New water desalination technology is subject to test in California

California residents can drink drinking water from the Pacific Ocean off Malibu after several years from now – that is, if the new desalination technique is proven to the company.

Ocenwell Company It plans to consolidate about twenty 40 -foot devices, called the pods, to the sea floor, several miles away from the beach and used it to enjoy salty water and pumping pure fresh water into the beach into a pipeline. The company calls the concept of “farm” water and tests a preliminary model of its pod in a tank in the slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The experimental study is monitored, with the support of the Las Virgins Municipal Water, closely by the managers of many large water agencies in southern California. They hope that if the new technology proves economical, it can provide more water for cities and suburbed exposed during drought, while avoiding environmental defects of large coastal desalination plants.

“It is possible that California residents will provide us with reliable water supplies that do not create a toxic saline solution that affects marine life, and it has no sockets that absorb life outside the ocean,” said Mark Gold, director of water solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If it is proven that this technology is viable, developed and costly effective, it will significantly enhance climate flexibility.”

During a recent demonstration in the Las Virgin tank, Tim Quinn, the company’s water policy expert, watched as the 12 -foot -long cylindrical model underwater on a cable.

“We only pull fresh water from the ocean, and salt remains there with low concentrations, as it does not represent an environmental problem,” said Queen.

The test in the LAS Virgenes tank will help the company’s engineers to check how the system works to filter plankton and prepare them into water. When Qurna was about 50 feet under water, Mark Julay, director of the company’s engineering projects, operated the pumps and water that flowed from the Hanafi.

The next step, expected later this year, will include experiments in the ocean by lowering a pod from a depth -installed boat about 5 miles abroad.

“We hope that we will build water farms under the ocean in 2028,” Queen said.

Quinn previously worked in California water agencies Four decadesAnd Menlo Park joined the Menlo Park two years ago believed that the new technology is to reduce the state’s water conflicts.

He said: “Ocean Desal has not played a prominent role in the future of water in California, and this technology allows us to look at the ocean as a place where we can get important sources with a minimum, if any, from the environmental conflict.”

The managers of seven water agencies in southern California hold monthly meetings in the project and study what are investments in the new infrastructure – such as pipelines and pumps stations – will be necessary to transport the water that the company plans for sale from the beach to its systems.

The leaders of the municipal water zone in Las Virgins, who are leading this effort, held an event in the tank on Friday to show how technology is tested. The experimental study is supported by more than $ 700,000 from grants from the capital’s water area in South California and the American Record Office.

The company will still need to secure additional permits from the federal and state government. There was not yet estimating the amount of energy that the process would require, which will be a major factor in determining the cost.

But water managers and other experts agree that this concept provides many advantages on building a traditional desalination plant on the coast.

It is likely that a lower amount of electricity is needed to operate the wild pumps of the system because the pods will be placed at a depth of about 1300 feet, as pressure below the sea will help pushing sea water through the reversal poisoning membranes to produce fresh water.

While coastal desalination plants usually absorb and kill plankton and fish, the pods have a Patent intake system The company says that returning small marine creatures to the surrounding waters without hurting. While a coast factory usually empties A very brine solution Waste that can Injecting the ecological systemPows under the sea are issued with a less concentrated brine and allowed them to waste without having such environmental losses.

Gold said that if this technology proves widely viable, it would help to make Southern California less dependent on the decrease in supplies imported from the Sacramento Saint -Gowakin and the Colorado River.

Research has shown that changing the climate caused by a person Drought pushing deterioration In the western United States. The administration of the governor of the state, Gavin New Touiri, expected that with the increasing temperatures of the return of snow and the condensation of dryness, and the average amount of water available from the tanks and the bases of the canal in the state water project It can shrink between 13 % and 23 % Over the next twenty years.

Water agencies are advancing in southern California Plans to build new facilities It will turn Clean drinking waterAnd the projects were also invested The arrest of more storm water.

In addition to the economic feasibility, other questions must be answered through research, including the quality of the system that will lead to the liquidation of small marine life, the amount of maintenance, and whether the centuries and hoses can pose any risk of interlocking whales.

Executive managers and engineers in Uchnayl say their system is designed to protect marine life and eliminate environmental negatives of other technologies.

Robert Bergstrom, CEO of OceanWell, has been working on desalination projects since 1996, and previously built and operated plants in the American Virgin Islands, the Bahamas Islands and other Caribbean Sea Islands of Seven Seas Water, which he founded.

When Bergstrom retired, he moved to California and eventually decided to return to work to develop technology to help solve water problems in California.

“I had a big idea,” said Bergstrom. “I knew this would be just a great elevator to accomplish this, which is a moon.”

Oceanwell, founded in 2019, now has 10 employees. Its main investor is Charlie McGaro, the former Goldman Sachs partner at Banking Banking. One of the main investors is Japan’s headquarters Copota Corp.

Based on the Bergstrom concept, the work of the chief technology officials Michael Porter and the engineering team on the design. They built the first initial model in the Porter kitchen in San Diego County, and they made preliminary tests in the laboratory.

“It was inspired by the environmental community in California referring to the problems that must be solved,” said Bergstrom.

Water desalination plants operate in parts of California, including the largest facility in the country, in Carlsbad, and a small factory on Santa Catalina. However, the proposals for new coastal desalination plants have generated strong opposition. In 2022, the coastal California Committee rejected a plan for a large water desalination plant in Huntington Beach. The opponents argued that the water was not necessary in the region and raised concerns about the high costs and damage to the environment.

Bergstrom said that the problem of traditional shallow sockets that paint large amounts of algae and fish larvae disappear in the deep sea, because the permanent darkness of 300 feet underwater supports marine life is largely less.

“We have a lot of clean water to deal with it,” said Bergstrom. “It is a barren desert where we chose to locate its location, and as a result, we do not have a lot of things to filter.”

A specific location has not yet been chosen for the first water farm, but the company plans to install it about 5 miles from the beach, with a pipeline and a copper energy cable linking it to the ground.

Bergstrom said that placing the system deep under the water will reduce the energy costs of about 40 %, because unlike the coastal plant that should pump larger amounts of sea water, it will press and pump a smaller amount of fresh water to the beach.

Bergstrom and his colleagues raise their invention as a completely different approach. They say it is not really the sea water that analyzes in the traditional sense, but rather is the harvest of fresh water from devices that work like wells in the ocean.

After the first water farm, they imagine building more along the coast. Bergstrom believes that they will help solve the challenges of water scarcity in and abroad.

Bergstrom said that the different sites off California will be perfectly suitable for the development of water farms, from San Diego to Monterrey, and many deep -waters with deep external water, such as Chile, Spain and North Africa, will achieve.

“I think it will reshape the world more than just California, because I think the world is looking for something environmentally friendly,” said Queen.

Under the company’s plans, the first water farm will initially contain 20 to 25 centuries, and will be expanded with additional centuries to connect about 60 million gallons of water per day, which is enough for about 250,000 families.

LAS Virgenes and six other water agencies – including the Ministry of Water and Energy in Los Angeles, Borbank and Caligo Municipal City – work together in a study on how to deliver water directly from the project, at what cost, as well as how the internal unit can benefit from indirect by exchanging supplies with those on the coast.

“We rely heavily on imported water, and we need to diversify,” said David Pediden, Director General of Las Virgins. “We need to develop new drought -drought -drought water, which can help us as we adapt to climate change.”

His region, which depends almost entirely on the supplies imported from the state water project, serves more than 75,000 people in the hills of Agoura, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and WestlaKe Village and the surrounding areas.

During the drought from 2020 to 2022, the area was very severe Water restrictions Customers reduce the use of approximately 40 %. Pedersen hopes that the area will be able to benefit from the ocean of the water by 2030.

In the CalleGuas Municipal Water, which provides water for about 650,000 people in Ventura, Deputy Director General Ian Prichard said that one of the big questions is the amount of energy that the system will use.

“If technology succeeds and can bring it to the market, we can bear the water brought to our service area, it will be great,” said Pruzed. “The big test is, can they produce water at a rate we want to pay?”