Energy Reduction Opportunities for Desalination Systems

During July’s Webinar of the AIChE Virtual Local Section, we will discuss the topic of desalinating seawater and the associated energy consumption. Seawater desalination technologies are less common in the United States for providing municipal potable water than in other places around the world for a number of reasons, including high capital and energy costs, acquisition of coastal land for development, energy source-dependent CO2 emissions, and environmental impacts of saline water intake and concentrate discharge.  Seawater desalination does offer several benefits, however, including abundance of feed water, resilience against droughts and water scarcity, reliability - more predictable variation in total water cost over time in regions where rights to freshwater sources are contentious, and the potential for renewable energy storage.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) is working with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Energetics Incorporated to prepare an Energy-Water Bandwidth Study of Seawater Desalination Systems. This AIChE presentation will review the various types of technologies used in seawater desalination systems and their associated energy use in the U.S., and present a summary of the energy savings opportunity for upgrading seawater desalination systems in the U.S.

The initial background research has been published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Volume 1, here.  The Energy-Water Bandwidth Study will be published by AMO later this summer.

Questions can be submitted in advance to: prao@lbl.gov

About the speaker: Dr. Prakash Rao, Principal Scientific Engineering Associate, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California.

Dr. Prakash Rao is a Principal Scientific Engineering Associate within the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Dr. Rao conducts research and analysis into the potential for reducing the energy consumption and water use impacts of the US manufacturing sector while maintaining its productivity. To this end, he also assists in the development of related technical assistance and deployment activities. Dr. Rao received his doctorate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Rutgers University and his bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University