastics.
Of major concerns at times to water treatment systems is the use of chemicals to process the water, or, in the case of Reverse Osmosis, the membranes require periodic cleaning with a soapy acid solution. The larger the plant, of course, the more solution is needed and must be disposed of.
These devices use no membrane and need no cleaning, no solvents, no acids, and it does not clog or need to be shut down periodically for maintenance.
No Toxic Waste
A growing disposal problem exists with membrane technologies, the disposal of large cylinders comprised of plasticized compounds containing toxic concentrations of heavy metals and other compounds, mostly organic in origin (Lee, et.al).
This problem is virtually ignored even by environmental groups but will soon be raised as a primary objection to membrane technologies, disposal of the membranes and cleaning solutions.
As synthetic and natural toxic compounds continue to enter into various aquatic systems, and that water is processed through membranes, the concentration of these toxins occurs in two locations: first in the membrane itself, and second, in the discharge water where, in typical R.O. systems, the contaminants are doubled simply by the removal of half the water.
Atamanenko, et al studied methods for altering the sorption and retention of heavy metal ions using montmorillonite clay and other sorption techniques, however, this merely changes the location and disposal methods for the metals.
The frequent cleaning of these membranes dumps these toxins and organic toxins into whatever ecosystem receives it, thus reducing it from the membrane, however, to our knowledge no one cleans the membranes before disposal.
In effect you have a massive dumping of a large group of plasticized cylinders, relative to the size of the plant and frequency of filter replacement, being dumped into the environment loaded with heavy metals and organic compounds.
The various E/C devices use no membranes.
Cost of Water
In many places, the perpetual use of natural waters has fully consumed the natural freshwater resource, yet populations continue to grow demanding more water.
For the most part, voters have rejected the so called tank-to-tap proposals calling for recycling waters.
R.O. systems are being promoted as costing $900 per acre foot. What is not being expressed is that this is the cost of the energy used to raise the water to the required 800 pounds of pressure to drive the water against the osmotic gradient, against the concentration polarization, and across the thermodynamic restriction (Song, et al.) and across the membrane; it ignored the cost of the plant itself and of the replacement membranes (capital costs), which, together, bring the costs up to over $1000 per acre foot.
Delta T devices need no water pressure to operate. They have no membranes to foul, no moving parts. The company can install the units and sell water at close to half the advertised cost of R.O. and well below the true costs, and reasonably close to the total cost of acquiring water by major metropolitan communities on the coast, keeping the cost of water near where it is today for the public on long term contracts.
Cost of Maintenance
As above, the Delta T only needs basic filtration of sea water for processing because it has no membrane or moving parts to malfunction or clog.
Maintenance is reduced to ancillary components of the system such as piping and pumps common to all water systems.
While R.O. systems continue to stack various types of filters, flocculents, and other mechanical and chemical pre-filter processes to clean the water entering the unit, the Delta T needs only a single high volume dissolved air floatation filter where only micro bubbles of atmospheric air are passed into the water to separate organics from suspended particles and organics are removed from the surface while sediment is removed from the bottom without chemical or mineral filters. This eliminates chemical filtration and saves energy.
References
Byhlin, H and A.-S. Jonsson, Influence of adsorption and concentration polarization on membrane performance during Ultrafiltration on a non-ionic surfactant. Desalination 151 (2002) 21-31
Yanniotis, S. and K. Xerodemas, Air humidification for seawater desalination. Desalination 158 (2003) 313-319.
Kim, Junsung, et al, Chlorination by-products in surface water treatment process. Desalination 151 (2002) 1-9.
Atamanenko, Irina D., et al, Concentration of heavy metal by pressure-driven membrane methods. Desalination 158 (2003) 151-156
Hamzauui, A.H., A. M’nif, H. Hammi, R. Rokbani, Contribution to the lithium recovery from brine. Desalination 158 (2003) 221-224
Al-Mutaz, Ibrahim, Coupling of a nuclear reactor to hybrid RO-MSF desalination plants. Desalination 157 (2003) 259-268
Ning, Robert Y., Discussion of silica speciation, fouling, control and maximum reduction. Desalination 151 (2002) 67-73
Son, Lianfa, et al. Emergence of thermodynamic restriction and its implications for full-scale reverse osmosis processes. Desalination 155 (2003) 213-228
Mandil, M.A., and A.A. Bushnak, Future needs for desalination in South Mediterranean countries. Desalination 152 (2002) 15-18
Lee, Hong-Joo, Do He Kim, Jaewon Cho, Seung-Hyeon Moon, Characterization of anion exchange membranes with natural organic matter (NOM) during electrodialysis. Desalination 151 (2002) 43-52
Patterson, Tim, 2005, The Geologic Record and Climate Change. Technology Commerce Society, a publication of Tech Central Station, January 1, 2005. Professor Patterson delivered this at the Risk: Regulation and Reality Conference in Toronto in October 2004.