If I were building a desalination plant I'd put the generator on site - why wast...

Daishiman · on March 13, 2015

Do you know how much energy is required to evaporate the amounts of water necessary for urban consumption?

ars · on March 13, 2015

Eh? Desalination plants don't work on evaporation. They use reverse osmosis membranes.

And even the old ones that do use evaporation, recapture the energy, so you really only need to evaporate the water once, other than losses.

sp332 · on March 13, 2015

True, but real estate by the ocean seems like it would be at a premium.

ars · on March 13, 2015

They are not on the coast, they are more inland. They just needs some pipes to the coast.

The pipes have to go pretty far into the ocean anyway - they can't discharge right on the beach.