Undersea Desalination Pods To Resolve Water And Power Woes

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Final Up to date on: seventeenth August 2025, 06:35 pm

The bottomless energy-sucking calls for of AI knowledge facilities have sparked a hair-on-fire second for the nation’s electrical energy grid, and that isn’t the one pressing grid-related subject in want of consideration. Seawater desalination is one other one in all trendy life’s nice power suckers, and the necessity is escalating alongside local weather change and inhabitants development amongst different components. One answer has surfaced within the type of undersea desalination “pods” that may trim power use by 40%, amongst different advantages, and the plan is poised for fast scaleup.

Desalination And Location, Location, Location

Standard desalination techniques want massive quantities of power to energy reverse osmosis techniques, through which water is pressed by way of a membrane. As a substitute of sourcing that strain from fuels of assorted kinds, the California startup OceanWell is leveraging the naturally occurring strain of deep ocean water. Its pod-like desalination modules are designed for deployment within the ocean at 400 meters (about 1,300 toes).

There being no such factor as a free lunch, the power and expense required to convey the newly desalinated water ashore may offset a lot of the financial savings from pure water strain. The in-ocean location additionally poses some challenges for repairs and routine upkeep. Nevertheless, OceanWell is assured that the general impact can be a cost-effective one.

The corporate additionally factors out important extra advantages. Placing the majority of desalination infrastructure out at sea as an alternative of crowding it into already-crowded coastal communities is one key distinction that may get monetary savings on start-up prices — and time, particularly. Water business observers prefer to level out that the California metropolis of Huntington Seaside started contemplating an 11-acre onshore desalination facility proper across the flip of the twentieth century, solely to see the California Coastal Fee drop the hammer on the mission in 2022, after greater than 20 years of dialogue.

The 11-acre onshore website would have desalinated 50 million gallons of seawater per day, but it surely fostered issues about local weather impacts. When the CCC suggested Huntington Seaside to kill the mission, they identified that the proposed website was weak to sea degree rise.

From One Desalination Pod To Many

Other than avoiding direct sea degree rise impacts, the in-ocean location additionally allows the pods to diffuse leftover brine from the desalination course of extra successfully, lowering the necessity for costly environment-protecting tools.

OceanWell floated throughout the CleanTechnica radar final 12 months in November, when it started engaged on a pilot mission beneath the umbrella of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District. On the time, the corporate already had its sights on enlargement. Plans have been in movement for 15 “water farms” in California and elsewhere. If that sounds a bit overly formidable, maybe so. Nevertheless, together with help from two dozen different California water districts, OceanWell has caught the attention of the US Navy and its unquenchable thirst.

“In its seek for extra gas environment friendly methods to supply consuming water for lengthy sea voyages and distant bases, the U.S. Navy has developed a second-generation desalination unit that use 65% much less power than standard know-how,” CleanTechnica famous all the best way again in 2009, paying attention to a brand new, compact on-board desalinator that includes a high-efficiency pump.

The search has continued ever since. OceanWell states that the Navy made its deepwater simulation facility out there for testing earlier iterations of its underwater pod system.

Inexperienced Gentle For Water-Producing Pods

Earlier this 12 months, OceanWell started testing a single pod in an onshore reservoir. An actual-life have a look at the effectivity of its consumption system is among the objectives of the shakeout. The reservoir is an energetic, biodiverse website and OceanWell has designed its pods to attenuate impacts on aquatic life on each the consumption and brine disposal sides.

Apparently, they’ve seen sufficient, and so have their companions. Final week, OceanWell introduced that plans are underway to scale the corporate’s Water Farm 1 mission from 10 million gallons of water per day to 60, as six different water districts have piled on to the mission.

To get to the 60 MGD mark, Water Farm 1 will include dozens of pods positioned in Santa Monica Bay, about 4.5 miles off the coast of Malibu. “WF1 gives a brand new mannequin that reduces strain on strained techniques like California’s Bay-Delta system and the Colorado River and unsustainable aquifer extraction, serving to safe a extra resilient, climate-aligned water future,” OceanWell notes.

“California, like a lot of the world, urgently wants a brand new supply of water to switch dwindling provides,” stated OceanWell CEO Robert Bergstrom in a press assertion.

Las Virgenes GM Dave Pedersen additionally chipped in his two cents. “Las Virgenes water clients have been severely impacted by latest droughts, as a result of our solely supply of provide is the water imported by way of the State Water Challenge, which has turn out to be more and more pressured,” Pedersen defined.

Bergstrom additionally underscored some extra benefits of at-sea desalination in California. Along with avoiding the fallout from rising sea ranges, Bergstrom famous that onshore infrastructure is weak to quickly melting snowpack and extra excessive atmospheric rivers.

Subsequent Steps For Recent Water

Don’t get too excited simply but. Including six extra water districts to the Water Farm 1 mission is a sophisticated effort that can require a remodeling of the onshore water distribution system. A feasibility examine is the subsequent step, and the outcomes of the examine will inform funding methods in addition to the allowing course of.

On the plus aspect, options are at hand. The Metropolis of Burbank, for instance, joined the Water Farm 1 consortium despite the fact that it doesn’t have the infrastructure to obtain recent water immediately from the desalination pods. As a substitute, the town plans to work with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on an trade system.

“Burbank can pay for the supply of OceanWell water to different companions in Water Farm. The water can then be exchanged between companions throughout the consortium through the use of water inside MWD’s system,” explains Burbank Water and Energy Assistant GM Richard Wilson.

Assuming that onshore issues will be resolved, OceanWell has additionally tasked its Tribal and Environmental Working Teams to assessment the outcomes of pilot levels, as a way to configure the Santa Monica Bay array in accord with environmental and group issues.

Information Facilities & Desalination

Though consuming water is OceanWell’s present precedence for seawater desalination, Water Farm pods could possibly be put to different makes use of. In the event you’re considering a inexperienced hydrogen angle is in play, drop a observe within the remark thread.

Information heart cooling is one other potential utility that may assist alleviate stress on land-based freshwater provides. Although, different options are additionally rising. The underwater knowledge heart startup Subsea Cloud supplies one such instance. Geothermal power cooling is one other potential possibility.

Then there’s the concept of taking pictures knowledge facilities up into area the place the pure cooling drive of the universe can go to work, however that’s a complete ‘nother kettle of fish.

Picture (cropped): The US startup OceanWell is scaling up its plans to deploy modular pods beneath the ocean for power environment friendly seawater desalination.